RULE 34

Rule 34 of the Internet Says:

There is porn of it, no exceptions.

Meme of Dubious Origin

According to Wikipedia, Rule 34 is generally thought to originate from “The Rules of the Internet” copypasta. Despite the possibility that Rule 34 came from the larger list, this singular rule is by far the most popular, widespread, and therefore enforced. This can be proven by studying the search results and activity.

One of the most notable websites dedicated to the meme is the rule 34 paheal tag list^[1], that serves as a searchable archive of rule 34 images.

Search Traffic

First, a Google Insights for Search analysis.

The following terms were compared:

• Rule 34
• the rules of the internet
• 100 rules of the internet
• Rules 1 and 2

Rule 34 has generated over 99% more search traffic than any of the compared terms.
“The Rules of the Internet” appears to have existed prior to 2004, but that specific phrase is a very common part of speech and is likely to have appeared in wide usage outside of the context of (and prior to) the copypasta.

Search Volume

• As of today (June 2nd, 2009) the phrase “The Rules of the Internet” returns 32.5 Million results.
• “Rule 34” returns 277,000 results.
• “Rules 1 and 2” returns 90,600 results.

Origin: Zoom-Out

According to the LURKMORE WIKI, Rule 34 originated from this comic on the now defunct site http://www.zoom-out.co.uk

On May 15th, 2009 in a thread entitled “Ask me about inventing Rule 34” on the SomethingAwful forums, a user named Electric Eggs claimed to be the former author of the comic on Zoom-Out.co.uk, and inventor of “Rule 34.”

A long time ago, me and my sister made a web-comic.

She would draw and I would write. Most of the time it was pretty dross. I’m not the greatest comedy writer and I was following the dark path of web-comics; lovely video game jokes.

We had a passable following, and occasionally I would make a funny joke. Life was good.

Then one day someone sent me Calvin and Hobbes porn. And I made a little comic about how ridiculous the scope of porn was on the internet.

Anyways, college and life got in the way and we stopped updating. But one day…

Someone mentioned rule 34 on an IRC I was in. I was like “Wah?”. Googled it and saw how crazy it had become.

I actually have the original drawing somewhere in my loft, seriously I should ebay that poo poo.

Also, I’m skint so I can’t afford for the domain, so if any goon wants to take zoom-out.co.uk, it’s going up for grabs soon.

I keep meaning to throw a few more comics together, but both me and my sister are doing Uni work so it’s not too feasible.

So yeah, erm, ask away…

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Archive.org confirms that the site Zoom-out.co.uk existed from 2004-2006, and did indeed host webcomics. Unfortunately, the images do not show up.

Correlation of Dates

• Zoom-out existed from 2004-2006.
• Rule 34 first appeared on Dramatica on October 12, 2006.
• The 48 Rules of the Internet appear on Dramatica about 5 weeks later, November 25, 2006.
• The oldest mention of Rule 34 on urbandictionary.com was on March 30th, 2006.

Current State

Although we can confirm that Rule 34 is by far the only important rule, we can neither confirm nor deny the origin at this point, but there are two likely paths that this meme spread.

• Scenario A:
  Rule 34 first appeared on zoom-out.co.uk sometime between 2004-2006, then spread to Something Awful, and eventually became ubiquitous.

• Scenario B:
  Rule 34 was the most memorable and funniest of “The Rules of the Internet” copypasta, which currently has an unknown origin.

With the information given, Scenario A is likely to be the more plausible of the two. This post will retain the “researching” tag until more facts can either prove or disprove the origin story.

External Links

^[1]Rule 34 Paheal Tag List