Hello Sternal Journalists!
It’s a good old quick, clunky (2 minute read) SternJourn in honor of the fact that I’m driving a loved one to a medical procedure in the morning and am strapped for time!
In honor of all of those insane political-pleading-for-money emails and the fact that it seems to be that time of year again when Wikipedia is begging for money (which I admit is far less annoying than the emails but still a little sad), here’s a monologue sketch I wrote years ago from the perspective of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in the style of the Wikipedia begging badges. McSweeney’s rejected it, but it still makes me chuckle.
Hello. I am Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. As we approach January 15th, Wikipedia Day, it is time once again for me to remind you, our users, that we are the only top- ten site run by a non- profit, and for better or for worse, we promised to never run ads.
Over the past fifteen years, I have asked- begged- pleaded with you, to donate as long as—and this was my bad—you find Wikipedia useful.
I realize now, that with the word “useful,” I successfully alienated 100% of Wikipedia readership. But with 500 million users, I just assumed that some percentage of that would be people using the website to expand their minds or pursue knowledge. Or even... complete a task.
It honestly didn’t even cross my mind that you might use Wikipedia to look up whether General Tso’s Chicken comes from China- it doesn’t- or the name of the actor who played the bad guy in Rush Hour 2- John Lone- or even the number of albums released by the rapper, Xzibit- real name Alvin Joiner- before he hosted MTV’s Pimp My Ride- four.And yet this is the type of information sought on Wikipedia every minute of every day. All of it by our users.
None of it remotely useful.
With that in mind, it’s time to reevaluate. It is true that if everyone seeing this gave just three dollars, our fundraiser would be over in the next half hour.
But if everyone seeing this gave three dollars for every Pokemon evolution they’d Wikipedia’d, our fundraiser would be over in the next twelve seconds. And if everyone seeing this right now... gave that same three dollars... for every episode summary of the 90’s sitcom, Family Matters, they’d sought on Wikipedia, we would immediately reach our fundraising goal... for the next three years.
Look. In the past, I’ve compared Wikipedia to a public park, a library, and even called it a temple for the mind. You have shown me that it is none of those things.
Kids don’t sit on the playground trying to figure out what wicker is made out of, nobody goes to a library to find out how many Step Ups there’ve been, and there is certainly nobody in the history of religion who has gone to a temple to try to recall if Walker, Texas Ranger had a spinoff. Sons of Thunder, It lasted six episodes.
So forget useful. If Wikipedia helps you waste your life on the internet, take one minute from your very important query about the name of that drunk puppet lady in the carousel on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and keep us ad-free for another year.
Please. Help us forget fundraising so we can get back to figuring out why on earth we gave you this key to the knowledge of the universe.
And, to save you the trouble, her name was Lady Elaine Fairchilde.
See? Chuckles. Anyway, enjoy your week. Enjoy Wikipedia, and because I’m sure you’re like, “Yeah, wait, what did that crazy puppet lady look like? She was wild,”
here you go:
Sending love!
Julian