On 5/11/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
I'm running into an increasing number of mentions of Wikipedia in pop- cultural contexts these days. Two recent examples:
In Simpsons Comics #117, there is this exchange:
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!
The other was on a recent Colbert Report on Comedy Central, where Colbert was talking about Sigmund Freud, and proudly announced that he had prepared for the segment by reading Freud's *entire* Wikipedia entry, even the accurate parts.
I think Wikipedia has achieved the pop-cultural status of being suitable for mention in humorous (and not entirely flattering) contexts; it seems to have a connotation something like "I've achieved a shallow, superficial, and quite likely inaccurate understanding of a subject the lazy way... and I'm damn proud of it!"
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Regards
Keith Old