Written by Anna P. Kambhampaty
Did you already know that there’s a Swiss political social gathering devoted to opposing using PowerPoint? That some folks consider Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was changed by a look-alike? Or that there is a stone in a museum in Taiwan that uncannily resembles a slab of meat?
Probably not — until, that’s, you are one of many tons of of hundreds of people that comply with @depthsofwikipedia. The Instagram account shares weird and stunning snippets from the huge, crowdsourced on-line encyclopaedia, together with amusing photographs (a rooster actually crossing a highway) and minor moments in historical past (Mitt Romney driving a number of hours along with his canine atop his automobile). Some posts are healthful — reminiscent of Hatsuyume, the Japanese phrase for one’s first dream of the yr — whereas others should not secure for work (say, panda pornography).
Annie Rauwerda, 22, began the account early within the pandemic, when others have been baking sourdough bread and studying knit. “Everyone was starting projects, and this was my project,” she mentioned.
At the time, she was a sophomore on the University of Michigan. Students are sometimes discouraged from utilizing Wikipedia as a supply in tutorial work, as a result of most of its pages could be edited by anybody and will comprise inaccurate info. But for Rauwerda, the positioning was all the time extra about leisure: spending hours clicking on one hyperlink after one other, getting misplaced in rabbit holes.
“Wikipedia is the best thing on the internet,” Rauwerda mentioned in a telephone interview. “It’s what the web was speculated to be. It has this hacker ethos of working collectively and making one thing.”
At first, solely her buddies have been following the account. But it acquired a wave of consideration when Rauwerda posted about influencer Caroline Calloway, who was upset that the submit featured an outdated model of her Wikipedia web page that mentioned her occupation was “nothing.” Rauwerda apologized, and Calloway later boosted the account on her Instagram.
Rauwerda has since expanded @depthsofwikipedia to Twitter and TikTok. She sells merchandise (reminiscent of a espresso mug emblazoned with a picture from the Wikipedia entry for “bisexual lighting”) and has hosted a stay present in Manhattan, that includes trivia and stand-up.
Her followers typically pitch her Wikipedia pages to function, however lately it is laborious to seek out an entry that can impress Rauwerda. “If it’s a fun fact that’s been on the Reddit homepage, I’m definitely not going to repost it,” she mentioned. “For instance, there are solely 25 blimps on the planet. I’ve recognized about that for a very long time, and it went round Twitter a pair days in the past. I used to be shocked.
I used to be like, ‘Everyone is aware of this.'”
She is picky largely as a result of lots of her followers depend on @depthsofwikipedia for unearthing the hidden gems of the web.
“I just love to learn stuff, especially these strange photos and things I could never find on my own,” mentioned Gabe Hockett, 15, a highschool pupil in Minneapolis. He mentioned his favourite posts from the account embrace “The Most Unwanted Song” and the “Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident.”
Jen Fox, 22, mentioned that buying and selling posts from the account along with her boyfriend is “a special, nerdy love language.” It’s additionally been a litmus check for friendships. When Fox, a copywriter, moved to San Francisco in February, she would point out the account to new folks she met. If they have been accustomed to it, she mentioned, “we would start DM’ing each other and sharing our favorite posts, which felt like we were really solidifying a concrete friendship.” Fox even attended a @depthsofwikipedia meet-up at a neighborhood brewery. “There’s such a community behind it,” she mentioned.
It’s not new for lovers of Wikipedia to rally round their ardour for the platform. A Facebook group known as Cool Freaks’ Wikipedia Club, based eight years in the past, has almost 50,000 members who actively commerce hyperlinks.
Rauwerda’s account “makes the internet feel smaller,” mentioned Heather Woods, an assistant professor of rhetoric and expertise at Kansas State University. “It shortcuts the rabbit-hole phenomenon by offering attractive — or sometimes hilariously unattractive — entry points to internet culture.”
Zachary McCune, model director for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, mentioned that @depthsofwikipedia is an extension of the positioning’s participatory ethos. “It’s a place where Wikipedia comes to life, like an after-hours tour of the best of Wikipedia,” McCune mentioned.
And as a result of Wikipedia has greater than 55 million articles, having a information like Rauwerda is useful. She hopes that guests to her web page stroll away with new shared information. “I want you to see something that makes you pause and go, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting,'” Rauwerda said. “Something that makes you rethink the world a little bit.”
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS