About

"Eschatron 9000" is a photoshopped cheesecake photograph, featuring model Crystal Thierry posing in a bikini next to a fictional machine labeled Eschatron 9000. In the image, Thierry, with a mischievous grin on her face, is shown pressing a red button labelled "Immanentize". The photo references the phrase "immanentize the eschaton", i.e. "bring about the End Times", a concept popularized in countercultural and conspiracy circles through the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Origin

The image originates from The Toilet, a humor and satire website active in the mid-2000s (later succeeded by a site called The Biggest Letdown). The site hosted a section called "Page 73 Girl", which featured photos of Crystal Thierry, often in erotic or surreal contexts. On September 1st, 2005, the site published a themed set of images ^[1] placing Thierry in apocalyptic scenarios, including the Eschatron photo.

Copies of the complete image set can be found elsewhere online, for example on Tumblr ^[2].

Spread

The photo spread slowly after its posting in 2005. On May 3rd, 2006, blogger Joey deVilla reposted it on his blog ^[3], and it was shared on Twitter in May 2014 ^[4]. In 2021, Tumblr user piglii posted a request ^[5] to help them find the half-remembered image; the resulting thread eventually gained over 130,000 notes.

The photo seemingly found a resurgence of popularity in the 2020's, with multiple known edits dating from that timeframe.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] THETOILET – Page 73 Girl / Posted on September 1, 2005

^[2] Tumblr – aslimewithagun / Posted on September 16, 2020

^[3] Joey deVilla's Personal Blog – Bikini Girls of the Apocalypse / Posted on May 3, 2006

^[4] Twitter – @ForbiddenH / Posted on May 23, 2014

^[5] Tumblr – piglii / Posted on September 10, 2021