Weightless horror before the one-eyed God

Gawker's Adrian Chen delves deep into the history of Goatse, the greatest and most enduring of internet shock images.

Sometime in the late 20th century a naked man bent over, spread his ass and took a picture. Eventually that picture, known as Goatse, became one of the most venerable memes in internet history. Who is this man, and how did his ass take over the internet?