Wikipedia in culture

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File:Foxtrot wikipedia.jpg
FoxTrot comic strip about Wikipedia.

With increased usage and awareness, there has been an increasing number of references to Wikipedia in popular culture. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with characters vandalising or modifying the online encyclopedia project's articles. Still others feature characters using the references as a source, or positively comparing a character's intelligence to Wikipedia.

So far, there are no known references or parodies of other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Tiger has no life.

General

Wikipedia is parodied at several websites, including Encyclopaedia Dramatica and Uncyclopedia.

In the July 2006 issue of Mad, in the Fundalini pages section there was a short joke with a mock picture of Wikipedia called "WonkyPedia." WonkyPedia featured its own logo, in which the letters on the puzzle globe were replaced with MAD characters and the letters M A D. The article shown was on Lincoln's assassination. The HTTP address followed the appropriate pattern: "http://en.wonkypedia.org/wonky/". The same parody returned in the next issue as "Wakipedia". The phrase it advertised was "The Free Encyclopedia (you get what you pay for!)".

The May 7, 2005, FoxTrot comic strip showed one character appending his older sister to unflattering Wikipedia articles. In a similar joke, the web comic Penny Arcade also satirized Wikipedia with a comic strip depicting Skeletor vandalizing the He-Man article.[1][2] The web comic PvP featured a similar gag with the character Marcy adding embarassing information about Francis, though she denies it's vandalism, claiming truth. [3][4]

On the July 31, 2006 episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen invented the word "wikiality" for his segment "The Wørd". He checked Wikipedia to determine whether he had referred to Oregon as being California's Canada or Washington's Mexico before deciding to call it it Idaho's Portugal and adjusting a Wikipedia article to say so. He, or a staffer, did change the article in real life as "User:Stephencolbert"; the account was blocked. During "The Wørd" segment Colbert asks his viewers to vandalize the Elephants page with the text "the number of Elephants has tripled in the last six months". This has been attempted many times, causing that page and related pages to go to a restricted editing mode under the semi-protection policy of Wikipedia, which was actually noted in a later episode.

File:WikiAl2.png
Al takes revenge on Atlantic Records using Wikipedia

In the song "White & Nerdy", by "Weird Al" Yankovic, the titular "nerd" says that "editing Wikipedia" is one of his nerdy activities.[5] In the video, Al is shown editing the article Atlantic Records by typing in large letters YOU SUCK, referring to the record company not permitting him to include "You're Pitiful", a parody of James Blunt's song "You're Beautiful", on his new album. This has caused many people to vandalize the Atlantic Records page to simply say "You Suck!" inspired by the music video, resulting in the page being semi protected. Yankovic has said that he does not approve of the vandalism, though he admits being amused by it.[6]

Further information: Atlantic Records § Media references, You're Pitiful § Controversy, and White & Nerdy § References in video


Further information: List of media personalities who have vandalised Wikipedia

On the March 1, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report, Arianna Huffington challenged host Stephen Colbert on his claim that he had invented the word "truthiness." She cited Wikipedia, claiming that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert, in character, responded: "Fuck them."[7]

Colbert refers to Wikipedia as his source of information for research on Sigmund Freud, on the 9 May 2006 episode of The Colbert Report. With his normal sarcastic and deadpan delivery, Colbert's segment "The Wørd" mocked Wikipedia's sometimes-questionable information with the screen posting "Even the accurate parts."[8]

Hannelore, a character in webcomic Questionable Content, suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. She references Wikipedia's article on head lice as the reason why she cut most of her hair off.[9]

In the Homestar Runner cartoon No Hands On Deck!, Homestar Runner mentions that "'Kipedia said vulcanized was the way to go" in reference to the type of nails used to build a deck[10][11]. At the time the cartoon was released, the Wikipedia article on deck building made no reference to nails or vulcanization[12].

The cartoon FoxTrot features Peter being criticized by his teacher for copying a homework assignment directly from Wikipedia. Peter replies, "Who's to say I didn't write the Wikipedia entry myself?"

Wikipedia was satirized in The Onion with a front page article in July 2006, "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence", alluding to the frequent inaccuracies in a publicly editable publication.[13]

Various notable people including Jeremy Clarkson[14], Ian McKellen[15] and Mitch Albom have made comments in the media, questioning Wikipedia worth on articles regarding themselves.

Wikiality

File:Colbert - Wiki Situation (Jul 31 2006).png
Colbert comments on Wikipedia

In a July 2006 episode of the satirical comedy The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert announced the neologism wikiality (a portmanteau of the words Wikipedia and reality) for his segment "The Wørd":

You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true. ... If only the entire body of human knowledge worked this way. And it can, thanks to tonight's word: Wikiality. Now, folks, I'm no fan of reality, and I'm no fan of encyclopedias. I've said it before. Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington had slaves? If I want to say he didn't, that's my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact.

We should apply these principles to all information. All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true. ... What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge.[16]

According to Colbert, together "we can all create a reality that we all can agree on; the reality that we just agreed on." During the segment, he joked "I love Wikipedia... any site that's got a longer entry on truthiness than on Lutherans has its priorities straight." Colbert also used the segment to satirize the more general issue of whether the repetition of statements in the media leads people to believe they are true.

Colbert suggested that viewers change the elephant page to state that the number of African elephants has tripled in the last six months. The suggestion resulted in vandalism of Wikipedia articles related to elephants and Africa. Wikipedia administrators subsequently restricted edits to the pages by anonymous and newly created users.

Many believe Stephen Colbert himself vandalized several Wikipedia pages at the time he was encouraging other users to do the same. Regardless, the user, whether it was Stephen Colbert himself or someone posing as him, has been blocked from Wikipedia indefinitely.[17]

The piece used the motto "the revolution will not be verified."

Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in languages, named wikiality and truthiness the top T.V. buzzwords for 2006.[18][19]

Wikipedia as a character trait

Hank Scorpio, a character from The Simpsons, mocks intelligent girl Lisa Simpson for citing her knowledge of him and his illegal activities, during a prison break scene in Simpsons Comics #117.[20]

In 2006, commenting to the New York Times on the demands on Central Intelligence Agency analysts to produce instant information, John E. McLaughlin, former acting U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, stated, "intelligence analysts end up being the Wikipedia of Washington".[21]

An altmuslim.com review of a new television series about terrorists noted that the characters routinely gave detailed background of events in the history of Islam and stated, "no one, and I assume even terrorists, talks like a walking Wikipedia."[22]

Miscellaneous

The video game Digital Devil Saga features several "Mantras" which the game's characters can equip in order to learn skills. One of the Mantras is named Wikipedia.[23] None of the people involved in the game's localization seem aware of how this came about, so its origin is still a mystery.[citation needed]

In May 2006, British chat show host Paul O'Grady received an inquiry from a viewer regarding information given on his Wikipedia page, to which he responded, "Wikipedia? Sounds like a skin disease."

An Internet webcomic called Applegeeks mentioned several times "Why spend money for education when Wikipedia has the same information for free?"[24][25]

On the show X-Play, Morgan Webb looked at the Wikipedia article of Point Blank DS, and then looked at the article on their show. After reading it, the logo in the top left corner of the page spoke to Morgan in typical X-Play fashion. It also pointed out that since the show's inception, they have made 337 fart jokes. When asked why it could talk the logo stated that Wikipedia had become self aware in 2004 due to the massive amounts of information provided by the public.

On the E! network program The Soup, during the "Reality Show Clip Time!" segment a clip of Flavor of Love 2 was shown in were someone mentioned Google as a point of research on September 8, 2006, to make fun of this, host Joel Mchale said "Well at least it's better that saying 'WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia'"

Something Awful once featured Wikipedia's article on Knuckles the Echidna as an ALOD, satirizing the amount of detail that sometimes goes into seemingly irrelevant topics. The link description adds that the article at the time was longer than the each of the articles about Echidnas, The Internet, the internal combustion engine, William Shakespeare and Western Culture (though in most cases, only marginally longer). The topic was also satirized in the front page, which featured a fake Wikipedia style article about Albert “Al” Calavicci from the TV series Quantum Leap. (using humourously fake info)[26]

References and footnotes

  1. ^ http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/12/16
  2. ^ Penny Arcade comic
  3. ^ http://www.pvponline.com/article/2832/aug-12-2006
  4. ^ http://www.pvponline.com/article/2832/aug-13-2006
  5. ^ White & Nerdy lyrics: "My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored
    Shopping online for deals on some writable media
    I edit Wikipedia
    I memorized Holy Grail really well
    I can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL"
  6. ^ Adams, Cameron. “Weird Al Yankovic.” Herald Sun, October 5, 2006.
  7. ^ The Colbert Report, "Faith", Comedy Central, March 1, 2006.
  8. ^ The Colbert Report, "Superegomaniac", Comedy Central, May 9, 2006.
  9. ^ http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=663
  10. ^ HRWiki:No Hands On Deck!
  11. ^ http://www.homestarrunner.com/deck.html
  12. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deck_%28building%29&diff=63676894&oldid=62409617
  13. ^ http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902
  14. ^ http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-2289849,00.html
  15. ^ Empire Magazine, May 2006.
  16. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT8BQALp9Cc
  17. ^ "Colbert Causes Chaos on Wikipedia". Newsvine. August 1 2006. Retrieved 2006-09-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ ""Truthiness," "Wikiality" named TV words of year". Reuters. August 27 2006. Retrieved 2006-08-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ "'Truthiness' and 'Wikiality' Named Top Television Buzzwords of 2006 Followed by 'Katrina', 'Katie,' and 'Dr. McDreamy'". Global Language Monitor. August 27 2006. Retrieved 2006-08-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ An exact citation of the Wikipedia referencing passage of The Simpsons Comics #117:
    Lisa: Say, aren't you Hank Scorpio, the criminal mastermind?
    Hank: I prefer the term "Entrepreneurial mastermind", but yes, that's me.
    Lisa: You blackmailed the federal government into giving you control of the American east coast. Now everyone thinks you are dead.
    Hank: Aren't you adorable? We're all about to be shot as escaped prisoners, and you're reciting my entry in the Wikipedia. I hope you're proud of her, Homer. She's great!
  21. ^ Tim Weiner, "Langley, We Have a Problem", New York Times, 14 May 2006
  22. ^ Wajahat Ali, "Sleeping Cell", altmuslim.com, 16 January 2006
  23. ^ http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/digital_devil_saga_mantra_grid.png
  24. ^ http://www.applegeeks.com/comic_archive/viewcomic.php?issue=236
  25. ^ http://www.applegeeks.com/lite/index.php?aglitecomic=2006-05-19
  26. ^ http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4103
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