Google Maps works as more than a catalogue of locations; it works as a catalogue of history. The Google satellite imagery, which on a region-by-region basis sees only infrequent updates, has incidentally caught strange events, changing scenery, and other visible elements that you would be unable to find if you visited the actual locations in question. But perhaps the most strange set of Google Map’s now-vanished landmarks can be found in Fairfield College, New Zealand, where a student prank was captured by Google’s satellites.
The 2009 prank involved two students (who are unnamed only because they weren’t caught) using weed killer to create images in the grass. Specifically what of? Why, male genitalia, of course! These were college students, after all. Six dead-grass wangs of varying sizes, as well as the word “Wanker,” were created over a single weekend in May of 2009. While the school authorities quickly responded by killing all the grass, by then it was too late. Google had already snapped its images of the area.
Responses from Google users has been varied, but mostly find the joke amusing. Some, however, have been outraged, such as commenter Dave Dickson who stated that the prank was a product of “the twisted minds of today’s youth, brought up on a heavy diet of hardcore pornography.” Another user who seems to be anxious about the Google Maps imagery is one of the suspected culprits of the prank, who has received a new wave of comments on the topic – which he has feverishly been trying to delete. In that way this story serves as a warning of what web permanency, even of things never intended to be captured, can do.
Google could, hypothetically, roll back to older images or invest in aerial photos or some other rush update, but has yet to respond to inappropriate images.
[via The Escapist]
