I’ve already used Wikipedia a few times today, quickly looking things up on my phone, not important things but things that would slowly grate away at me over the course of the day until I started shouting at strangers, “WHAT WAS THAT THING CALLED? ARGH!”. If people are anything like me then the Mayans were right and the end of the world is happening today.
It started as a casual thing, you wanted to know something every now and again so you went on Wikipedia, it was no big deal, you were in control of it. Then time passed and before you knew it you couldn’t watch or listen to anything without knowing everything about everything and everyone. What was he in? I recognise him, I’ll look it up. Oh he was in it as well, but what was that other thing he was in? I’ll look it up. I remember that show, it had that girl in it, oh there she is, what’s she up to these days? Oh she’s in a thing with him, I wonder what everyone else in that show he was in are doing now. Oh, right, oooo, ahhh, IT GOES ON! AND ON AND ON! I CAN’T FUCKING STOP IT!
Only last week I read the entire history of the ice cream soda! Did you know that in Australia they call it a spider? I FUCKING DO! What am I supposed to do with that information? I don’t even like ice cream sodas. I just had some ice cream and a soda (Pepsi Max, though I do not agree with its pro-rape stance) and thought that people put them together and how that’s a bit weird so I looked it up. I just didn’t look it up, I “Wikipedied” it, I’ve started using it as a verb! Like those cunts who say “I’ll BBM you”. What is wrong with you people! Just say message or text, it’s quicker! “I’ll text you my BBM pin and then we can BBM”, FUCK OFF!
It’s not just ice cream sodas, one day I read about the history of Dr Pepper, I actually looked into what EVERY cast member of Lost was up to, for a previous post I needed (wanted) to know if hit 90’s TV series Woof! had an exclamation mark in its title and ended up reading everything about the show and its cast.
I’ll make it through the day, it might even be nice not having the compulsion to look up whether Pete Doherty is still alive. If I do have a query I could use Google and look for a trustworthy source, I haven’t trusted a single piece of information on Wikipedia, it might be comforting to know that what I know is actually true. I could go to the library and spend four hours searching through books and journals, and that would be fun, in a way.
What if this whole SOPA and PIPA thing goes through and Wikipedia does somehow get shut down? Isn’t ignorance bliss? You’re watching a film and your wife asks you “wasn’t he in that thing” and you can simply answer “I don’t know”. You don’t miss the next five or ten minutes of the film looking on Wikipedia (or IMDB because that got shut down as well), you get to enjoy the film. Or not, because her question infuriates you so much that you can’t concentrate on the film, what was he in? you think to yourself for the entire film, and when you say “I don’t know” she says “you fucking idiot! I’m leaving you!”. Six months later you’re banging on her door shouting “IT DOES HAVE AN EXCLAMATION MARK!”.
I need Wikipedia.
