Random, Full in the Face

Some websites exist purely to demonstrate that the internet, left to its own devices, is essentially a slot machine. YeahYeahYeahYeahYeah was one of these: no navigation, no categories, no context—just one enormous photograph, full-screen, arriving without ceremony. Click again, get another. Where the images came from was apparently a mystery even to people who looked into it seriously.

What you might see: sleeping cats, two people kissing, a broken showerhead, a hairy penis, dead moths arranged on white paper, colorful socks. The range was the whole point. It had the same chaotic energy as Chatroulette without the low-grade dread of another human face waiting to disappoint you. Just images, shuffled, delivered indifferently.

No ads. No discernible business model. Something someone built because the idea was good. Those things rarely survive long, but for a moment in the summer of 2010 it was the most interesting thing I found online. I was in love with it immediately.