Stile Project is a

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

founded by a writer and webmaster known by the pseudonym Jay Stile. Stile started the site in 1999 when he was in high school, and ran it for 12 years. Stile Project grew into a large network of counter-culture, amateur adult entertainment and current-events sites, forums, collectively called ''stileNET''. On December 2, 2010, Stile announced that he had sold Stile Project. According to Stile, after selling the website, he went on to study computer science and received his postgraduate academic degree in 2013.

Content

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'' referred to Stileproject.com as a "

shock site A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive or disturbing to its viewers, though it can also contain elements of humor or evoke (in some viewers) sexual arousal. Shock-oriented websites generally contain material that is pornogra ...

" in a 2001 article. The website assembled "vast visual libraries of any

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

or depravity that could be digitized." In the early 2000s, as "the Web's leading repository of crude filth – probably the most reliable source of tastelessness in the history of the Internet," its content was criticized for its shock value. One example was a video showing a

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

villager killing, cooking, and eating a cat was highly publicized and denounced by

PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; ) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. Founded in March 1980 by Newkirk and animal right ...

,Kornblum, Janet (August 30, 2001)
"Gag turns into rent for laid-off designer"
. (Item 2) ''Techbrief'';

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

. Retrieved 2010-07-27. who sought a federal investigation, which did not occur. Stile reportedly faked his own suicide live on webcam in 1999, and he confirmed the

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

in 2012.

Open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

and porn were "memorialized in J. Stile's hoard of erotic Linux Slut images". As the site evolved, it survived what Stile reported was webhost troubles, and a major hacking incident. Links to the hack & J. Stile's rant. By 2004 AlterNet wrote that it and other similar shock sites "aren't grossing out teenagers anymore."

Awards

Stile Project won

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

s in 2000 for ''Weird'' site and ''People's Voice'' winner.

Associations

* Stile is a former member of the underground art scene groups

ACiD An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...

DARK Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

and

iCE Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

. His specialty was designing

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

logos for art group projects and bulletin board systems in the early 1990s. ''Viewer discretion advised.'' * In 2006, Canadian poet Daniel Scott Tysdal cited Stile Project (December 2004) as a stanza in his poetry collection ''Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method''.

References

{{Reflist American erotica and pornography websites Shock sites Internet properties established in 1999 1999 establishments in the United States