Smile Dog.jpg

Smile Dog's story consists of a classic horror set-up – an amateur 
writer visits the house of a lady who supposedly has a story for which 
he can borrow from. Rather than speak, however, the lady has locked 
herself up in her room, crying and ranting about nightmares and visions 
and various other problems. All of these center around a floppy disk she
 had been given that contain the image smile.jpg – which is smile.dog. 
Other cases of this have cropped up...
Viewing this image incites insanity, and no copy of the exact 
image exists on the web though likenesses of it do. The true image of 
smile.jpg is recognized due to the effect it has on the viewer – that 
is, they wind up dead. Attaching the file – that is, spreading the word,
 is the only way to save oneself from the smile.dog that appears in 
one's dreams demanding to spread the word. Some say that the original 
legend began with an image of the devil.
== The Pasta ==
I first met in person with Mary E. in the summer of 2007. I had 
arranged with her husband of fifteen years, Terence, to see her for an 
interview. Mary had initially agreed, since I was not a newsman but 
rather an amateur writer gathering information for a few early college 
assignments and, if all went according to plan, some pieces of fiction. 
We scheduled the interview for a particular weekend when I was in 
Chicago on unrelated business, but at the last moment Mary changed her 
mind and locked herself in the couple's bedroom, refusing to meet with 
me. For half an hour I sat with Terence as we camped outside the bedroom
 door, I listening and taking notes while he attempted fruitlessly to 
calm his wife.
The things Mary said made little sense but fit with the pattern I
 was expecting: though I could not see her, I could tell from her voice 
that she was crying, and more often than not her objections to speaking 
with me centered around an incoherent diatribe on her dreams — her 
nightmares. Terence apologized profusely when we ceased the exercise, 
and I did my best to take it in stride; recall that I wasn't a reporter 
in search of a story, but merely a curious young man in search of 
information. Besides, I thought at the time, I could perhaps find 
another, similar case if I put my mind and resources to it.
Mary E. was the sysop for a small Chicago-based Bulletin Board 
System in 1992 when she first encountered smile.jpg and her life changed
 forever. She and Terence had been married for only five months. Mary 
was one of an estimated 400 people who saw the image when it was posted 
as a hyperlink on the BBS, though she is the only one who has spoken 
openly about the experience. The rest have remained anonymous, or are 
perhaps dead.
In 2005, when I was only in tenth grade, smile.jpg was first 
brought to my attention by my burgeoning interest in web-based 
phenomena; Mary was the most often cited victim of what is sometimes 
referred to as "Smile.dog", the being smile.jpg is reputed to display. 
What caught my interest (other than the obvious macabre elements of the 
cyber-legend and my proclivity toward such things) was the sheer lack of
 information, usually to the point that people don't believe it even 
exists other than as a rumor or hoax.
It is unique because, though the entire phenomenon centers on a 
picture file, that file is nowhere to be found on the internet; 
certainly many photomanipulated simulacra litter the web, showing up 
with the most frequency on sites such as the imageboard 4chan, 
particularly the /x/-focused paranormal subboard. It is suspected these 
are fakes because they do not have the effect the true smile.jpg is 
believed to have, namely sudden onset temporal lobe epilepsy and acute 
anxiety.
This purported reaction in the viewer is one of the reasons the 
phantom-like smile.jpg is regarded with such disdain, since it is 
patently absurd, though depending on whom you ask the reluctance to 
acknowledge smile.jpg's existence might be just as much out of fear as 
it is out of disbelief.
Neither smile.jpg nor Smile.dog is mentioned anywhere on 
Wikipedia, though the website features articles on such other, perhaps 
more scandalous shocksites as ****** (hello.jpg) or 2girls1cup; any 
attempt to create a page pertaining to smile.jpg is summarily deleted by
 any of the encyclopedia's many admins.
Encounters with smile.jpg are the stuff of internet legend. Mary 
E.'s story is not unique; there are unverified rumors of smile.jpg 
showing up in the early days of Usenet and even one persistent tale that
 in 2002 a hacker flooded the forums of humor and satire website 
Something Awful with a deluge of Smile.dog pictures, rendering almost 
half the forum's users at the time epileptic.
It is also said that in the mid-to-late 90s that smile.jpg 
circulated on usenet and as an attachment of a chain email with the 
subject line "SMILE!! GOD LOVES YOU!" Yet despite the huge exposure 
these stunts would generate, there are very few people who admit to 
having experienced any of them and no trace of the file or any link has 
ever been discovered.
Those who claim to have seen smile.jpg often weakly joke that 
they were far too busy to save a copy of the picture to their hard 
drive. However, all alleged victims offer the same description of the 
photo: A dog-like creature (usually described as appearing similar to a 
Siberian husky), illuminated by the flash of the camera, sits in a dim 
room, the only background detail that is visible being a human hand 
extending from the darkness near the left side of the frame. The hand is
 empty, but is usually described as "beckoning". Of course, most 
attention is given to the dog (or dog-creature, as some victims are more
 certain than others about what they claim to have seen). The muzzle of 
the beast is reputedly split in a wide grin, revealing two rows of very 
white, very straight, very sharp, very human-looking teeth.
This is, of course, not a description given immediately after 
viewing the picture, but rather a recollection of the victims, who claim
 to have seen the picture endlessly repeated in their mind's eye during 
the time they are, in reality, having epileptic fits. These fits are 
reported to continue indeterminably, often while the victims sleep, 
resulting in very vivid and disturbing nightmares. These may be treated 
with medication, though in someses it is more effective than others.
Mary E., I assumed, was not on effective medication. That was why
 after my visit to her apartment in 2007 I sent out feelers to several 
folklore- and urban legend-oriented newsgroups, websites, and mailing 
lists, hoping to find the name of a supposed victim of smile.jpg who 
felt more interested in talking about his experiences. For a time 
nothing happened and at length I forgot completely about my pursuits, 
since I had begun my freshman year of college and was quite busy. Mary 
contacted me via email, however, near the beginning of March 2008.
Terence contacted me later that month with the news that his 
wife had killed herself. While cleaning up the various things she'd left
 behind, closing email accounts and the like, he happened upon the above
 message. He was a man in shambles; he wept as he told me to listen to 
his wife's advice. He'd found the diskette, he revealed, and burned it 
until it was nothing but a stinking pile of blackened plastic. The part 
that most disturbed him, however, was how the diskette had hissed as it 
melted. Like some sort of animal, he said.
I will admit that I was a little uncertain about how to respond 
to this. At first I thought perhaps it was a joke, with the couple 
belatedly playing with the situation in order to get a rise out of me. A
 quick check of several Chicago newspapers' online obituaries, however, 
proved that Mary E. was indeed dead. There was, of course, no mention of
 suicide in the article. I decided that, for a time at least, I would 
not further pursue the subject of smile.jpg, especially since I had 
finals coming up at the end of May.
But the world has odd ways of testing us. Almost a full year 
after I'd returned from my disastrous interview with Mary E., I received
 another email:
The final line chilled me to the bone.
According to my email client there was one file attachment 
called, naturally, smile.jpg. I considered downloading it for some time.
 It was mostly likely a fake, I imagined, and even if it weren't I was 
never wholly convinced of smile.jpg's peculiar powers. Mary E.'s account
 had shaken me, yes, but she was probably mentally unbalanced anyway. 
After all, how could a simple image do what smile.jpg was said to 
accomplish? What sort of creature was it that could break one's mind 
with only the power of the eye?
And if such things were patently absurd, then why did the legend exist at all?
If I downloaded the image, if I looked at it, and if Mary turned 
out to be correct, if Smile.dog came to me in my dreams demanding I 
spread the word, what would I do? Would I live my life as Mary had, 
fighting against the urge to give in until I died? Or would I simply 
spread the word, eager to be put to rest? And if I chose the latter 
route, how could I do it? Whom would I burden in turn?
If I went through with my earlier intention to write a short 
article about smile.jpg, I decided, I could attach it as evidence. And 
anyone who read the article, anyone who took interest, would be 
affected. And even assuming the smile.jpg attached to the email was 
genuine, would I be capricious enough to save myself in that manner?
Could I spread the word?
Yes. Yes I could.