Wikipedia:Parodies/Kamelopedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kamelopedia is a parody of Wikipedia, which started from a private MediaWiki installation and gained popularity in 2004. Like Wikipedia, Kamelopedia is also a Wiki-style collection of web pages. It is currently available in German, its original language. As of 16 May 2006, there are over 9200 articles.

There are no guidelines in Kamelopedia, however, predominant types of humour include:

Fake homonyms. A familiar word is orthographically rewritten and re-interpreted through the meaning phonetically similar words. E.g. Europawahl ("European elections") becomes Europawal (without "h") in Kamelopedia. Wal means "whale", which opens the door to jokes on the contradiction between size and importance.
Connections to camels. Kamelopedia users ("Kamelopedians") sometimes refer to themselves as Kamele ("camels"), and try to relate everyday words to the world of camels by rewriting them to include "Kamel". Examples are Kameleon or Kamelasagne, or "Hasta la camela, baby", "a famous one-liner by Arnold Schwarzenhöcker ('Arnold Black-Hump'), governor of Kamelfornien". Related references are those to the (assumed) world of camels, that is, Egypt, pyramids and palm trees.
Explaining familiar words and names in a deliberately nonsensensical way, preferably with parallels to the real meaning (for example, the career of Arnold Schwarzenhöcker).