Wikipedia in culture

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References to Wikipedia in popular culture have been widespread. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with individuals vandalizing or modifying articles in nonconstructive ways. Others feature individuals using Wikipedia as a reference work, or positively comparing their intelligence to Wikipedia. In some cases, Wikipedia is not used as an encyclopedia at all, but instead serves more as a character trait or even as a game, such as Wikiracing. Wikipedia has also become culturally significant with many individuals seeing the presence of their own Wikipedia entry as a status symbol. [1]

Contents

In the arts and entertainment

In art

Wikipedia Monument in Slubice, Poland Wikipedia Monument 2.JPG
Wikipedia Monument in Słubice, Poland

The Wikipedia Monument , located in Słubice, Poland, is a statue designed by Armenian sculptor Mihran Hakobyan honoring Wikipedia contributors. It was unveiled in Frankfurt Square (Plac Frankfurcki) on 22 October 2014 in a ceremony that included representatives from both local Wikimedia chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation. [2] [3]

In music

A scene in the 2006 music video for the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "White & Nerdy", show Yankovic vandalizing the Wikipedia page for Atlantic Records, replacing it with the words "YOU SUCK!", referencing recent trouble he had had with the company in getting permissions. [4]

Ukrainian composer Andriy Bondarenko wrote a musical piece, "Anthem of Wikipedia", which was performed in a concert devoted to the 15th anniversary of Wikipedia in Kyiv in 2016. [5] [6]

In webcomics

"Malamanteau", parodying Wikipedia's writing style Malamanteau.png
"Malamanteau", parodying Wikipedia's writing style

References to Wikipedia have been made several times in the webcomic xkcd . A facsimile of a made-up Wikipedia entry for "malamanteau" (a stunt word created by Munroe to poke fun at Wikipedia's writing style) provoked a controversy. [7] [8]

In humor

During the Russo-Ukrainian war, a meme titled Battle of Techno House 2022, which features footage of a Russian soldier's failed effort at opening a door, went viral and was reposted millions of times. [9] Media coverage included discussion of an initial Wikipedia page for the incident/meme, which lampooned the event by using Wikipedia formatting generally used only for actual battles, making it seem like a real battle. The belligerents in the "battle" were humorously listed as "Russian Soldier" and "store door" with the battle results referred to as a "decisive door victory" and "pride" referred to as one of the Russian casualties. [10] [11] [12] The humorous content was later removed from the Wikipedia page. [13]

In fiction

The 2024 novel The Editors, by Stephen Harrison, is centered around a group of editors of an online encyclopedia, Infopendium, based on Wikipedia. [14] [15]

Stephen Colbert (2006)

In a July 2006 episode of the satirical comedy The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert announced the neologism "wikiality", a portmanteau of the words Wiki and reality, for his segment "The Wørd". Colbert defined wikiality as "truth by consensus" (rather than fact), modeled after the approval-by-consensus format of Wikipedia. He ironically praised Wikipedia for following his philosophy of truthiness in which intuition and consensus is a better reflection of reality than fact:

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]

Colbert suggested that viewers change the elephant page to state that the number of African elephants has tripled in the last six months. [17] The suggestion resulted in numerous incorrect changes to Wikipedia articles related to elephants and Africa. [a] [b] Colbert went on to type on a laptop facing away from the camera, claiming to be making the edits to the pages himself. Because initial edits to Wikipedia corresponding to these claimed "facts" were made by a user named Stephencolbert, many believe Colbert himself vandalized several Wikipedia pages at the time he was encouraging other users to do the same. The account, whether it was Stephen Colbert himself or someone posing as him, was blocked from Wikipedia indefinitely. [18] [c]

Contexts

Wikipedia is not always referenced in the same way. The ways described below are some of the ways it has been mentioned.

Citations of Wikipedia in culture

In politics

Wikipedia as comedic material

General information source

As the basis of games

Redactle is a game in which the player must identify a Wikipedia article (chosen from the 10,000 vital articles) after it appears with most of its words redacted. Prepositions, articles, the verb "to be", punctuation and word lengths are shown. Players guess words, which are revealed if present in the article. As of June 2024 there have been over 800 daily games. [40] [41] [42]

Criticism

Claims of negative impact of Wikipedia on culture

Andrew Keen's 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture asserted the proliferation of user-generated content on Wikipedia obscured and devalued traditional, higher-quality information outlets. [43]

See also

Notes

  1. "Loxodonta", "African forest elephant", "African bush elephant", "Pachydermata", "Babar the Elephant", "Elephant", "Oregon",
    "George Washington", "Latchkey kid", "Serial killer", "Hitler", "The Colbert Report" and "Stephen Colbert" are/were temporarily protected. "Mûmak" (formerly at "Oliphaunt") has also been vandalized.
  2. Wikipedia administrators subsequently restricted edits to the pages by anonymous and newly created user accounts.
  3. Wikipedia blocked the account for violating Wikipedia's username policies (which state that using the names of celebrities as login names without permission is inappropriate), not for the vandalism, as believed.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Wikipedia</span> German-language edition of Wikipedia

The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Shapps</span> British politician (born 1968)

Grant Shapps is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Defence from August 2023 to July 2024. Shapps previously served in various cabinet posts, including Conservative Party Co-Chairman, Transport Secretary, Home Secretary, Business Secretary, and Energy Secretary under Prime Ministers David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Welwyn Hatfield from 2005 to 2024. He was defeated and lost his seat in the 2024 general election.

Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baidu Baike</span> Chinese wiki-based online encyclopedia

Baidu Baike is a semi-regulated Chinese-language collaborative online encyclopedia owned by the Chinese technology company Baidu. The beta version was launched on 20 April 2006, and the official version was launched on 21 April 2008. In November 2019, it had more than 16 million articles and 6.9 million editors. As of February 2022, it has more than 25.54 million entries and 7.5 million editors. It has the largest number of entries in the world of any Chinese-language online encyclopedia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Wikipedia</span> Controversy surrounding the online encyclopedia Wikipedia

The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized since its creation in 2001. Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community of established volunteer users, process, and rules. Critics have questioned its factual reliability, the readability and organization of its articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, and its political bias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reliability of Wikipedia</span>

The reliability of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition, has been questioned and tested. Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteer editors, who generate online content with the editorial oversight of other volunteer editors via community-generated policies and guidelines. The reliability of the project has been tested statistically through comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in its editing process. The online encyclopedia has been criticized for its factual unreliability, principally regarding its content, presentation, and editorial processes. Studies and surveys attempting to gauge the reliability of Wikipedia have mixed results. Wikipedia's reliability was frequently criticized in the 2000s but has been improved; its English-language edition has been generally praised in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White & Nerdy</span> 2006 single by "Weird Al" Yankovic

"White & Nerdy" is the second single from "Weird Al" Yankovic's album Straight Outta Lynwood, which was released on September 26, 2006. It parodies the song "Ridin'" by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone. The song both satirizes and celebrates nerd culture, as recited by the subject, who cannot "roll with the gangstas" because he is "just too white and nerdy". It includes many references to activities stereotypically associated with nerds and/or white people, such as collecting comic books and action figures, being fluent in JavaScript and Klingon, editing Wikipedia, and playing Dungeons & Dragons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservapedia</span> American conservative wiki-based online encyclopedia

Conservapedia is an English-language, wiki-based, online encyclopedia written from a self-described American conservative and fundamentalist Christian point of view. The website was established in 2006 by American homeschool teacher and attorney Andrew Schlafly, son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias on Wikipedia. It uses editorials and a wiki-based system for content generation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia</span> Egyptian Arabic–language version of Wikipedia

The Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia is the Egyptian Arabic version of Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia. This Wikipedia primarily acts as an alternative to the Arabic Wikipedia in favor of speakers of the Egyptian dialect. Until 2020, it was the only Wikipedia written in a localised dialect of Arabic. The second one is Moroccan Wikipedia, which was approved and created in July 2020.

<i>Star Wars Kid</i> Viral video and Internet meme

Star Wars Kid is a viral video made in 2002 by Ghyslain Raza in which he wields a golf ball retriever in imitation of Darth Maul's lightsaber moves from the film Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. At the time, Raza was a 15-year-old high school student from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada. He had not intended for the video to become public, but its subsequent release led to ridicule, during which Raza chose to distance himself from the video. Raza has since affirmed his identity and has used the video to help to speak on the effects of bullying and harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Encyclopedia Dramatica</span> Parody-themed wiki website

Encyclopedia Dramatica is an online community website, centered around a wiki, that acts as a "troll archive" and its community members frequently participate in harassment campaigns. The site hosts racist material and shock content; as a result it was filtered from Google Search in 2010. The website's articles lampoon topics and current events related or relevant to contemporary internet culture in an encyclopedic fashion. It also serves as a repository of information and a means of discussion for the hacker group known as Anonymous. Encyclopedia Dramatica celebrates its subversive "NSFW" "troll site culture" and documents internet memes, events such as mass organized pranks, trolling events called "raids", large-scale failures of internet security, and criticism by those within its subculture of other internet communities which are accused of self-censorship in order to garner positive coverage from traditional and established media outlets. The site hosts numerous pornographic images, along with content that is misogynistic, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arbitration Committee (Wikipedia)</span> Dispute resolution panel of editors

On Wikimedia Foundation projects, an arbitration committee (ArbCom) is a binding dispute resolution panel of editors. Each of Wikimedia's projects are editorially autonomous and independent, and some of them have established their own arbitration committees who work according to rules developed by the project's editors and are usually annually elected by their communities. The arbitration committees generally address misconduct by administrators and editors with access to advanced tools, and a range of "real-world" issues related to harmful conduct that can arise in the context of Wikimedia projects. Rulings, policies and procedures differ between projects depending on local and cultural contexts. According to the Wikimedia Terms of Use, users are not obliged to have a dispute solved by an arbitration committee.

Cultural impact of <i>The Colbert Report</i> Explanation of popular culture impact of former television program

The Colbert Report, which premiered in American cable television on October 17, 2005, has had a massive cultural impact since its inception. Issues in and references to American and world culture are attributed to the character played by Stephen Colbert, who calls his followers the Colbert Nation. The Colbert Report is a late-night talk and satirical news program hosted by Colbert that aired on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focused on a fictional anchorman character named Stephen Colbert, played by his real-life namesake. The character, described by Colbert as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot," is a caricature of televised political pundits. The show satirized conservative personality-driven political talk programs, particularly Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. The Colbert Report is a spin-off of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, where Colbert was a correspondent from 1997 to 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Frikipedia</span>

La Frikipedia was a Spanish-language parody of Wikipedia. Frikipedia can be translated into English as The Geekpedia or The Freakypedia, since the title comes from the anglicism freak. It is also called "the extremely serious encyclopedia" or the "useless encyclopedia". It currently has more than 8,000 articles. The Frikipedia is under the GNU Free Documentation License. In early 2006, the head of the Frikipedia decided to close the site after a complaint by the SGAE. It reopened on October 20, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vandalism on Wikipedia</span> Malicious editing of Wikipedia

On Wikipedia, vandalism is editing the project in an intentionally disruptive or malicious manner. Vandalism includes any addition, removal, or modification that is intentionally humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, offensive, libelous or degrading in any way.

The tag "[citation needed]" is added by Wikipedia editors to unsourced statements in articles requesting citations to be added. The phrase is reflective of the policies of verifiability and original research on Wikipedia and has become a general Internet meme.

Coverage of American politics in Wikipedia is a subject that has received substantial attention from the media. Since its founding in 2001, Wikipedia has provided coverage of six United States presidential elections, six mid-term elections at the federal level, and numerous "off-year" state elections and special elections.

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