Wikipedia in popular culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
References to Wikipedia in popular culture have increased as more people learn about and use the online encyclopedia project. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with characters vandalising or modifying articles. Still others feature characters using the references as a source, or positively comparing a character's intelligence to Wikipedia.
Contents |
[edit] Landmark references
| Date | Title | Notes | Relevance | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-11-10 | "I Must Take Issue With The Wikipedia Entry For 'Weird Al' Yankovic",[1] the Onion. | In an article from The Onion, the character Larry Groznic writes an article about how he was banned from Wikipedia for starting an edit war on the "Weird Al" Yankovic page, and goes on to criticize the content on the said page. | Having taken place well before the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy, it was one of the first major parodies. | |||
| 2006-03-01 | The Colbert Report, episode 58 | Arianna Huffington challenges host Stephen Colbert on his claim that he had coined the word "truthiness". She cited Wikipedia, claiming that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert, in character, responded: "Fuck them."[2] | First non-news nationally-broadcast television program to cite Wikipedia in a debate. | |||
| 2006-05-?? | The Simpsons Comics, issue 117, "Sandwiches are Forever" | Hank Scorpio, a character from The Simpsons television series, mocks Lisa Simpson for citing her knowledge of him and his illegal activities (which he assumes she simply read from Wikipedia) during a prison break scene in the issue.[3]
This issue was written by Ty Templeton.[4] |
This is the first reference to Wikipedia in a comic book. | |||
| 2006-05-09 | The Colbert Report, episode 93 | Colbert refers to Wikipedia as his source of information for research on Sigmund Freud. 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."[5] | Colbert's first scripted reference to Wikipedia, a lead into his "Wikiality" piece. | |||
| 2006-07-31 | The Colbert Report, episode 128 |
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." 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:
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. The piece was introduced with the tagline, "The Revolution Will Not Be Verified," referencing the lack of objective verification seen in some articles. 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. Colbert went on to type on a laptop facing away from the camera, claiming to be making the edits to the pages himself. In addition, initial edits to Wikipedia corresponding to these claimed "facts" were made by a user named Stephencolbert. Thus, many believe 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.[8] This user was not blocked for vandalism, joking, or 'poking fun at Wikipedia', but because the user violated Wikipedia's username policies, which state that using the names of celebrities as login names is inappropriate. The account will be reopened if and when Colbert or Comedy Central confirm its identity.[2] |
Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in languages, named wikiality and truthiness the top T.V. buzzwords for 2006.[9][10]
Shortly after the episode aired, a fan-created Wikipedia parody site opened at Wikiality.com, inspired by the term. On October 19, 2006, the term was mentioned again on the show, this time with Wikiality.com given as the url for Wikipedia. |
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| 2006-08-12[11] | "White & Nerdy" music video, by "Weird Al" Yankovic |
 The character who is implied to be the nerd says that editing Wikipedia is one of his nerdy activities.[12] In the video, Al is shown editing the article Atlantic Records by typing in large letters YOU SUCK. Thus Al takes revenge on the record company for refusing to let him include "You're Pitiful," a parody of James Blunt's song "You're Beautiful", on his new album. This has prompted copycat vandalism of the Atlantic Records page, which resulted in the page's being semi-protected. Yankovic has said that he does not approve of the vandalism, though he admits being amused by it.[13] |
This is believed to be the first time a music video showed the website. The song was also Yankovic's first career Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It reached #1 at the U.S. iTunes Store, and peaked at #1 on VH1's top 20 video countdown. | |||
| 2006-10-30 | Prison Break: "Unearthed" | Michael Scofield searches for Agent Mahone and reads an article on Wikipedia with a similar layout and his image in the top left. | First reference on a fiction-based television series. | |||
| 2007-01-18 | 30 Rock: "The Head and the Hair" | While Tracy Jordan, James "Toofer" Spurlock and Frank Rossitano are working to complete Jordan's autobiography within a single day, Rossitano finds Jordan's Wikipedia article while using the Internet on his laptop. The article says Jordan was discovered after doing stand-up comedy at the Apollo Theater in 1984, and Jordan, though stating he has no recollection of this, tells the two to add it to the book. | First sitcom series reference. | |||
| 2007-01-23 | Veronica Mars: "Show Me the Monkey" | The television show references Wikipedia in the episode when Veronica looks up the origins of the color manila. | Third reference on a fiction-based television series, after Prison Break and 30 Rock. | |||
| 2007-02-18 | American Dad!: "Black Mystery Month" | After uncovering a plot involving peanut butter and the Civil War, Stan Smith says "If only there was a place where you could make outrageous claims, without any proof, and millions of people would accept it as fact...", and the episode cuts to his son Steve editing The Truth about Peanut Butter. | Fourth reference on a fiction-based television series, second sitcom reference. | |||
| 2005-05-07 | FoxTrot |
|
First appearance of Wikipedia in a syndicated comic strip. | |||
| date unknown | Jericho ads | Following Jericho episodes on Network 10 in Australia, a promotion would appear encouraging viewers to log onto Wikipedia and search for "Jericho (tv series)" for proof of the hype and theories surrounding the show. | This is the first station advertisement to encourage people to search Wikipedia for their product. | |||
| 2006-00-00 | Cisco Systems: Human Network Anthem | A TV advertisement for Cisco Systems shows a young child with a laptop, the Wikipedia logo clearly visible on the screen. Part of their "Human Network Anthem" ad campaign. | First television advertisement showing Wikipedia as part of the plot line. | |||
| 2006-09-07 | FoxTrot | Thomas Edison article. | ||||
| date unknown | The Righteous Men, Sam Bourne | In the 2006 Da Vinci Code style novel The Righteous Men, Wikipedia features as an academic style encyclopedia. | ||||
| 2007-02-01 | The Office (US TV series) | Jim, having heard Michael mention prima nocta, says that he used Wikipedia to confirm his suspicions over the term's meaning. | Fourth reference on a fiction-based television series. | |||
| 2007-03-17 | Bremner, Bird and Fortune | A sketch about the 10 most popular, yet unread books,[14] featuring a voice over talking about the plots of the books, which seem to constantly refer to aliens. At the end of the sketch it says that the information came from Wikipedia. | First mention in a British satirical comedy programme. |
[edit] Citations of Wikipedia in popular culture
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.[15][16] At the time the cartoon was released, the Wikipedia article on decks made no reference to nails or vulcanization.[17]
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?"
During a debate on Québécois nationhood in the Canadian House of Commons on November 27, 2006, Conservative Member of Parliament Scott Reid mentioned Wikipedia.[18]
Wikipedia maintains a (non-comprehensive) list of such citations on its page Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a source.
[edit] Inaccuracies on Wikipedia in popular culture
Wikipedia was satirized in The Onion with a front-page article ("Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence", July 2006), alluding to inaccuracies in the publicly editable publication.[19]
Various people including Jeremy Clarkson[20], Sir Ian McKellen[21] and Mitch Albom have criticized Wikipedia's articles about themselves.
[edit] Wikipedia as a character trait
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".[22] [[3]]
An altmuslim.com review of a new television series, Sleeper Cell, 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."[23]
[edit] Miscellaneous
Wikipedia is parodied at several websites, including Wikiality 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!)".
Likewise, CRACKED.com, the online publication affiliated with former Mad rival Cracked, has satirized Wikipedia's maintenance templates.[24]
In the American version of Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Wikipedia is a selectable mantra[25][26].
On the June 5, 2006 episode of The Howard Stern Show, wack packer Eric the Midget called in and complained that his parents had read about a stunt that he did for the show, that involved him measuring his penis, on Wikipedia (which he called "Wackipedia"). Stern read the section of the article regarding penis measuring on the air. Also, Gary Dell'Abate commented on the air he and the Stern Show staff enjoy the picture of Lynch in this article.
The video game Digital Devil Saga features several "Mantras" which the game's characters can equip in order to learn skills. One is named Wikipedia.[27]
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."
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 which 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 than saying 'WikipediaWikipediaWikipedia'"
In the Veronica Mars episode "Show Me the Monkey", season 3 episode 10, she refers to the Wikipedia article on Manila.
Something Awful once featured Wikipedia's article on Knuckles the Echidna as an ALOD (Awful Link of the Day), 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 each of the articles about Echidnas, the Internet, the internal combustion engine, William Shakespeare and Western Culture. 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 written by Something Awful contributor David Thorpe.[28] Thorpe elsewhere linked the existence of such articles to Aspergers Syndrome, stating "Don't make fun of Aspergers. If it weren't for Aspergers, we wouldn't have 20-page Wikipedia articles about Knuckles the Echidna."[29] Wikipedia was also mocked in a December 4 update on Something Awful. The update detailed the life of a talk page on Wikipedia, and mocked the NPOV, copyright, naming, GA, and personal disputes that the pages are beholden to. The update also linked Wikipedia usage to Aspergers once more, with one fictional editor claiming to have a case of the syndrome twice as powerful as that of another fictional editor.[30]
[edit] Wikipedia in web comics
On May 7, 2005, the comic strip FoxTrot 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.[31][32] The web comic PvP featured a similar gag with the character Marcy adding embarrassing information about Francis, though she denies it's vandalism, claiming truth.[33][34]
On December 12, 2005 comic of UserFriendly, Greg, who is first defending Wikipedia against critisism, is seen about to vandalize Wikipedia after finding out he is listed under "hairy dork".
Bunny strip which features Wikipedia. The tombstone reads: "RIP Jeph Jacques" with the bottom caption: "The Moral of the story is you cannot always trust what you read on Wikipedia."
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.[35] Wikipedia was also mentioned in another comic where a character mentions that their edits to the De Beers entry keep getting reverted (as they are attempting to add a conspiracy theory to the article suggesting the company has subverted humanity's mating drive in order to sell more diamonds). [36]
The webcomic Applegeeks has jokingly referred to Wikipedia as a replacement for traditional education twice.[37][38]
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Namely "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. "Oliphaunt" has also been vandalized.
[edit] References and footnotes
- ^ http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37314
- ^ The Colbert Report, "Faith", Comedy Central, March 1, 2006.
- ^ 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!
- ^ http://www.noisetosignal.org/comics/2006/05/simpsons-comics-117.php
- ^ The Colbert Report, "Superegomaniac", Comedy Central, May 9, 2006.
- ^ The Colbert Report / Comedy Central recording of The WØRD "Wikiality", Comedy Central, July 31, 2006.
- ^ YouTube recording of The Colbert Report, "Wikiality", Comedy Central, July 31, 2006.
- ^ "Colbert Causes Chaos on Wikipedia", Newsvine, August 1, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-09-28.
- ^ ""Truthiness," "Wikiality" named TV words of year", Reuters, August 27, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
- ^ 'Truthiness' and 'Wikiality' Named Top Television Buzzwords of 2006 Followed by 'Katrina', 'Katie,' and 'Dr. McDreamy'. Global Language Monitor (August 27, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
- ^ Note that the song was leaked on the Internet almost a month prior, on August 27, 2006.
- ^ 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
- ^ Adams, Cameron. "Weird Al Yankovic." Herald Sun, October 5, 2006.
- ^ BBC News, Harry Potter book "often unread" Accessed on 1 April 2007.
- ^ No Hands On Deck!. Homestar Runner Wiki (2006). Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Chapman, Matt; Chapman, Mike (2006). No Hands On Deck!. Homestar Runner. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Deck (building) (English). Wikipedia (2006). Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Hansard, November 27, 2006.
- ^ Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence. The Onion (2006). Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Clarkson, Jeremy (2006). Lexus GS 450h SE-L Independence. Times Online. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Empire Magazine, May 2006.
- ^ Tim Weiner, "Langley, We Have a Problem", The New York Times, 14 May 2006
- ^ Wajahat Ali, "Sleeping Cell", altmuslim.com, 16 January 2006
- ^ Sack, Brian (2006). More Accurate Wikipedia Warnings. CRACKED.com. Retrieved on November 16, 2006.
- ^ Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga FAQs
- ^ "Digital Devil Saga Mantra Grid, Version 2.0 - 5/16/05" by Starion
- ^ http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/digital_devil_saga_mantra_grid.png
- ^ Thorpe, David (2006). Quantum Geek. Something Awful. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Parsons, Zack; Thorpe, David (2006). Return to the Science Fair, page 12. Fashion SWAT. Something Awful. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Parsons, Zack (December 4, 2006). The Dark Side of Wikipedia. Something Awful. Retrieved on December 18, 2006.
- ^ Krahulik, Mike; Holkins, Jerry (2005). I Have The Power. Penny Arcade Comic. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Krahulik, Mike (2005). I Have The Power. Penny Arcade News. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Kurtz, Scott R. (2006). Strip for August 12, 2006. PVP Online. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Kurtz, Scott R. (2006). Strip for August 13, 2006. PVP Online. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Jacques, Jeph (2006). Number 663: At Least She Didn't Go All The Way. Questionable Content. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Jacques, Jeph (2007). Number 774: Also Certain Web Comics. Questionable Content. Retrieved on January 29, 2007.
- ^ Haque, Mohammed F.; Panagariya, Ananth (2004). Issue 236: Noodliness. Applegeeks. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Haque, Mohammed F.; Panagariya, Ananth (2006). Issue 010. Applegeeks Lite. Retrieved on October 15, 2004.
