#altgonewild

[weirdmollyy]

My new profile photo it sad pic?¿⚰️

[elven-enchanter]

Come get lost in the woods with me 🌿 this way to see more!

[stxmachachxs]

• kinda ruined •

[minxx23]

Morning quickie before work?

[lucidcyberpunk]

Now trading sugar for sugar

[chaotickittychild]

[strlightstrbright]

Reblog for free photo 💜

[weirdmollyy]

What you're loved tarot card🃏¿? My lovers...

[peons-t]

[markadoo]

We all know what a “gonewild” subreddit is, and some have even heard of the “ur”-gone wild subreddit, known simply as r/gonewild. But lately, I’ve had the sneaking suspicion that even this might have a yet further namesake. But I know next-to-nothing about it. 

At first I thought it might have been some kind of pornographic news show feature that they used to fill time on air before they started reading tweets. But the chance memory of a Rhett and Link lyric threw that theory on its head. 

The song “Squirrel Rights” is about two squirrels confronting you for filming them without consent. The line in question is:

If you don't cease and desist, a suit will be filed/Especially if we end up in the next Squirrels Gone Wild

Surprisingly, “Squirrels Gone Wild” follows the name format of subreddits like r/altgonewild or r/gaymersgonewild, rather than that of the plain r/gonewild. I can think of two ways to explain this. 

There were actually many pre-reddit Gone Wilds. There was an Alt Gone Wild, a Gaymers Gone Wild, etc., and these are what got adapted into subreddits first. Later, a “neutral” gonewild subreddit was created, and called simply r/gonewild. 

There was only one pre-reddit Gone Wild, but it wasn’t called “Gone Wild”. It was called something like “People Gone Wild”, and this is the name Rhett and Link are parodying. For an unaccountable reason, the subreddit named after it dropped the first word. The memory of there having been a first word may have inspired the naming of some of the spinoffs. 

I have no way of deciding between these two theories. 

Moving past the name, let’s take a look at what it might have actually been like. 

Logically extending the premise of the song from squirrels to people would seem to imply that the original Gone Wild consisted of photographs or videos of unsuspecting people in public spaces, rather like r/creepshots. But not only would that raise the question of why gonewild subreddits only accept consensual pictures, it would also seem to contradict the titular concept of “going wild”

To go wild, at least as it is understood on the gone wild subreddits, connotes abandoning one’s shame, specifically the shame that attaches to one’s most eroticized bodily regions, whereas the subjects of an r/creepshots-type exhibition, being unaware, do no such abandonment. So maybe we probably shouldn’t take the reference so literally. It’s still possible that Gone Wild consisted, like the subreddits, of audience-submitted photos. 

There is one thing I think we can learn from the song. There’s another word in the lyrics that stands out. “Next”. 

This implies that Gone Wild was released in installments. Perhaps a TV show or a magazine, but not something as frequent as a news show segment. 

Anyway, that’s all the evidence I could find. Our reconstruction is extremely hazy. If anyone is privy to a potential piece of evidence on this topic, please send it to me and I may revisit. 

[chaotickittychild]

[weirdmollyy]

Is this such a display of love that you want to eat me?¿

[elven-enchanter]

Come see more of my hairy body below 🤭🌿🌸