Wikipedia in culture

An xkcd webcomic entitled "Wikipedian Protester." The protester is holding a sign reading "[Citation Needed]", a notice used on Wikipedia articles.

References to Wikipedia in culture have increased as more people learn about and use the online encyclopedia project. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with characters vandalising or modifying articles. Still others feature characters using the references as a source, or positively comparing a character's intelligence to Wikipedia. Also, the encyclopedia many times is not used as an encyclopedia at all, but instead serves more as a character trait or even as a game. Wikipedia has also become culturally significant with many individuals seeing the presence of a Wikipedia entry as a status symbol.

Incidents

Landmark

Date	Nature	Country (of origin)	Title
November 10, 2004	article	United States	"I Must Take Issue With The Wikipedia Entry For 'Weird Al' Yankovic", the Onion.
2005	promotion	Australia	Jericho ads
May 7, 2005	comic strip	United States	FoxTrot
2006	commercial	England	Cisco Systems: Human Network Anthem
March 1, 2006	TV show (satirical)	United States	The Colbert Report, episode 58
April 14, 2006	novel	United Kingdom	The Righteous Men, Sam Bourne
August 12, 2006	music video	United States	"White & Nerdy" music video, by "Weird Al" Yankovic
January 18, 2007	sitcom	United States	30 Rock: "The Head and the Hair"
March 17, 2007	TV show (satirical)	United Kingdom	Bremner, Bird and Fortune
April 22, 2007	TV show (sport)	United States	SportsCenter
May 31, 2007	Non-fiction	United States	It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News, Drew Curtis
June 11, 2007	commercial demo	United States	Apple iPhone, Apple Inc.
August 3, 2007	play	United States	The Wikipedia Plays
September 3, 2007	magazine	United Kingdom	Official Nintendo Magazine, Issue 21
July 23, 2009	radio (satirical)	United Kingdom	Bigipedia
August 11, 2010	sitcom	United States	Hot in Cleveland: "Good Luck Faking The Goiter"

Title	Description	Relevance
I Must Take Issue With The Wikipedia Entry For 'Weird Al' Yankovic	In an article from The Onion, the character Larry Groznic writes an article about how he was banned from Wikipedia for starting an edit war on the "Weird Al" Yankovic page, and goes on to criticize the content on the said page.	Having taken place well before the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy, it was one of the first major parodies.
FoxTrot	File:Foxtrot wikipedia.png	First appearance of Wikipedia in a syndicated comic strip.
The Colbert Report, episode 58	Arianna Huffington challenges host Stephen Colbert on his claim that he had coined the word "truthiness". She cited Wikipedia, claiming that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert, in character, responded: "Fuck them."	First nationally-broadcast television program to mention Wikipedia.
The Colbert Report, episode 93	Colbert refers to Wikipedia as his source of information for research on Sigmund Freud. With his normal sarcastic and deadpan delivery, Colbert's segment "The Wørd" mocked Wikipedia's sometimes-questionable information with the screen posting "Even the accurate parts."	Colbert's first scripted reference to Wikipedia, a lead into his "Wikiality" piece.
Global Language Monitor	Global Language Monitor, which tracks trends in languages, named wikiality and truthiness the top T.V. buzzwords for 2006. Shortly after the episode aired, a fan-created Wikipedia parody site opened at Wikiality.com, inspired by the term. On October 19, 2006, the term was mentioned again on the show, this time with Wikiality.com given as the url for Wikipedia.
"White & Nerdy"	The character who is implied to be the nerd says that editing Wikipedia is one of his nerdy activities. In the video, Al is shown editing the article Atlantic Records by typing in large letters YOU SUCK. Thus Al takes revenge on the record company for refusing to let him include "You're Pitiful," a parody of James Blunt's song "You're Beautiful", on his new album. This has prompted copycat vandalism of the Atlantic Records page, which resulted in the page's being semi-protected. Yankovic has said "I don't officially approve of [the vandalism], but on a certain level it does amuse me."	This may be the first time a music video showed the website, as well as the first time a song mentioned the website. The song was also Yankovic's first career Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It reached #1 at the U.S. iTunes Store, and peaked at #1 on VH1's top 20 video countdown.
Barenaked Ladies Are Me	The track "Home" gives a reference to Wikipedia in the line "I showed her my Wikipedia page".	First appearance of Wikipedia in a Barenaked Ladies song.
Tar Baby	Australian songwriter, Carolyn Shine's 2009 track 'Tar Baby' refers to Wikipedia in the line: "If it's all about supply and demand, I don't know which one of us is needier. 'What's a Tar Baby?' I hear you ask. Look it up for yourself in Wikipedia.".	May be the first documented use of 'Wikipedia' rhymed in a song lyric.
Jericho ads	Following Jericho episodes on Network 10 in Australia, a promotion would appear encouraging viewers to log onto Wikipedia and search for "Jericho (tv series)" for proof of the hype and theories surrounding the show.	This is the first station advertisement to encourage people to search Wikipedia for their product.
Cisco Systems	A TV advertisement for Cisco Systems shows a young child with a laptop, the Wikipedia logo clearly visible on the screen. Part of their "Human Network Anthem" ad campaign.	First television advertisement showing Wikipedia as part of the plot line.
30 Rock	While Tracy Jordan, James "Toofer" Spurlock and Frank Rossitano are working to complete Jordan's autobiography within a single day, Rossitano finds Jordan's Wikipedia article while using the Internet on his laptop. The article says Jordan was discovered after doing stand-up comedy at the Apollo Theater in 1984, and Jordan, though stating he has no recollection of this, tells the two to add it to the book.	First sitcom series reference.
Bremner, Bird and Fortune	A sketch about the 10 most popular, yet unread books, featuring a voice over talking about the plots of the books, which seem to constantly refer to aliens. At the end of the sketch it says that the information came from Wikipedia.	First mention in a British satirical comedy programme.
SportsCenter	After citing a stat about Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt, anchor Kenny Mayne jokingly gave credit to Wikipedia for providing the number.	First recorded reference from a sports highlight show.
The Righteous Men	In the 2006 Da Vinci Code-style novel The Righteous Men, Wikipedia features as an academic style encyclopedia.	First known reference in fictional literature.
It's Not News, It's FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News	This book, which examines media bias, mainly about stories which do not count as news, Curtis writes: "Incidentally, one of the more surprising things I discovered while researching the articles for this book is that a number of them exactly mirrored a Wikipedia entry on the same subject. I didn't find any exact copies of Wikipedia in the articles in this book, but the structure often was the same and used the same citations in the same places. If I had to guess, I'd say that half of all the "original" articles covered in this book are Wikipedia entry rewrites. If not more. It certainly makes me wonder about the rest of the articles I didn't research. Wikipedia accuracy concerns aside, that's just not cool. Or perhaps that's how the Wikipedia articles were generated in the first place. Due to the obscurity of certain details in some of the articles, and the fact that none of those details showed up in a Google search on the same subject, I am more inclined to believe reporters borrow heavily from Wikipedia, and not the other way around."	First known appearance in a book criticising the mass media, referencing Wikipedia.
Apple Inc. iPhone	In the demonstration for the iPhone's internet capabilities, the Wikipedia page for the iPod is shown, along with a link in the user's bookmarks.	First known reference in a multinational product demonstration by a Media Conglomerate.
The Wikipedia Plays	Seventeen short plays, inspired by Wikipedia entries.	First play known to highlight Wikipedia.
The Colbert Report, episode 302	On August 21, 2007, Colbert attacked WikiScanner, a website that tracks down people who make anonymous edits on Wikipedia, claiming that it is an invasion of privacy, particularly for corporations, and that it attacks "Self-invention". He highlighted a case where Pepsi edited their entry by removing "Long-term health effects" from their article. This resulted in his "Wørd" being "Self-Determination", claiming that everyone on the internet should be anonymous and should not be forced to give away their true identity. Colbert later described Wikipedia as "Second Life for corporations," saying if a corporation wants to pretend to be someone else online, then that is their business.	First nationally-broadcast television program to mention WikiScanner.
Bigipedia	Bigipedia is a BBC Radio 4 sketch show set on a website which is a parody of Wikipedia.	First nationally-broadcast radio program devoted to parodying Wikipedia.
Hot in Cleveland	In the episode "Good Luck Faking The Goiter", Victoria Chase (Wendie Malick) mentions that she has a Wikipedia page and has to keep changing it because posters keep getting her age wrong.	First time that a fictional character (and the first fictional female character) on a television series admitting to having created their own Wikipedia page and the first time a fictional character admitted to having to make corrections on their own page.

Wikiality

See also: Truth by consensus and Cultural impact of The Colbert Report § Wikipedia references

In a July 2006 episode of the satirical comedy The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert announced the neologism wikiality, a portmanteau of the words Wiki and reality, for his segment "The Wørd". Colbert defined wikiality as "truth by consensus" (rather than fact), modeled after the approval-by-consensus format of Wikipedia. He ironically praised Wikipedia for following his philosophy of truthiness, in which intuition and consensus is a better reflection of reality than fact:

You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true. ... If only the entire body of human knowledge worked this way. And it can, thanks to tonight's word: Wikiality. Now, folks, I'm no fan of reality, and I'm no fan of encyclopedias. I've said it before. Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington had slaves? If I want to say he didn't, that's my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact. We should apply these principles to all information. All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true. ... What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge.

According to Stephen Colbert, together "we can all create a reality that we all can agree on; the reality that we just agreed on." During the segment, he joked: "I love Wikipedia... any site that's got a longer entry on truthiness than on Lutherans has its priorities straight." Colbert also used the segment to satirize the more general issue of whether the repetition of statements in the media leads people to believe they are true. The piece was introduced with the tagline "The Revolution Will Not Be Verified", referencing the lack of objective verification seen in some articles.

Colbert suggested that viewers change the elephant page to state that the number of African elephants has tripled in the last six months. The suggestion resulted in numerous incorrect changes to Wikipedia articles related to elephants and Africa.^[1] Wikipedia administrators subsequently restricted edits to the pages by anonymous and newly created user accounts.

Colbert went on to type on a laptop facing away from the camera, claiming to be making the edits to the pages himself. In addition, initial edits to Wikipedia corresponding to these claimed "facts" were made by a user named Stephencolbert. Thus, many believe Colbert himself vandalized several Wikipedia pages at the time he was encouraging other users to do the same. The account, whether it was Stephen Colbert himself or someone posing as him, has been blocked from Wikipedia indefinitely. Wikipedia blocked the account not for the vandalism (as believed), but for violating Wikipedia's username policies, which state that using the names of celebrities as login names without permission is inappropriate. The account was confirmed to be his later that week, but remains blocked.

Other instances

In comics

See also: Wikipedia:Wikipedia in comics

Date	Title	Notes
December 16, 2005	Penny Arcade	Skeletor is vandalizing the Wikipedia article of his arch-enemy He-Man under the title of "I have the power".
August 16, 2006	52, Week 15	Fictional "Ballostro" article. Clark Kent is told by his assistant that they can "wiki out the word rumoured" upon seeing it attack Metropolis.
September 7, 2006	FoxTrot	Thomas Edison article.
April 20, 2007	Get Fuzzy	Bucky Katt looks at a vanity article about himself and his fictitious album, and shows the "evidence" to Satchel Pooch.
April 29, 2007	Non Sequitur	Danae introduces Lucy the horse to Wikipedia, by editing the site to note her fictitious win for "Most Brilliant and Beautious Girl". Lucy complains, but is satisfied when Danae adds a prize for "Most Beautious Horse".
July 2007	The Order #1 (Marvel Comics)	The lead character mentions the Wikipedia as describing him as a "one-time actor".
September 12, 2007	The Amazing Spider-Girl #12	The title character mentions that she gained knowledge of Carnage and his weaknesses through Wikipedia.
September 12, 2007	Thor #601	The well-known Marvel super-villain called Doctor Doom appears to have utilized Wikipedia, commenting to the assembled Asgardians during the feast in Latveria that even he had not even known what a "winkle" was until he looked it up in Wikipedia.
November 20, 2007	The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee	Edison Lee, the title character mentions that on Wikipedia US President Ronald Reagan was known as the Teflon President to his assistant Joules. (This term doesn't actually appear in the Ronald Reagan article, it appears in Teflon (nickname)).
July 23, 2008	Ambush Bug: Year None #1	Ambush Bug says he used "Wokipedia" to look up Hugey Huge/Abdul Smith of the Green Team.
October 14, 2009	Deadpool #900	While in the middle of an assassination mission, Deadpool has a fourth wall-breaking conversation with his inner voices in which he discusses his own fanbase, noting that as of that writing, his own Wikipedia entry was longer than that of Spider-Man.
November 23, 2009	Pearls Before Swine	Rat questions Stephan Pastis (the creator of the strip) about past events in Stephan's life. When Stephan refutes these claims, Rat says he got them from Stephan's Wikipedia article. These changes were later mirrored in real life before being reverted.

In television episodes

See also: Wikipedia:Wikipedia on TV and radio

Date	Title	Notes
January 29, 2007	The Colbert Report	Colbert did a segment on an attempt by Microsoft to hire writers to skew certain Wikipedia articles in their favor, ending with a call by Colbert to change the Wikipedia article on "truth" to the phrase "Truth has become a commodity" and offering a $5 cash reward to the first viewer to do so.
October 14, 2007	The Simpsons: "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"	Snake tells his girlfriend to kill the man who changed his biography on Wikipedia.
November 25, 2007	The Simpsons: "Funeral for a Fiend"	Sideshow Bob complains about loading time as he looks up a Shakespeare reference on Wikipedia.
April 27, 2008	The Simpsons: "Apocalypse Cow"	Bart argues with Homer using Wikipedia; Homer plans to edit the page (...and many more pages).
February 10, 2008	Aqua Teen Hunger Force: "Reedickyoulus"	Frylock curses Wikipedia after believing false information pertaining to killing zombies.
October 2, 2007	Cavemen: "Pilot"	In the premier episode of the commercial-turned-sitcom, Andy blames his inability to work on his dissertation on the fact that "Wikipedia is under construction."
August 4, 2007	Psych: "And Down The Stretch Comes Murder"	In the episode "And Down The Stretch Comes Murder", when Shawn is explaining his theory of the crime, Gus weighs in with a factoid about an obscure indigenous tribe. Shawn applauds Gus' knowledge of the subject with the line, "Gus shoots and scores! ...with an assist from Wikipedia."
August 4, 2007	Grand Slam	Michelle Kitt is asked the question, "The Hawaiian word for 'quick' is prominently featured in the name of which online encyclopedia?" She answers, "Wiki...Wikipedia" and is judged incorrect.
January 23, 2007	Veronica Mars: "Show Me the Monkey"	The television show references Wikipedia in the episode when Veronica looks up the origins of the color manila.
February 23, 2008	iCarly: "iHatch Chicks	Freddie goes to a site that is a pun off of Wikipedia, called Chickipedia, to find information on baby chicks
February 1, 2007	The Office: "Ben Franklin"	Jim, having heard Michael mention prima nocta, says that he used Wikipedia to confirm his suspicions over the term's meaning.
February 18, 2007	American Dad!: "Black Mystery Month"	After uncovering a plot involving peanut butter and the Civil War, Stan Smith says "If only there was a place where you could make outrageous claims, without any proof, and millions of people would accept it as fact...", and the episode cuts to his son Steve editing The Truth about Peanut Butter.
April 5, 2007	The Office: "The Negotiation"	For salary negotiations with Darryl, Michael gets negotiations help from Wikipedia. He then states in an interview that "Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information." As a result of the episode, Wikipedia had to lock-down editing of the Negotiation article.
May 24, 2007	The Colbert Report, episode 265	Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales appears as a guest on the show hosted by Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. They discuss Colbert's vandalism of Wikipedia and his telling of his viewers to vandalize various pages. Several articles, such as oxygen, librarian and Stephen Colbert were locked to prevent vandalism shortly after the episode aired. On the show, Wales jokes that he may have to lock down the entire Spanish-language Wikipedia for a few days because of Colbert's comment that perhaps it should learn English.
May 25, 2007	Real Time with Bill Maher	Maher jokingly claims to have used Wikipedia in researching the misdeeds of past U.S. presidents to find examples that support Jimmy Carter's assertion that the George W. Bush administration is the worst in history.
August 5, 2007	News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald, episode 7	McDonald says that "Wikipedia is one of the most trusted websites in the world" and that, according to its entry on itself, Wikipedia was founded by Ken Dodd in 1673.
September 10, 2007	The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	The host Jon Stewart and the night's guest, Jeff Garlin, jokes about Wikipedia's volatility, and mentions that guest's article on Wikipedia are being hacked by his family and friends. Jeff Garlin finishes off by saying that Wikipedia should not be taken seriously.
September 26, 2007	Dancing with the Stars (US season 5)	On an episode which aired on September 26, 2007, a satirical mini-documentary was featured in the show exploring the history of dance. The fake history of dance was concluded with the phrase, "You can look it up - I just made an entry in Wikipedia."
September 30, 2007	Frisky Dingo, episode 19	Xander Crews attempts to look up whether or not the Vice President of the United States is VP of both the United States and Canada, on Wikipedia.
October 2, 2007	Damages, episode 10	Patty Hewes tells Ray Fiske she has a lot of questions for Arthur Frobisher to which Fiske replies "That's what Wikipedia's for."
October 12, 2007	Have I Got News for You, episode 282	In the "Odd One Out" round, Ian Hislop mentions a case of vandalism involving the late Ronnie Hazelhurst. Hislop, who described Wikipedia sarcastically as, "That reliable tool for all of us," talked about how someone vandalised Hazelhurst's article so it claimed he wrote the S Club 7 song "Reach". When he died, journalists failed to check the fact, and it was reported as fact in The Times, The Guardian and by the BBC, which was made worse by the fact that the BBC had been in trouble for faking some TV programmes.
October 20, 2007	Have I Got a bit More News for You, episode 283	Ian Hislop again attacks Wikipedia, in the extended repeat of the episode shown the night before, but was cut out of the original broadcast. When host Alexander Armstrong is trying to pronounce a Serbian name, Hislop says, "It's like Wikipedia, ain't it? You just wait for it to come up." He then pretended to download an essay on Serbia from Wikipedia and hand it in, commenting on how some students plagiarise using Wikipedia.
November 2, 2007	Have I Got News for You, episode 285	When guest presenter Jo Brand is introducing comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton, she says, "And with Paul Merton tonight is a full-time professional English darts player, whose nickname is "The Hammer" and who is currently ranked seventh in the world. I know, I was surprised as well, but I looked him up on Wikipedia."
November 3, 2007	QI	In an interview with The Times, QI's creator John Lloyd says, "'We don't deny using Wikipedia. It's a thing of complete genius and a tribute to the human spirit.'" However, the article goes on to say that, "they have a rule against cutting and pasting Wiki anything, and an old-fashioned minimum of at least two sources for anything that goes in a QI programme or book."
December 6, 2007	Scrubs: "My Number One Doctor"	One of Dr.Cox's patients is scheduled for chemotherapy to treat his cancer, but wants to back out because he used his laptop to look up the condition on Wikipedia and the article said a raw vegetable diet can lead to remission. Cox confronts him on this, questioning the reliability of the claim, given that it was written by the same person who wrote the Battlestar Galaticia episode guide. He then takes away the patient's laptop and tells him he will proceed with the treatment.
May 21, 2008	Through the Keyhole	When the guest panelists were attempting to guess the identity of Angelica Bell and suggested (incorrectly) that she might be best known for her acting, Sir David Frost said "in Wikipedia, it wouldn't say acting"
June 9, 2008	The Colbert Report	Reacting to John McLaughlin's statement that "Warren G. Harding was a negro", Colbert suggested that the G. stood not for 'Gamaliel', but for 'Gangsta' (and showed a fake screenshot of Wikipedia appearing to say this). The article was repeatedly vandalised to say 'Warren Gangsta Harding' before being locked.
September 29, 2008	Chuck	In the second season premiere, Vik Sahay's character Lester mentions a Wikipedia article about himself on his resume while being interviewed by Chuck for the assistant manager position at the Buy More.
October 23, 2008	The Office: "Crime Aid"	Michael indicates that it is unknown how much crime takes place in the office because there is no Wikipedia entry on Office robbery statistics. Since the episode aired, statistics were indeed added to the Wikipedia article "Office".
November 23, 2008	Dexter: "About Last Night"	After a discussion of sexual topics with vice unit detective Barbara Gianna, Masuka comments to Batista that Gianna is "like the Wikipedia of perv".
January 21, 2009	Law & Order:	A murder suspect is arrested based upon vandalistic edits made to a Wikipedia article on a (fictional) college sorority. The man has been killing family members of former sorority members and harassing the members themselves, the person arrested is tracked by his IP address.
January 22, 2009	30 Rock: "Retreat to Move Forward"	Frank Rossitano, as a prank on Jenna Maroney who is researching her upcoming role as Janis Joplin, makes numerous vandalistic edits to Joplin's page and recommends that Jenna use Wikipedia for her research.
March 15, 2009	The Simpsons: "Gone Maggie Gone"	Comic Book Guy mentions Wikipedia as a source for his legends.
September 10, 2009	Mock The Week: Series 7, Episode 10	In the "Scenes we'd like to see" round, the panel have to suggest "Bad things to hear from a tour guide". Ed Byrne suggests: "And according to Wikipedia, the east wing was built in the year Dougie is a homo."
September 15, 2009	Warehouse 13: Season 1, Episode 11	When mentioning Edgar Allan Poe, Artie pulls out what seems to be a Wikipedia article on the man.
September 21, 2009	Would I Lie To You?: Series 3, Episode 7	In the introduction to the show, host Rob Brydon said: "When asked if lying is justified, a staggering 73% of university students simply copied their answer from Wikipedia."
November 12, 2009	FlashForward: Season 1, Episode 8	The introduction of Sperm donation—as it appeared from July 8 – October 11, 2009—was referenced by a character considering the process. While the screen was altered slightly to say that it was from "www.referendium.com", the style and content were unaltered.
November 22, 2009	The Amazing Race: Season 15, Episode 9	One team in the race uses the English language version of Wikipedia to learn what a vintage Praga car was before having to search for it in Prague.
November 29, 2009	The Simpsons: "Rednecks and Broomsticks"	After discovering a coven of witches, Lisa attempts to learn more about them by using "Wiccapedia".
December 22, 2009	Mock the Week: Series 7 Christmas Special	In a round of "If This is the Answer, What is the Question?", the answer "One Fifth" resulting in regular panellist Hugh Dennis giving the question, "How much of Wikipedia is true?" This results in host Dara Ó Briain and another regular, Russell Howard, talking about inaccuracies on their own articles, and third regular Frankie Boyle to suggest that all Wikipedia articles should start with the words "I reckon". Following broadcast, Boyle and Howard's articles were repeatedly vandalised to include further inaccuracies and inclusions of "I reckon", leading to the articles being locked.
January 5, 2010	Who Wants to Be a Millionaire:	A contestant answered the $12,500 question "What Web site's logo depicts a spherical jigsaw puzzle featuring symbols from different languages?" correctly.
January 27, 2010	Tosh.0:	Host Daniel Tosh told viewers, "So why don't you go to our Tosh.0 'boring' wikipedia page and put whatever you want. I'm not gonna fix it." The result was numerous changes made to the Tosh.0 wikipedia article, culminating in the page being blocked from editing a few hours after the show aired. All entries from that date, factual and not, were deleted by Wikipedia personnel rather than simply being revised. Other wikipedia articles, such as Conan O'Brien, Demetri Martin, and Jay Leno, were also affected. Tosh read some of the humurous revisions made to the article the following week on his show, and proceeded to apologize to Wikipedia for the mayhem he started. The Tosh.0 page, however, remains blocked.
February 12, 2010	QI: "Gravity"	Host Stephen Fry says that if you fire a bullet from a gun and drop a bullet from your hand at the same time, they will both hit the ground at exactly the same time, prompting panellist Barry Humphries to ask "Does this information come from Wikipedia?"
April 8, 2009	Have I Got News for You: series 39, episode 2	Introducing guest panellist Richard Herring, guest host Alexander Armstrong describes him as "a man described by Wikipedia as one of the leading hidden masters of British comedy. Proving how easy it is to write your own entry on Wikipedia."
April 11, 2010	The Cleveland Show: "Gone With the Wind"	At Loretta Brown's funeral, the minister reads from Wikipedia that Loretta Brown was either a singer or a member of the Australian Parliament, then ends by saying "Ci-ta-tion neeed-ed" in a ritualized tone.
May 30, 2010	The Boondocks: "Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy"	When Huey Freeman wants to know who is after his family, he said that "while desperate for answers, he would turn to the only place that may tell them what they need, Wikipedia". He then accessed a website which is a visual and content pun of Wikipedia.
June 6, 2010	Breaking Bad: "Half Measures"	Skyler is researching money laundering, with closeups of the Wikipedia article shown on screen.
June 22, 2010	Mongrels: "Series 1, Episode 1"	Earlier in the episode, Nelson the metrosexual fox kills a chicken that tried to kill him by cutting her head off. Kali the pigeon says that on according to Wikipedia, a chicken can live for over a year without its head. Nelson claims you cannot trust Wikipedia, then turns around to find the headless chicken still alive and trying to kill him.
July 18, 2010	The Boondocks: "Mr. Medicinal"	When Robert Freeman is in a trail for posession of weed and driving under it's influences, he claims that Obama has made it legal, then the judge searches on wikipedia if the weed is legal to prove him wrong.
August 11, 2010	Hot in Cleveland: "Good Luck Faking The Goiter"	After Elka Orstrosky (Betty White) helps Victoria Chase (Wendie Malick) learn about a disease she was trying to fake in a effort to receive votes for a Daytime Emmy Award by spreading a rumor, only to find out that the disease does exist, she asks her fellow roommates Melanie Moretti (Valerie Bertinelli) and Joy Scroggs (Jane Leeves) where Elka went because Elka looked it up in Wikipedia. Victoria also reveals that she has a Wikipedia page and she has to change it numerous times because they keep getting her age wrong.
September 13, 2010	Haven: "Fur"	Jessica Minnion mentions learning Mi'kmaq hieroglyphs from a Wikipedia article.
November 11, 2010	The Big Bang Theory: "The 21-Second Excitation"	Amy consults Wikipedia for information on Slumber parties, having never previously been to one.
November 23, 2010	How Not to Live Your Life: "Don Meets His Maker"	Don uses Wikipedia to fool Samantha into believing he has a fatal disease, creating a badly written fake article on the disease.
January 5, 2011	The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Comedy Central	During an interview with Wikipedia "volunteer" Jimmy Wales, Stewart claimed he was in fact, Batman; Wales responded with laughter and suggested that Wikipedia administrators would correct and lock Stewart's page. Quickly, the online community responded, editing Stewart's page to represent his claim to be Batman. Wikipedia administrators responded by correcting the changes and locking Stewart's page.

In the Radio

Date	Title	Notes	Relevance
November 4, 2006	Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!	Jimmy Wales played the "Not My Job" game (renamed for the occasion "It must be true... I read it on Wikipedia"). He is asked three questions about Wikipedia trivia on the Banana Splits discography and Bob Marley, Constance of Sicily and Esera Tuaolo. Wales recalls the Banana Splits with fondness and then proceeds to get all three questions wrong. The show, in general, will often pull details for the show from Wikipedia, stating humorously, "If it's on Wikipedia, it must be true."	First reference to Wikipedia in a radio series.
June 15, 2007	The News Quiz - BBC	Alan Coren referred to mistakes made on Wikipedia. He later said that he once saw a mistake on his article that stated he was a year younger than he was, but he liked the error as it made him look younger. As a result, he said that whenever someone corrects the article, he set the year wrong again to make him look younger again. As a result, the article was locked after the show was broadcast.
July 24, 2007	The Wikipedia Story - BBC	Clive Anderson asks whether Wikipedia is a valuable source of human knowledge or a symptom of the spread of mediocrity. This was also made into a podcast between 27 July and 3 August by the BBC.
June 20, 2008	The News Quiz - BBC	Carrie Quinlan gave out a lot of information which the other panellists did not understand. She later claimed that she got the information from Wikipedia. Jeremy Hardy and Andy Hamilton claimed that the word "Wikipedia" sounded rude, with Hamilton claiming that it was, "A sexual attraction to baskets."
October 7, 2008	The Party Line: Series 3, Episode 1 - BBC	In the episode, Duncan Stonebridge MP's laptop computer is stolen, which contains data relating to fishing quotas. Before he talks to an Icelandic fishing minister, Duncan's assistant Roger gives him some information copied from Wikipedia, which turns out to be wrong. The fishing minister comments that it sounds like Duncan just took the information from Wikipedia.	First known reference to Wikipedia in a radio sitcom.
December 5, 2008	The Now Show: Series 25, Episode 2 - BBC	Jon Holmes talked about the lack of reliability of online surveys saying that not everything on the internet is true. He said that, "This is the same internet that hosts Wikipedia", and Holmes read some examples of vandalism that he discovered on the site. In the following two shows, fans emailed in other examples of Wikipedia vandalism.
December 5, 2008	Heresy: Series 5, Episode 6 - BBC Radio 4	The show guest panel, Euan Ferguson, Clive James and David Mitchell tried to argue against the statement: "You can't trust what you read online." Wikipedia is covered by the panel and the host Victoria Coren reads out information from the guests Wikipedia pages to see if it is true.

In postal items

On January 14 2011, Israel Postal Company chose to commemorate Wikipedia's 10th Anniversary by issuing a special postmark and a Souvenir Leaf. These were the world's first Wikipedia-related postal items. As is customary on Wikipedia, the Souvenir Leaf, postmark and the text on the back of the souvenir leaf were created by a collaboration of volunteers. The design of the postmark was based on the work of "MT0", a Wikipedia editor.

Contextual

Citations of Wikipedia in culture

In the Homestar Runner cartoon No Hands On Deck!, Homestar Runner mentions that "'Wikipedia said vulcanized was the way to go" in reference to the type of nails used to build a deck. At the time the cartoon was released, the Wikipedia article on decks made no reference to nails or vulcanization.

The cartoon FoxTrot features Peter being criticized by his teacher for copying a homework assignment directly from Wikipedia. Peter replies, "Who's to say I didn't write the Wikipedia entry myself?"

During a debate on Quebec sovereignty in the Canadian House of Commons on November 27, 2006, Conservative Member of Parliament Scott Reid mentioned Wikipedia.

In the July 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine, an article on swarm intelligence, both in nature and as a method used by humans, mentions Wikipedia as an example.

The British satirical magazine Private Eye has a section entitled "Wikipedia Whispers", which uncovers stories about how Wikipedia entries are altered. Stories include examples of how people have altered their own articles to make themselves look better, and vandalism on Wikipedia that becomes reported as fact.

Hip hop artist Pharoahe Monch mentions Wikipedia in the song "Welcome to the Terrordome" from his 2007 album, Desire. The lyrics are: "Take a walk through all this misplaced media / They got my name spelled wrong on Wikipedia."

In Volume 6 of the Canadian comic book series Scott Pilgrim, after the main antagonists injures one of the principal characters, Ramona Flowers, a character in a crowd, wondering if Ramona had died, stated that he was updating her Wikipedia page at that moment.

Wikipedia, [...] to an academic, might represent peer review on steroids.

— Andrew George, JD candidate at University of Virginia School of Law, from a sociopsychology academic paper

Various people including Jeremy Clarkson, Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stump, Mitch Albom and Marcus Brigstocke have criticized Wikipedia's articles about themselves.

Inaccuracies on Wikipedia in culture

Wikipedia was satirized in The Onion with a front-page article ("Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence", July 2006), alluding to perceptions that the publicly editable site is an unreliable source of information.

In the 2007 Lyttle Lytton Contest, in which the object is to come up with an opening sentence for a novel, a phrase from the article on Fukutsuru ("Fukutsuru died in 2005 but his frozen sperm lived on for people's benefit") won the prize in Found category.

The CollegeHumor staff posted the video "Professor Wikipedia" as part of the CollegeHumor original videos on September 16, 2008; the video satirized many aspects of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia as a character trait

In 2006, commenting to The New York Times on the demands on Central Intelligence Agency analysts to produce instant information, John E. McLaughlin, former acting U.S. Director of Central Intelligence, stated, "intelligence analysts end up being the Wikipedia of Washington".

An altmuslim.com review of a new television series, Sleeper Cell, about terrorists noted that the characters routinely gave detailed background of events in the history of Islam and stated, "no one, and I assume even terrorists, talks like a walking Wikipedia."

Miscellaneous

Wikipedia is parodied at several websites, including Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatica.

In the July 2006 issue of Mad, in the Fundalini pages section there was a short joke with a mock picture of Wikipedia called "WonkyPedia". WonkyPedia featured its own logo, in which the letters on the puzzle globe were replaced with MAD characters and the letters M A D. The article shown was on Lincoln's assassination. The URL followed the appropriate pattern: "http://en.wonkypedia.org/wonky/". The same parody returned in the next issue as "Wakipedia". The phrase it advertised was "The Free Encyclopedia (you get what you pay for!)".

Likewise, CRACKED.com, the online publication affiliated with former Mad rival Cracked, has satirized Wikipedia's maintenance templates.

In the American version of the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga, Wikipedia is a selectable mantra, equippable by the game's characters to learn skills. However, it appears it was only a mistranslation made by the translators since the name is not present in the Japanese version.

On the TV show The Loop, Wikipedia was mentioned on one episode.

On the June 5, 2006 episode of The Howard Stern Show, wack packer Eric the Midget called in and complained that his parents had read about a stunt that he did for the show, that involved him measuring his penis, on Wikipedia (which he called "Wackipedia"). Stern read the section of the article regarding penis measuring on the air. Also, Gary Dell'Abate commented on the air he and the Stern Show staff enjoy the picture of Lynch in this article.

In May 2006, British chat show host Paul O'Grady received an inquiry from a viewer regarding information given on his Wikipedia page, to which he responded, "Wikipedia? Sounds like a skin disease."

On the show X-Play, Morgan Webb looked at the Wikipedia article of Point Blank DS, and then looked at the article on their show. After reading it, the logo in the top left corner of the page spoke to Morgan in typical X-Play fashion. It also pointed out that since the show's inception, they have made 337 fart jokes. When asked why it could talk the logo stated that Wikipedia had become self aware in 2004 due to the massive amounts of information provided by the public.

On the E! network program The Soup, during the "Reality Show Clip Time!" segment a clip of Flavor of Love 2 was shown in which someone mentioned Google as a point of research on September 8, 2006, to make fun of this, host Joel McHale said "Well at least it's better than saying 'Wikipedia Wikipedia Wikipedia'" Another time he said he looked up something on Wikipedia and saw a dance.

Something Awful once featured Wikipedia's article on Knuckles the Echidna as an ALOD (Awful Link of the Day), satirizing the amount of detail that sometimes goes into seemingly irrelevant topics. The link description adds that the article at the time was longer than each of the articles about Echidnas, the Internet, the internal combustion engine, William Shakespeare and Western Culture. The topic was also satirized in the front page, which featured a fake Wikipedia style article about Albert "Al" Calavicci from the TV series Quantum Leap written by Something Awful contributor David Thorpe. Thorpe elsewhere linked the existence of such articles to Asperger syndrome, stating "Don't make fun of Aspergers. If it weren't for Aspergers, we wouldn't have 20-page Wikipedia articles about Knuckles the Echidna." Wikipedia was also mocked in a December 4, 2006 update on Something Awful. The update detailed the life of a talk page on Wikipedia, and mocked the neutrality, copyright, naming, quality, and personal disputes that the pages are beholden to. The update also linked Wikipedia usage to Asperger syndrome once more, with one fictional editor claiming to have a case of the syndrome twice as powerful as that of another fictional editor. In a 2007 Awful Link of the Day, a Wikipedia article was featured again, this time on the villains of Codename: Kids Next Door. Once again, it calls out the detail put onto seemingly irrelevant topics, citing a discussion in said article's talk page about the subjectiveness of the speed of certain characters. Something Awful founder Richard Kyanka then mockingly offered to write up a speed comparison of the KND characters Big Badolescent and Cheese Shogun Roquefort, citing a fake episode called "episode 35, 'I Am a 38-Year Old Man With Several Obese Cats and an Empty Life I Futilely Try to Fill With Childrens' Cartoons'".

The comic strip Sally Forth has mentioned Wikipedia a few times.

Comedian Zach Galifianakis claimed to look himself up on Wikipedia in an interview with The Badger Herald, stating about himself, "...I'm looking at Wikipedia right now. Half Greek, half redneck, around 6-foot-4. And that's about it... The 6-foot-4 thing may be a little bit off. Actually, it's 4-foot-6."

In his "pickoff" in which he makes predictions on the winners of NFL games, Peter King said of the Thanksgiving night game between Indianapolis and Atlanta in 2007 "The sleep-inducing qualities of turkey are overrated, as I learned this week on Wikipedia. There is more tryptophan in cheddar cheese than turkey."

The December 3, 2007 episode of Jeopardy! had a category entitled "'ick'-ipedia", where all correct responses contained the letters "ick".

British comedian Eddie Izzard referenced Wikipedia in his 2008 show Stripped, remarking that nobody would join a library in order to find out how to make spoons.

In the film National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Riley uses an online source called Find On-Line, which appears to be a modified Wikipedia page.

In the Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol, a character cites a fictional Wikipedia entry on the character Peter Solomon.

In the James Patterson novel The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, the eponymous character "the contents of Wikipedia" to his classmates.

In the second season premier of the action-comedy series Chuck, Chuck Versus the First Date, Chuck mentions in an "interview" for the Assistant manager job at the BuyMore with Lester as the interviewee that Lester has included in his CV a pasted "Wikipedia entry about yourself, from yourself".

A 2010 television commercial for AT&T high-speed wireless service depicts a high school student looking at Wikipedia's article on the Mayflower (with two of the images visible) while discussing his homework, with all markings identifying the site removed.

Aoi Haru, the end theme of the anime Seitokai Yakuindomo performed by Angela, mentions using the Wikipedia as one of the daily activities of the high school girl portrayed in the song.

A front page parody news article in The Onion made fun of Wikipedia's tendancy to quantify its page views and of its use as a reference source for long-past television series.

The subject of New Zealand musical group Kazaamblam!'s song "Colon/Hyphen" (from their 2010 album Trapezoids Away!) is the search for the meaning of existence using the internet. The lyrics of the chorus include the URL of Wikipedia's article Ultimate fate of the universe.

An article in The Sun derided Wikipedia for including a "List of big-bust models and performers". Quoting an unnamed "company source", the article concluded: "It's every computer geek's dream come true – definitely one of Wikipedia's breast, I mean best, assets".

Wikipedia in web comics

See also: Wikipedia:Wikipedia in webcomics

File:Penny Arcade comic-20051216h.jpg

Penny Arcade satirizes Wikipedia with the scenario of Skeletor vandalizing the He-Man article

On May 7, 2005, the comic strip FoxTrot showed one character appending his older sister to unflattering Wikipedia articles. In a similar joke, the web comic Penny Arcade also satirized Wikipedia with a comic strip depicting Skeletor vandalizing the He-Man article. The web comic PvP featured a similar gag with the character Marcy adding embarrassing information about Francis, though she denies it's vandalism, claiming truth.

On December 12, 2005 comic of UserFriendly, Greg, who is first defending Wikipedia against criticism, is seen about to vandalize Wikipedia after finding out he is listed under "hairy dork".

The November 8, 2006 installment of Dinosaur Comics features T-Rex presenting a solution to Wikipedia's vandalism problems; the article about chickens would be designated for vandalism, leaving all other articles intact.

A Bunny strip which features Wikipedia includes a tombstone which reads: "RIP Jeph Jacques" with the bottom caption: "The Moral of the story is you cannot always trust what you read on Wikipedia."

Questionable Content references Wikipedia several times. Hannelore, a character who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, cut most of her hair off after reading Wikipedia's article on head lice. Wikipedia was also referenced when Penelope, a character who is bitter against romance, stated that her edits to the De Beers entry kept getting reverted (she attempted to add a conspiracy theory to the article suggesting that the company had subverted humanity's mating drive in order to sell more diamonds). Wikipedia was also parodied, taking the form of a mock product similar to SpaghettiOs.

Applegeeks has jokingly referred to Wikipedia as a replacement for traditional education twice.

xkcd first published a comic showing a protester holding up a placard during a political rally that says "[CITATION NEEDED]", mimicking the wikipedian Citation Needed template used to request a citation for an unsupported statement. The tooltip of the comic, often part of the joke, shows the additional comment "SEMI-PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION". Numerous references to wikipedia have been made in xkcd since then.

The webcomic PartiallyClips criticised Wikipedia's supposed policy of deleting many articles on webcomics.

Roadkill Bill has a comic mocking Wikipedia.

Ethan in Shortpacked! often describes edit wars he is involved in regarding the Transformers articles on Wikipedia.

George of Bob and George once used Wikipedia to research The First Annual Robot Tournament (a plot element from Mega Man 6) after being told his brother, Bob, was killed during it, but found no information. Later, however, Mega Man researches the subject and finds detailed information has been added. This article is then used as a plot device in following comics as the characters read about the events being depicted.

Diesel Sweeties comic #1831 shows the Red Robot swearing "on the Wikipedia's entry for 'Honor'" to not kill anyone, and then later editing the page. In addition, comic #2036 is entitled "This article about my love life is a stub. You can help 'sexipedia' by expanding it." In this comic, Metal Steve asks Lil' Sis if she remembers losing her virginity. Her response is, "What am I, Wikipedia?"

Claims of negative impact

Wikipedia has also been criticized for encouraging what Andrew Keen called the "Cult of the Amateur", resulting in toleration and enjoyment of lowerbrow culture.

See also

• Truth in Numbers? Everything, According to Wikipedia
• Wikipedia in the media

Notes

1. ^ "Loxodonta", "African Forest Elephant", "African Bush Elephant", "Pachydermata", "Babar the Elephant", "Elephant", "Oregon",
   "George Washington", "Latchkey kid", "Serial killer", "Hitler", "The Colbert Report" and "Stephen Colbert" are/were temporarily protected. "Mûmak" (formerly at "Oliphaunt") has also been vandalized.