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If you spend enough time on the internet, it's just a fact of life that you'll see
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something you really wish you hadn't.
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Maybe it's perennial shock-site classics like Two Girls One Cup, or some of the truly
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horrific photos and footage of real-life death and murder floating around the web.
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But what if we told you there was something even worse out there – an image that, just
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by looking at it, you might be driven to pain, madness, or even death?
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That's exactly what we're here to discuss today – the terrifying internet legend of
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Smile Dog, the photo with the power to kill.
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Smile Dog is the colloquial name for a seemingly innocent image file called Smile.jpg, that's
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been floating around the internet since as early as 1992.
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According to most sources, because of the image's place in internet folklore, there
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are thousands of copycats out there – none that have the sinister and deadly power of
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the original.
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From the scattered reports of the image's victims, we do have a vague description: It's
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a scan of a polaroid photo, featuring a dog that appears to be a Siberian husky against
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a dark background.
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The dog has a wide, almost human grin, with teeth that look like they simply don't belong
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in the creature's face.
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Worse yet, in the darkened corner to the left of the dog is a red hand, outstretched towards
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the viewer.
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Many of the people who've actually seen the image have described the hand as “beckoning.”
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As though it's calling them into the darkness of the photo.
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Some viewers have even speculated that this is the hand of the devil himself, calling
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them down to the depths of Hell.
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Naturally, as an intellectually curious viewer of The Infographics Show, you'll want to
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search for this cursed image.
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And don't worry, we're going to show it to you – that's right, the real, original
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Smile.jpg.
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But before we subject you to that, you have to understand what you're getting yourself
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into here.
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After all, if the legends are true, it might just change your life…
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While the stories about Smile.jpg have circulated the internet since the internet was a publicly
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available commodity, the first true, solid, and widely available account of a person's
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experience with Smile.jpg and Smile Dog appeared on 4Chan's paranormal board in 2008.
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The paranormal board is the birthplace of a number of terrifying internet urban legends
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and creepypastas – such as the malicious, shapeshifting Goat Man, the deadly Daruma-San
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Bath Ritual, and an infamous porcelain doll with living, wriggling innards.
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A frightening tale like that of the Smile Dog would be right at home on this hub of
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the strange and paranormal, but the story's haunting details still stuck with everyone
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unlucky enough to read them…
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It began with someone who was just curious, not unlike you.
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They were a young, aspiring writer in college, searching for interesting stories that might
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inspire some exciting new fiction – but they stumbled on a horror that was all too
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real.
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They put out the call for people with interesting stories on the internet, and got plenty of
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duds.
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You know, all the stories about that time someone's weird uncle caught a big one while
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out fishing, or a kid could swear they saw something moving under their bed.
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The young writer, identified only as Mr. L in the account, was ready to throw in the
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towel and give up, when he received a strange correspondence from a man named Terence E
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in the summer of 2007.
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According to Terence, if Mr. L was looking for scary stories, his wife, Mary, had one
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that would beat out all the rest.
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Something genuinely terrifying.
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Genuinely paranormal.
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According to Terence, Mary had experienced a real encounter with the original smile.jpg
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image, and nothing had been the same ever since.
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It just so happened that Terence had contacted exactly the right person, as Mr. L had been
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fascinated with the concept of Smile Dog ever since he was in the 10th Grade, back in 2005.
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He could feel the mystery of the thing drawing him in – the desire to discover what nobody
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else had ever discovered before.
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Terence consulted Mary, and she agreed to an informal interview with Mr. L around a
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month later.
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The couple were based in Chicago, and Mr. L just happened to be in the area on unrelated
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business.
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Everything seemed to be falling into place, until Mr. L actually arrived at the home.
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When he got there, eager to conduct his interview and potentially discover the truth behind
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all this hearsay, Mary had barricaded herself in her bathroom.
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She appeared to be having some kind of psychotic break, screaming and sobbing uncontrollably,
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like she was afraid for her very life.
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In particular, Mary was screaming about some strange nightmares she was experiencing, but
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it was largely too incoherent to even tell what she was saying.
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Terence tried his best to console her for Mr. L's interview, but it didn't do any
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good.
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From hours of sitting outside the bathroom and taking notes, he only managed to glean
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the following story.
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Mary was a system operator for a small Chicago-based Bulletin Board System in 1992, back when the
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internet was in its relative infancy.
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One day, a seemingly innocent hyperlink was posted on the board system.
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She was one of around 400 to actually click the mysterious link, and was immediately transported
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to Smile.jpg.
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The other people who were exposed on that day remained anonymous, and their fates are
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unknown, but if Mary's accounts and the legends are anything to go by, their stories
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are unlikely to have had happy endings.
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As Mr. L pressed for further details, Mary just sobbed and cried harder.
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The woman was inconsolable, and Mr. L realised he'd probably gotten as much as he was going
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to get from her.
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Terence apologised for his wife's strange behaviour, and Mr. L thanked him and left.
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This may have seemed like the end of things for most people, but for Mr. L, this was just
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the start.
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The hunt was on, and Mary's brief account had given him the scent.
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He began gathering all the information he could on the mysterious file, its effects
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on its victims, and the people it hurt.
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But as the famous quote from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche goes, “He who fights
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with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.
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And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
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Mr. L found that information on Smile.jpg wasn't available anywhere on major internet
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information sources like Wikipedia.
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In fact, he found that if anyone did attempt to add a reference to the cursed file on a
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Wikipedia page, it would quickly be struck down by editors.
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Who was trying to keep this thing buried, and why?
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He also managed to discover a great deal more about the supposed effects of viewing the
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file.
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The most common effects included, on the mild end, severe anxiety and persistent night terrors,
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and on the more severe end, hallucinations and temporal lobe epilepsy – with seizures
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most commonly occurring at night.
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Naturally, as with anything on the internet that can cause harm, it was weaponized by
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trolls and bad actors.
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The image was often circulated on forums in the early Usenet days, and was allegedly once
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used to flood the forums of humour and satire website Something Awful in 2002.
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The result was a number of users developing severe anxiety, nightmares, and epilepsy.
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Back in the mid to late nineties, the image circulated as all spooky things on the internet
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did back then: By chain email.
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The email would disguise itself as one of the number of feel-good chain emails that
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did the rounds back then, with the innocuous subject line “SMILE!!
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GOD LOVES YOU!”
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But by the time you've opened the email and its attachment, it's already too late.
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Plenty of people on the internet claim to have had experiences with Smile Dog, but the
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veracity of these claims are in dispute.
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During his investigations, Mr. L did notice some other legends with eerie commonalities
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to the Smile.jpg tale he was investigating.
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The most prominent was a story known as “The Grinning Man”, about a person who received
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an email from a recently deceased friend with an image of – you guessed it – a grinning
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man.
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However, after witnessing the image and an accompanying key phrase, the man's life
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spiralled out of control, with the only way to lift the apparent curse being to pass it
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on.
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From the smiling to the horrific nightmares to the inevitable tragic end, could the two
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things be connected?
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There was no conclusive evidence on the matter, but Mr. L was sure to make a note of it for
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further study.
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Mr. L continued compiling research for an entire year, always haunted by the cries of
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Mary coming through the bathroom door, and the thought of that smiling hound.
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He discovered that many of the people who'd originally claimed to see the thing had fallen
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off the map, and that some had tried to use medication to prevent the nightmares and the
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epileptic fits that seemed to naturally accompany an incident with the image.
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All it took was one look – just one little look to change your life.
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It felt like a somehow more eerily plausible version of the tape from The Ring.
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At times, Mr. L wondered if the whole thing was just some elaborate hoax.
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An online inside joke, and it was all on him.
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Truth be told, he felt almost ready to give up, when he finally got a massive break in
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the case: An email from Mary herself, explaining the whole situation.
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Mr. L eagerly opened the correspondence, excited for his next lead, but what he saw shook him
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to the core.
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Mary explained that the image of the Smile Dog had been haunting her in her sleep for
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years, repeatedly saying one thing “Spread the word, spread the word.”
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She experienced symptoms akin to sleep paralysis – being frozen to the bed, and unable to
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do anything but listen to the words of the demonic dog sitting in front of her.
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“Spread the word, spread the word.”
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She told Mr. L that, a week after initially seeing Smile.jpg, a floppy disk containing
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the image was mysteriously mailed to her home.
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Finally, she understood: Much like the Grinning Man that Mr. L had been investigating, the
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Smile Dog wanted her to pass the image on and use it to inflict the curse upon others.
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That would be the only way to stop suffering from the symptoms herself.
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The nightly seizures and visions she was experiencing were so horrific that she was tempted to pass
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it on to others, and even contemplated potential options: A co-worker, a stranger, or even
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her husband, Terence.
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Mary decided against it, and instead hid the floppy disk away for years, until she finally
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found a person she could potentially pass the curse onto…Mr. L himself.
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However, as she was plotting to pass on the curse to him and ruin his life, she decided
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against it at the last minute – hence her breakdown in the bathroom upon his visit.
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Realising it's already too late for her, and wracked with guilt over what she almost
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did, Mary signed off the email with a harrowing final message for Mr. L.
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“Stop while you are still whole.”
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Later that month, Mr. L received another email from Terence, telling him that Mary had taken
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her own life shortly after sending the last email to him.
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She just couldn't take the suffering anymore.
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Terence also informed Mr. L that he'd found and destroyed the floppy disk by setting it
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on fire – adding that the plastic gave a snake-like hiss as it burnt and shrivelled,
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destroying yet another copy of the cursed image once and for all.
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Mr. L was ready to hang up his hat and close the investigation into Smile.jpg.
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People had suffered and even died, and just as Mary had advised him to, he was going to
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quit while he was ahead.
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It was a couple months later, when he'd almost forced the whole nasty affair out of
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his mind, that he saw a new email appear in his inbox with the subject “Smile.”
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Without even thinking, he clicked on it, and by that point, it was already too late.
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The text in the body of the email, littered with spelling and grammatical errors, said:
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“I found your e-mail adress thru a mailing list your profile said you are interested
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in smiledog.
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I have saw it it is not as bad as every one says I have sent it to you here.
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Just spreading the word.”
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And the rest is spooky internet history.
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Now, you've heard the story, and you know all the horrors this strange little photo
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is said to be able to unleash.
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Maybe it's all just an urban legend, or a hoax, or mass hysteria.
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After all, how much damage can one picture do?
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But hey, if you want to be safe, you can always send this video to a couple friends and…
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Spread the word.
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Check out “How A Meme (Slender Man) Became Real” and “Russian Sleep Experiment – EXPLAINED”
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for more chilling internet oddities.