Get settled. You'll be here for awhile.

June 10, 2011 8:01 PM

Internet K-Hole is an image blog consisting mostly of anonymous snapshots and Polaroids from the 1970s through the 1990s presented at random without description or context that go on for ever and ever and ever. (Some images NSFW.)
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! (121 comments total)

God damn, who ever thought those up-to-your-armpits jeans looked good on anybody.
posted by dunkadunc at 8:03 PM on June 10, 2011

You were right. I looked at this for a long time. Why? I can't explain. Recommended.
posted by escabeche at 8:10 PM on June 10, 2011 [12 favorites]

not much has changed.
posted by b1tr0t at 8:11 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's kind of like Shorpy for a different era.
posted by MrFTBN at 8:12 PM on June 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Oh wow, that one with the girls opening a champagne bottle and holding a pistol is great. It doesn't look old though. this one
posted by thylacine at 8:14 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fabio was just the weirdest fucking thing.
posted by mykescipark at 8:16 PM on June 10, 2011

This one is Sean Young from her Bladerunner photoset. (previously)
posted by Monkey0nCrack at 8:18 PM on June 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also: The Cramps!
posted by mykescipark at 8:19 PM on June 10, 2011

The hairstyles change.. the quality of the photo technology changes but... everything else is the same
posted by edgeways at 8:28 PM on June 10, 2011

Holy crap you guys Fabio looks like a porny, blonde, long-haired Jon Hamm!

WHY DIDN'T I SEE IT BEFORE
posted by pts at 8:29 PM on June 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I absolutely love this, but damned if I could articulate why...
posted by rollbiz at 8:30 PM on June 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's also pretty much the greatest web page title ever.
posted by incessant at 8:37 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Needs more Matt Dillon.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 8:37 PM on June 10, 2011

Holy moly, this is like a comic book representation of 'merkans.
posted by boo_radley at 8:39 PM on June 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Ah, innocent, decadent America, I miss you.
posted by Chrischris at 8:43 PM on June 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Kee-rist! I lived through all that bullshit! Don't make me have to look at it again...
posted by jim in austin at 8:46 PM on June 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Brigid Berlin!
posted by pinky at 8:48 PM on June 10, 2011

Two of these are pictures of Nirvana, right?
posted by escabeche at 8:54 PM on June 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

i love this
posted by rebent at 8:55 PM on June 10, 2011

This is so much better than those damned fake old instant picture Iphone photos.
posted by thylacine at 8:56 PM on June 10, 2011

> Two of these are pictures of Nirvana, right?

More like 30 if you keep going back.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 8:58 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

excellence
posted by stbalbach at 9:03 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh wow, that one with the girls opening a champagne bottle and holding a pistol is great. It doesn't look old though.

I was going to make a joke about "oh what kids today own a Hole album" but then who had those Comcast d-pad clickers in 1995?
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 9:04 PM on June 10, 2011

Such serendipity. I think I know some of those people.
posted by Sailormom at 9:05 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know I've seen this photo before. Tineye shows that it was used as a book cover, but not the girl with the kitten, which is the part that rings a bell for me.

Now that's going to bug me.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:12 PM on June 10, 2011

Reminds me a bit of the backstory behind TAD's album 8-Way Santa
posted by ShutterBun at 9:23 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know I've seen this photo before.

Both of the women in that pic look like familiar actresses to me, but I can't for the life of me place either one.
posted by asterix at 9:30 PM on June 10, 2011

This photo creeps the hell out of me. But in a good way. Thanks OP, gonna keep browsing.
posted by friendlyjuan at 9:33 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow. K hole is right. How long was I gone for?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:35 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's what they did wrong with Gears of War, the shot the whole game through an 80's kodak.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:38 PM on June 10, 2011

I love these old photo blogs. Past generations were just as goofy as the kids today.
posted by reenum at 9:40 PM on June 10, 2011

80s cats are all like this while modern cats are like this.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:47 PM on June 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Huh, apparently I was wrong: that pic is of an unknown girl, was taken in 1960, and the photographer's been wondering who she is ever since. (The photo in that article is a different one, but it's the same girl and kitten.)

I love that I was able to find this by typing "girl kitten guy and girl looking" into Google.
posted by asterix at 9:48 PM on June 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

I pulled out after 3 or 4 "older entries." but damn.
posted by thylacine at 9:57 PM on June 10, 2011

and the photographer's been wondering who she is ever since.

i was watching "a day with jay maisel" on Kelby training, and he talked about getting a photo of a girl in Little italy, and how many weeks it took him walking around asking people if they knew her. A company wanted to use it for an ad, and he needed a release, and no one would say they knew her. Long story short, he found out she lived above the shop of a guy who said he never saw her before, and cut the family a large check. So many people assumed he had ulterior motives or something, but explains how hard it is to find people later.

This blog is a k hole for sure, i say to myself, just one more page.... could do without the slaughtered animals, and he seems to have a thing for bikers, but it's just random enough, with connecting ones that it is addictive.
posted by usagizero at 9:59 PM on June 10, 2011

...that pic is of an unknown girl, was taken in 1960, and the photographer's been wondering who she is ever since.

Wow, great find. Now I can stop obsessing. Thank you!
posted by Western Infidels at 10:02 PM on June 10, 2011

Man, all you guys in your twenties are really gonna freak out in 10 years when all the cool kids start dressing and doing their hair like Joey and Rachel from Friends.
posted by The World Famous at 10:12 PM on June 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Wow, random photos with no context of random people doing random things. Who knew we could see things like these these on the interwebs. What will they think of next?
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 10:17 PM on June 10, 2011

Ahhh, the idea that these were all from pre-2000's freaked me out when I spotted the iPhone in this one. Almost thought I found a time traveler. Also, a Brown Bunny poster.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 10:22 PM on June 10, 2011

Also, does anyone know what the story is behind this awesome seemingly candid shot from the set of Twin Peaks (either the final episode or Fire Walk With Me, I think the final ep) of Heather Graham and Caroline?
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 10:34 PM on June 10, 2011

Metafilter : What the fuck is up with your hair?
posted by fullerine at 10:42 PM on June 10, 2011

Hey, aren't we lucky that the internet wasn't around back in the eighties .. OH NOW GODDAMMIT
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:05 PM on June 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

A random and mostly really fun collection of old photos, but damn if there isn't the occasional bit of serious nightmare fuel just slipped in there.
posted by mstokes650 at 11:14 PM on June 10, 2011

Iggy?
posted by lumpenprole at 11:28 PM on June 10, 2011

This is great.
posted by tatma at 11:29 PM on June 10, 2011

Wow. Two fucking hours... poof. I started to think I knew people in some of those pictures. Then I started worrying that I'd see a picture of myself. And that would just freak me out.
posted by Splunge at 11:29 PM on June 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yes, this is awesome.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:46 PM on June 10, 2011

Wow, these are great. "What's up with your hair?" Yep - proof that no stalgia is good stalgia.

"Everyone's accusing ME!"
posted by Zack_Replica at 11:57 PM on June 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh wow, that one with the girls opening a champagne bottle and holding a pistol is great.

Weird, I know those girls from around. Friends of friends sort of thing--Vancouver hipster types. Some investigation into the links to other blogs suggests the woman who archives this stuff is a Vancouver person. I think the photo in question is probably not a genuine found thing but has been embedded to amuse the friends that it features. Yeah, not a really a mind-blower, I know...
posted by Roachbeard at 12:29 AM on June 11, 2011

Hey, I had that exact same Pink Panther!

Also, almost as many photos of crossdressers/transsexuals as (semi-)naked women.
posted by porpoise at 12:31 AM on June 11, 2011

How does the blogger find the photos?
posted by thehmsbeagle at 12:47 AM on June 11, 2011

I know I've seen this photo before.

The photographer has also been "featured" five days ago on Who's hot or not / Everyday I Show [LJ-link].
posted by KMB at 1:39 AM on June 11, 2011

A thing to savor - the missing ingredient being a sound track. "Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating through space" Spiritualized. Almost goes Nan Goldin but different
posted by From Bklyn at 2:13 AM on June 11, 2011

Quick, someone forward this to the Sandison brothers. The world needs another Boards of Canada album.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:31 AM on June 11, 2011 [10 favorites]

This really makes me want to break out the old Minolta and start taking cheap candids again. It's so easy to forget about just shooting for the sake of doing it. Now where did that box of polaroids go again...
posted by tmt at 2:51 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

To anyone who enjoys this, I recommend my friend Raph's Dumpo. Similar sort of thing, but more heavily curated towards a particular strain of disgusting-funny.

I find it ... hard not to revisit.
posted by Rumpled at 3:06 AM on June 11, 2011 [12 favorites]

This is the America of Achewood.

Even the other-than-American bits.
posted by Spatch at 3:17 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Archery and mummies are stand out recurring themes. Confirmation bias? Or maybe they were a bigger part of the cultural conscious.
posted by multivalent at 3:44 AM on June 11, 2011

Life is ugly.
posted by Decani at 3:53 AM on June 11, 2011

Life is ugly.

Yes - but it seems more like there is less concern about the ugliness of life in a lot of these shots. Is it perhaps that people seem less self-conscious/less used to responding to the ubiquity of the lens?
posted by multivalent at 3:57 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

page jumps around as more photos get loaded. slightly annoying too-many-photos-on-one-page fail
posted by memebake at 4:07 AM on June 11, 2011

God damn, who ever thought those up-to-your-armpits jeans looked good on anybody.

Probably the same people who, thirty years later, decided that hanging-halfway-off-the-buttocks baggy pants looked good on anybody.
posted by spoobnooble at 5:48 AM on June 11, 2011

She is laying down some serious hurt. Ow.
posted by Forktine at 6:04 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is it perhaps that people seem less self-conscious/less used to responding to the ubiquity of the lens?

They almost certainly never thought anybody outside their immediate circle would ever see these photos, much less thousands of people all over the world.

Sites like this make me deeply uncomfortable, though I know I'm in the minority on such things. I agree that it's fascinating to see these little slice-of-life vignettes from another time, a different world in many ways. But at the same time, my own deep-seated privacy issues make me wonder how these people would have felt or would feel about their photos (especially the intimate ones) being used in this way.

The advent of the Internet has certainly made me very grateful that my own family was too poor to take tons of photos or home movies of us.
posted by Gator at 6:10 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I trust you'll pardon the intrusion, young man, but I have an acquaintance who is a phrenologist...
posted by Trochanter at 6:31 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

If I ever need to explain why I don't like having my photo taken, I will just send them to this site.

I love it, I think it's brilliant, I've spent an hour looking at it so far and am going back after this comment, but I imagine a picture of myself now appearing on there in twenty years and I am overcome with the urge to break all cameras.
posted by elsietheeel at 6:33 AM on June 11, 2011

For any of you who, like me, didn't know what a k-hole is (via Urban Dictionary):

An experience that can be triggered by higher doses of ketamine that can bring back memories and flashbacks through intense hallucinations. ... the senses also become distorted, objects appear to move closer or further away resulting in the user's sight becoming fixed to one point ... you fall into this thing where your awake and know whats going on but cant move or do anything...it can last from 5 min-2 hrs

posted by benito.strauss at 7:09 AM on June 11, 2011

I didn't realize we were so unattractive back then. Yikes. Oh, right. Life before Photoshop.
posted by mrhappy at 7:10 AM on June 11, 2011

HEY, YOU

(first link mildly nsfw)
posted by valrus at 7:37 AM on June 11, 2011

When my friends want to show me their random pictures? Bored.

When I sift through strangers' pictures? Enthralled.
posted by SNWidget at 7:38 AM on June 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

Probably the same people who, thirty years later, decided that hanging-halfway-off-the-buttocks baggy pants looked good on anybody.

Why does God hate the waist!?
posted by SNWidget at 7:40 AM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is great. I love the variety - everything from professionally taken photos to candid snapshots. And just when you think you found the weirdest one...
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:41 AM on June 11, 2011

The Noid riding a shark wearing pink sunglasses. TOLD.
posted by TheRedArmy at 7:48 AM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

How can we be sure none of these were taken post-millenium?
posted by doomtop at 8:53 AM on June 11, 2011

Your past will haunt you.
There is no escape.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:57 AM on June 11, 2011

It's awesome how many there are of cats. People just love their goddamn cats.
posted by something something at 10:15 AM on June 11, 2011

I really like the composition of this one.
posted by mkb at 10:28 AM on June 11, 2011

Thanks, but they're neither presented at random nor are they necessarily from the 70s to 90s.
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 10:56 AM on June 11, 2011

David Letterman and ???
posted by hockeyman at 10:59 AM on June 11, 2011

I think we now have a statistically correct answer to the question, "What do you think of my hair?"

"It makes you look ... dumb."
posted by philip-random at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2011

... or, as Tolkien put it, "in the trenches of World War One, we were all Orcs."
posted by philip-random at 11:46 AM on June 11, 2011

Wow, these messed up, written-on walls bring me back to my acid-drenched youth in Berkeley (only with more, uh, "white pride"). Also, I think I'm in love.

I like the little flashes of narrative that arise out of these, like the couple who appears in a champagne hot tub at one point, then later they're in a heart-shaped hot tub, then in front of a giant hamburger, then she's hula-hooping. Or the weird little rat thing that is eating something, then it ges a little bigger, then a little bigger, then you realize it was a squirrel all along.
posted by whir at 11:47 AM on June 11, 2011

I feel like such a creep digging through these. Very voyeuristic. I can't stop, either - please call the cops.
posted by EatTheWeak at 12:14 PM on June 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

I wonder what sort of hideous jingoist this creeping fucking kid grew up to be?
posted by EatTheWeak at 12:17 PM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

This thread brings back memories of sideways pony. Basically The metafilter of photo sharing. I am so sad the community is gone now.
posted by darkfred at 12:43 PM on June 11, 2011

I like the little flashes of narrative that arise out of these

Oh, hell yes. Especially when you run out of pictures before the narrative is over. There's a sequence of a kid in a bathing suit on top of a roof. Now he's running across the roof. Now he's jumped off the roof and caught in flight. Now there's someone else's 10th grade picture.

That kid is probably still hovering in mid-air to this day.
posted by Spatch at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

I wonder what sort of hideous jingoist this creeping fucking kid grew up to be?

I don't know, but I mostly feel bad for him. It's the sweet-looking grandma that I'm really afraid of.
posted by milestogo at 1:08 PM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow, these messed up, written-on walls bring me back to my acid-drenched youth in Berkeley (only with more, uh, "white pride").

Those are the lyrics to Black Flag's White Minority. The wiki page says ""White Minority", while commonly misinterpreted as borderline racist, is actually an attack on white supremacy and a mockery of racism," which matches how I interpreted it back in the day. It's certainly a much-discussed and -quoted song, including in some pretty highbrow places.

Here is an interview with Black Flag from 1981:

I've heard a number of different people's ideas of what your song "White Minority" is about. What's your explanation of it?
GREG: The idea behind it is to take somebody that thinks in terms of "White Minority" as being afraid of that, and make them look as outrageously stupid as possible. The fact that we had a Puerto Rican (Ron) singing it was what made the sarcasm of it obvious to me. Some people seem to want to take it another way, and somehow think that we'd be so dumb to where a Puerto Rican guy would sing it and it would be--I don't know how they could consider that racist, but people took it that way.
CHUCK: It's one of those things. It's like the flyer for this gig (a naked superman flying through the air with a hard-on). It draws out peoples' existing attitudes. If someone is afraid that they're racist or something, then they're gonna call it racist.
GREG: Or they would like to say, "Oh, Black Flag--racists." It's people that don't like us, basically.
CHUCK: If someone IS racist, they'll use it for an anthem, for a while, but it's so polarized, that if you do it for a little while, it starts to get a little bit ludicrous.
GREG: It throws that attitude out and makes people think. To me, that's what it does. It doesn't preach, but it makes people think.
CHUCK: The fact that there is a controversy means it accomplished its goal.
GREG: It's not a kind of song that has a long term emotional impact or value to us. We don't even play it all the time.

posted by Forktine at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2011

Look at im go!

and...

awwww
posted by tempythethird at 1:35 PM on June 11, 2011

Another (nsfw) amazing behind the scenes candid - this time a makeup shot of the famous Roxy Music (nsfw) cover.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 2:04 PM on June 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

A housemate used to steal the garbage from the photo counter at the big grocery store near us, for the weird photos he'd find it it. This is equally mesmerizing.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:05 PM on June 11, 2011

> Holy moly, this is like a comic book representation of 'merkans.

That's a very famous photograph by Mary Ellen Mark (see, for instance, this review). I can't help but wonder how many of these are ripped off from professional photographers rather than being cute amateur found photos. Sorry for the downer, I know it's a fun site.
posted by languagehat at 2:37 PM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I assumed that most of them were ripped off from somewhere - there are so many photos on that site that I'm sure are of famous or semi-famous people, I just don't know their names.
posted by pinky at 3:39 PM on June 11, 2011

... or, as Tolkien put it, "in the trenches of World War One, we were all Orcs."

Well, no one seemed to mind but I really should point out that this comment was supposed to be tagged onto this comment, from an entirely different thread

the perils inherent in keeping more than one MeFi page open at a time
posted by philip-random at 5:03 PM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

This kinda creeps me out.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:04 PM on June 11, 2011

Oh, and I was in a community theater production with this woman in 1973.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:06 PM on June 11, 2011

Oops, not Michael Jackson, but her.
posted by Mental Wimp at 6:07 PM on June 11, 2011

The wacky side of Son of Sam David Berkowitz?
posted by digsrus at 6:10 PM on June 11, 2011

This cannot be real.
posted by digsrus at 6:24 PM on June 11, 2011

George Lucas, family, and inspiration for R2D2 on the right.
posted by digsrus at 6:26 PM on June 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

At least one of these is from my High School Yearbook.
First I was like "Hey!"
Then I was all "hey?"
'cause it's kinda weird in some undefinable way.
posted by qldaddy at 7:42 PM on June 11, 2011

Just say neigh
posted by yoHighness at 10:17 PM on June 11, 2011

OK, I just have to say if you have never been to a cat show and doubt that it is amazing:


It is like this, a hundredfold, at least.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:17 AM on June 12, 2011

I feel like in today you would have a hard time gettin all the domino's delivery [people] together for a cheesy photo
posted by AndrewKemendo at 3:48 AM on June 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Life is ugly.
posted by Decani at 6:53 AM on June 11 [+] [!]

Wow, I had the very opposite thought. But I'm mid-way through chemo (and grateful for my perspective). And to add to the chorus, they all look familiar to me too!
posted by thinkpiece at 6:33 AM on June 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Everyone you ever knew looks like someone else.

A thing to savor - the missing ingredient being a sound track. "Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating through space" Spiritualized. Almost goes Nan Goldin but different

Songs I've gotten in my head looking though two stretches of these photos:

-"Don't You (Forget About Me)," Simple Minds
-"Personality Crisis," New York Dolls
posted by limeonaire at 6:55 AM on June 12, 2011

Also, this reminds me of seeing a former coworker's scanned Polaroids from her youth in Australia on Facebook. There were definitely a lot of shots here from Australia, Canada, and Britain.
posted by limeonaire at 6:56 AM on June 12, 2011

This links to the fucking diaries, which is the personal blog of Myska Way (Mish Way), who sings for a punk band from Vancouver (and writes for Vice magazine and Hearty) -- so yes, this must be a Canadian thing. Weird, she's a friend-of-a-friend - I probably know whoever created this, but yeah, I got sucked in, too.

All the Nirvana photos, punk girl pics and randomness make sense to me now.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 10:35 AM on June 12, 2011

All I can see are some Atreides I want to kill.
posted by aramaic at 12:26 PM on June 12, 2011

If I look at these long enough I'll see somebody I know.
posted by marxchivist at 7:40 PM on June 12, 2011

Was it really cold that day?
posted by Forktine at 8:33 PM on June 12, 2011

Somewhere in one of my many boxes in my storage unit there are a few photo albums filled with black and white photos and Polaroids taken during middle/high school. I really need to find those and destroy them.
posted by the_artificer at 9:29 PM on June 12, 2011

marxchivist: "If I look at these long enough I'll see somebody I know"

I thought that, kept on looking, and sure enough there they were.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:45 AM on June 13, 2011

Boards of Canada is the soundtrack.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:26 AM on June 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

The best soundtrack, that it.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:26 AM on June 13, 2011

About 8 years ago I saw a site where somebody had trawled the FTPs of hundreds of filesharers and grabbed all their available photos and aggregated the interesting ones in a single folder. Does anybody remember that site, or know if it still exists?
posted by meadowlark lime at 11:44 PM on June 13, 2011

> . Does anybody remember that site, or know if it still exists?

Yep. Look away!
posted by Horselover Phattie at 11:57 PM on June 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks, Horselover Phattie!
posted by meadowlark lime at 12:24 AM on June 14, 2011

Where did these people get a giant cocktail glass bathtub and how can I get one?
posted by spitefulcrow at 9:09 PM on June 15, 2011

Well, that particular one is in the Champagne Towers room at the Pocono Palace resort in East Stroudsburg PA.
posted by the_artificer at 9:26 PM on June 15, 2011

this reminds me of this
posted by desjardins at 3:27 PM on June 17, 2011