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]
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.[2]
According to Stephen 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", a play on the song title "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" referencing how the mainstream establishment that Wikipedia cites as Reliable Sources will not support significant change, throwing doubt on the idea that Wikipedia is truthful.
Colbert suggested that viewers change the elephant page to state that the number of African elephants has tripled in the last six months.[3] The suggestion resulted in numerous incorrect changes to Wikipedia articles related to elephants and Africa.[a] Wikipedia administrators subsequently restricted edits to the pages by anonymous and newly created user accounts.
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, has been blocked from Wikipedia indefinitely.[4] 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.
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.[8][9]
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.[10][11]
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.[12] 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.[13][14][15] The humorous content was later removed from the Wikipedia page.[16]
In fiction
The 2024 novel The Editors is centered around a group of editors of an online encyclopedia, Infopendium, based on Wikipedia.[17]
Contexts
Wikipedia is not always referenced in the same way. The ways described below are some of the ways it has been mentioned.
In June 2011, Wikipedia received attention for attempts by editors to change the "Paul Revere" article to fit Sarah Palin's accounting of events during a campaign bus tour.[24][25] The New York Times reported that the article "had half a million page views" by June 10, and "after all the attention and arguments, the article is now much longer ... and much better sourced ... than before Palin's remarks."[26]
In October 2018, Jackson A. Cosko, a former staff member for US Senator Maggie Hassan, edited Wikipedia to dox several Congresspersons after being fired. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Orrin G. Hatch, Mitch McConnell, and Mike Lee had their personal addresses, cell phone numbers, and email addresses inserted into their respective wikipedia pages. The Senators were targeted for the role they played as Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the contentious Supreme Court nomination hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. [30] Cosko pleaded guilty in April 2019 and on 19 June 2019 was sentenced to four years in federal prison on five charges related to the event.[31]
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."
Comedian Zach Galifianakis claimed to look himself up on Wikipedia in an interview with The Badger Herald,[36] stating about himself, "...I'm looking at Wikipedia right now. Half Greek, half redneck, around 6-foot-4. And that's about it... The 6-foot-4 thing may be a little bit off. Actually, it's 4-foot-6."
General information source
Slate magazine compared Wikipedia to the fictional device The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the series of the same name by Douglas Adams. "The parallels between The Hitchhiker's Guide (as found in Adams' original BBC radio series and novels) and Wikipedia are so striking, it's a wonder that the author's rabid fans don't think he invented time travel. Since its editor was perennially out to lunch, the Guide was amended 'by any passing stranger who happened to wander into the empty offices on an afternoon and saw something worth doing.' This anonymous group effort ends up outselling Encyclopedia Galactica even though 'it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate.'"[37] This comparison of fictional documents in the series, is not unlike the mainstream comparisons between Wikipedia and professional Encyclopedias.[38]
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[update] there have been over 800 daily games.[39][40][41]
