Pink Shirt Guy

Confirmed 267,277

About

Pink Shirt Guy is the nickname given to a man wearing a pink polo shirt and khaki shorts as seen in a photograph of what appears to be a bio-hazardous quarantine site. Since entering online circulation through various discussion forums and message boards, the image has remained an enduring mystery due to its inexplicable nature.

Origin

According to Facebook user Will Welling, the original photograph was taken during an investigation of hazardous waste disposal in Dutchess county, New York, and the man in the photograph was a property owner at a location they were inspecting (shown below).

The image is said to have entered online circulation through various forum discussions in the mid-2000s, with its earliest known appearance in a post on the Esportbike Forums on October 17th, 2003.^[13] The photograph drew much curiosity from the viewers due to his casual attire and nonchalant body language in contrast to four other individuals that are fully dressed in HAZMAT suits and oxygen tanks.

Spread

On November 28th, 2006, the photo was submitted to the Democratic Underground Forums.^[3]

The image began to gain notoriety in 2007 after a single serving site featuring the photograph was launched at PinkShirtGuy.com^[4] on April 12th, 2007. According to the site domain's registrar history, it was registered by Canadian online marketing firm CarsonBiz Web Services. Months later on September 9th, YTMND user partypenguin uploaded a GIF slideshow^[12] of the Pink Shirt Guy photoshopped into various photographs.

Later that same month on September 23rd, a single topic blog dedicated to curating pictures of Pink Shirt Guy cutout placed in real life settings was launched at HidePinkShirtGuy.com.^[1] On October 5th, a link to the website was submitted to Digg .^[11] A few days later on October 10th, an Urban Dictionary^[5] definition of "Pink Shirt Guy" was submitted, although it provides little information about its history.