Along with pretty much everyone else of my generation, I often wonder what life was like before Google—that innocent time when there was no way to find out random facts about everyone from a blind date prospect to your best friend to a co-worker. The same could be said about Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. What was life like before you could zip over to Wikipedia, type in any random person, place or thing of even remote historical significance and have a full explanation of said noun within seconds? I mean, even Coran Capshaw has his own Wikipedia entry! (“The manager of the Dave Matthews Band, O.A.R. and Trey Anastasio, among others…”)
But not all Wikipedia entries are deemed as crucial to our collective intelligence as Capshaw’s by Wikipedia’s editors. Indeed, given that just about anyone can post a Wikipedia entry, entries that either overlap with other entries, are the products of shameless self-promotion, or are simply wrong, are constantly getting deleted from the website. Many of these hapless entries disappear forever, but a lucky few are salvaged by the über-nerd who runs The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump. The blog was just started this November, but there are already a handful of former Wikipedia entries to giggle and puzzle over.
There’s the Beard Theorem, which states that a communist’s degree of radicalness can be determined by the size of his beard; there’s exophilia, which is sexual attraction to aliens; there’s Mike the Headless Chicken; there’s a list of fictional worms; there’s drunk blogging; and there’s Cynthia Cameron, some ran-dom Canadian woman who clearly thinks her star is on the rise.
True, these are not things you need to know to get along well in this world. They are, however, about as crucial to your success as AP calculus. I always told Mr. Wainwright I didn’t need to know that stuff!