I remember (guessing 20 years ago) a popular fad was to use Mr. Smith (the agent from a movie called The Matrix) as profile avatars in forums. In one of The Mat

I remember (guessing 20 years ago) a popular fad was to use Mr. Smith (the agent from a movie called The Matrix) as profile avatars in forums. In one of The Matrix movies, Mr Smith could convert unsuspecting regular people into clones of himself. The profile picture trend was a reference to this movie. Anyways, a lot of avatars ended up hotlinking back to a wesbite hosting the image. I don't remember why, whether it was the original intent to troll, or perhaps to stop bandwidth costs from mass hotlinking, someone hosting the Mr. Smith avatar switched the image out for goatse. The trend probably ended around that time.