Encyclopedia Dramatica

Encyclopedia Dramatica (often abbreviated ED[4] and æ) is a parody-themed wiki website launched on December 10, 2004, that uses MediaWiki software[5] to lampoon encyclopedia topics and current events, especially those related or relevant to contemporary Internet culture. It often serves as a repository of information and a means of discussion for the internet subculture known as Anonymous.[6] This NSFW Internet site celebrates a subversive "trolling culture",[7][8] and documents Internet memes, culture, and events, such as mass organized pranks, trolling events, "raids", large-scale failures of Internet security, and criticism of Internet communities which are accused of self-censorship in order to garner prestige or positive coverage from traditional and established media outlets. The site has been described as hosting numerous pornographic images, and content that is "misogynistic, racist, and homophobic".[9]

Encyclopædia Dramatica
Screenshot
Encyclopædia Dramatica's front page on August 6, 2019.
Type of site
Wiki, forums and parody
Available inEnglish
Created bySherrod DeGrippo[1]
RevenueAdvertising and donations
URLhttps://encyclopediadramatica.wiki
Alexa rank 186,748 (As of 5 June 2020)[2]
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional (required to edit pages)
LaunchedDecember 10, 2004 (2004-12-10)[1][3]
Current statusOnline

Journalist Julian Dibbell described Encyclopædia Dramatica as the site "where the vast parallel universe of Anonymous in-jokes, catchphrases, and obsessions is lovingly annotated, and you will discover an elaborate trolling culture: Flamingly racist, homophobic and misogynistic content lurks throughout, all of it calculated to offend."[7] The site is known for its pervasive clickbait advertisements - in addition to having almost no rules. Ninemsn described Encyclopædia Dramatica as:

Wikipedia's evil twin. It's a site where almost every article is biased, offensive, unsourced, and without the faintest trace of political correctness. A search through its archives will reveal animated images of people committing suicide, articles glorifying extreme racism and sexism, and a seemingly endless supply of twisted, shocking views on just about every major human tragedy in history.[4]

On April 14, 2011, the original URL of the site was redirected to a new website named "Oh Internet" that bore little resemblance to Encyclopedia Dramatica. Parts of the ED community harshly criticized the changes.[10] On the night of the Encyclopedia Dramatica shutdown, regular ED visitors bombarded the 'Oh Internet' Facebook wall with hate messages.[11] The Web Ecology Project made a downloadable archive of former Encyclopedia Dramatica content.[12][13] Fan-made torrents and several mirrors of the original site were subsequently generated,[14] before the wiki located at encyclopediadramatica.rs (formerly encyclopediadramatica.ch, encyclopediadramatica.es, and encyclopediadramatica.se) emerged as the only one still active.[15][16] The site is online under the .fyi domain as of 27 April 2020.

History

The original

Encyclopædia Dramatica was founded in 2004 by Sherrod DeGrippo, also known by the online pseudonym "Girlvinyl".[1][17] DeGrippo joined LiveJournal in 2000 and became enthralled by the behavior of some of its members:

People were accessible and it was bidirectional. Voyeurs and exhibitionists were able to interact in a way that was normalized. That’s why I started ED. It was mostly just personalities that were just so nuts and fascinating.[18]

She became involved in the LJdrama community, which covered stories on LiveJournal gossip. When the community was banned from LiveJournal, they created their own website. In 2002, two LiveJournal users, Joshua Williams (aka mediacrat) and Andrewpants, became intimately involved with each other. After they broke off their relationship, LJdrama decided to document the resulting drama. Unflattering photographs of Williams were spread on the web, and Williams considered this to be harassment. He threatened legal action, traveled to Portland, Oregon, in order to speak to LiveJournal's abuse team, and reported the alleged harassment to a local TV news station.[18] DeGrippo created Encyclopedia Dramatica in order to "house some information from livejournal and some drama about hackers Theo DeRaadt and Darren Reed."[16]

Encyclopedia Dramatica characterized itself as being "In the spirit of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary."[1] The New York Times Magazine recognized the wiki as "an online compendium of troll humor and troll lore"[17] that it labeled a "troll archive".[17] C't, a European magazine for IT professionals, noted the site's role in introducing newcomers to the culture of 4chan's /b/, a notorious Internet imageboard.[19] Encyclopædia Dramatica defines trolling in terms of doing things "for the lulz" (for laughs),[20] a phrase that it qualifies as "a catchall explanation for any trolling you do."[20]

The targets of this trolling come from "every pocket of the Web",[21] to include not only the non-corporeal aspects of Internet phenomena, (e.g. online catchphrases, fan pages, forums, and viral phenomena), but also real people (e.g. amateur celebrities, identifiable internet drama participants and even Encyclopædia Dramatica's own forum members).[21][22] These are derided in a manner described variously as "coarse", "offensive", "obscene",[23][24] "irreverent, obtuse, politically incorrect",[25] "crude but hilarious",[21] and "crude and abusive".[26] The material is presented to appear comprehensive, with extensive use of shock-value prose, drawings, photographs, and the like. The emotional responses are then added to the articles, often in similarly derogatory or inflammatory manner, with the purpose of provoking further emotional response. Adherents of the practice assert that visitors to the website "shouldn't take anything said on Dramatica seriously."[25]

Articles at Encyclopædia Dramatica are particularly critical of MySpace[23] as well as users on YouTube, LiveJournal, DeviantART, Tumblr, and Wikipedia. In The New York Times Magazine, journalist Jonathan Dee described it as a "snarky Wikipedia anti-fansite".[22] Shaun Davies of Australia's Nine Network called it "Wikipedia's bastard child, a compendium of internet trends and culture which lampoons every subject it touches."[25] The site "is run like Wikipedia, but its style is the opposite; most of its information is biased and opinionated, not to mention racist, homophobic, and spiteful, but on the upside its snide attitude makes it spot-on about most Internet memes it covers."[27] This coverage of Internet jargon and memes had been acknowledged in the New Statesman,[28] on Language Log,[29] in C't magazine,[19] and in Wired magazine.[21]

According to Sherrod DeGrippo,

As long as something wasn’t submitted as illegal or an abuse complaint, I didn’t even see it. Wikis are something that you either closely, closely monitor and manage, or you just let it go.[30]

On December 8, 2010, Encyclopædia Dramatica deleted its article on Operation Payback.[31] On the same day, Facebook deleted its Operation Payback page, and Twitter suspended Operation Payback's account.[32] An anonymous source told Gawker that the Encyclopedia Dramatica article was deleted as the result of court orders.[31]

Oh Internet

Oh Internet main page

DeGrippo reportedly "came to hate" Encyclopædia Dramatica.[33] She had hoped that ED would return to its roots and focus on LiveJournal drama.[34] On April 14, 2011, the URL encyclopediadramatica.com was redirected to "Oh Internet",[10] an entirely different safe-for-work website that DeGrippo had created.[10][35] The name "Oh Internet" is meant to convey "Oh, Internet, you are so crazy!"[33] DeGrippo stated that "Shock for shock's sake is old at this point [...] ." Some regular users of Encyclopædia Dramatica were displeased by the change and attacked the website's official Facebook fan page[11] with "hate messages and pornography".[10]

In a question and answer session at the ROFLCon summit in October 2011, DeGrippo was asked why Encyclopædia Dramatica was closed and replaced with Oh Internet. She replied: "We were unable to stop the degradation of the content. It just kept getting longer and longer and dumber and dumber and less and less coherent over time."[36] She also explained why she had not released the site as an archive, saying that she "didn't want to", and suggesting that this would have made her personally responsible for any DMCA and privacy violations that it contained.[37] She also stated that hosting Encyclopædia Dramatica caused her to have troubles involving the FBI.[38]

Succession of domains

Ryan Cleary hosted a fork of Encyclopædia Dramatica at encyclopediadramatica.ch.[15][39] Members of this project gathered text and images from Google's web cache and other backups, and a script was created to upload cached information.[15] On June 21, 2011, Scotland Yard arrested Ryan Cleary based on alleged connections to online attacks on Sony.[40][41] The arrest temporarily disrupted operation of the wiki, but other members were able to resume Cleary's duties.[15] Garrett E. Moore later became the fork's owner.[15] Moore reported difficulties in securing a host for the website.[15][42]

On March 19, 2012, encyclopediadramatica.ch was shut down for a short time due to a "DNS block". On March 21, 2012, the site moved to a Swedish domain name, at encyclopediadramatica.se, instead of a domain in Switzerland as before. The site's Facebook account later addressed the block, stating that it was because "we didn't keep up our end of the nic.ch user agreement contract stating that we had to keep a mailing address and phone number in Switzerland."[43] In September 2013, the site changed its domain to a Spanish domain name at encyclopediadramatica.es. In October 2014, the site returned to the .se domain. In January 2018, the site changed its domain to a Serbian domain name at encyclopediadramatica.rs. In October 2019, the official Twitter page announced that the site returned to the .se domain. In February 2020, it was announced that the site changed its domain to the .wiki domain.

Garrett E. Moore, the operator of a fork of Encyclopædia Dramatica located at encyclopediadramatica.se (encyclopediadramatica.ch at the time), told an interviewer for The Daily Dot:

People take themselves too seriously, they can't laugh at anything. We make fun of everything. I make fun of skinny white computer nerds, but I am one.[15]

When asked about "abusive content", Moore stated that he removes it when he sees it, then further explained:

I'm not going to leave a 14-year-old girl's address up on a page cause some dipshit got mad at her and made an article. But if you dress up like a fox and wear diapers and then take pictures of it? That's fair game, sir.[15]

In a later interview with The Daily Dot, Moore defended his community's belief in free speech.[42]

In January 2013, a video game created by user "gizmo01942" came to the attention of the media. The game, Bullet to the Head of the NRA, was controversial because the player could take aim and shoot at members of the National Rifle Association.[44] In February 2015, Muhammad Sex Simulator 2015, another video game by the same user, attracted further controversy because of the then-recent Charlie Hebdo shooting.[45]

Reception

The website received mainstream media attention after Jason Fortuny used Encyclopædia Dramatica to post photographs, e-mails and phone numbers from 176 responses to a Craigslist advertisement he posted in 2006, in which he posed as a woman seeking sexual encounters with dominant men.[5][17] The incident was addressed in a blog hosted at Wired News, where the blogger proposes that Encyclopædia Dramatica may be the "world's lamest wiki".[46]

In 2006, "a well-known band of trolls"[17] emailed Encyclopædia Dramatica's creator, DeGrippo, demanding edits to the protected (i.e. locked) article describing them. After she refused to do so, the trolls ordered taxis, pizzas, escort services and sent death threats and threats of rape to DeGrippo's apartment.[17]

Encyclopædia Dramatica became a "favourite target for critics, who accuse Anonymous of propagating hate,"[25] for allowing alleged members of the group to sometimes use the website as a platform. Through this association, Encyclopædia Dramatica received incidental coverage when actions by members of Anonymous led to the arrest of an alleged pedophile,[47] when they demonstrated against Scientology in London;[48][49] when a member of the group broke into the e-mail account of former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin,[50] and when a member of Anonymous claimed credit for an attack on the virtual Second Life headquarters of former presidential candidate John Edwards.[51][52] The convergence of Encyclopædia Dramatica with the anti-Scientology campaign of Project Chanology was noted by technology journalist Julian Dibbell.[53]

On December 16, 2008, Encyclopædia Dramatica won the People's Choice Winners category for favorite wiki in Mashable's 2nd Annual Open Web Awards, with wikiHow as the runner-up and Wikipedia coming in 3rd.[54]

In December 2008, a message on Encyclopædia Dramatica asked for donations and claimed that the website was under attack and had lost its advertisers.[55]

In January 2010, the Encyclopædia Dramatica article Aboriginal was removed from the search engine results of Google Australia, after a lawyer filed a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission saying its content was racist.[56] A search on terms related to the article produced a message that one of the results has been removed after a legal request relating to Australia's Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).[57][58] The publicity surrounding this served to raise the profile of the site.[59] In March 2010, it was reported that the Australian Human Rights Commission had notified the site by e-mail that according to Australian law, the article Aboriginal could be in breach of Sections 18C and 18D of its RDA.[6]

Lawsuits

In 2016, a United Kingdom court determined an ED user must pay £10,000 in libel damages for making false statements about Samuel Collingwood Smith, a former Labour councillor.[60]

In 2017, a suit was launched against the website seeking US$750,000 for alleged copyright infringement.[61] The "life-threatening"[62] suit is by millionaire Jonathan Monsarrat.[63]

See also

Notes
  1. "About Encyclopedia Dramatica". Encyclopedia Dramatica. Archived from the original on January 6, 2018. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  2. "Encyclopediadramatica.wiki Traffic, Demographics and Competitors - Alexa". Alexa Internet. Archived from the original on May 7, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  3. "EncyclopediaDramatica.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info – DomainTools". WHOIS. Archived from the original on November 6, 2018. Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  4. Paget, Henri (March 9, 2010). "Interview: Encyclopedia Dramatica moderator". ninemsn. Archived from the original on October 1, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
  5. Chonin, Neva (September 17, 2006), "Sex and the City", San Francisco Chronicle, p. 20, archived from the original on September 18, 2012, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  6. Paget, Henri (March 16, 2010), Dramatica owner could face charges, ninemsn, archived from the original on March 22, 2010, retrieved March 16, 2010.
  7. Dibbell, Julian (September 21, 2009), The Assclown Offensive: How to Enrage the Church of Scientology, Wired Magazine, archived from the original on December 7, 2009, retrieved November 27, 2009.
  8. Danielle Keats Citron (September 22, 2014). Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Harvard University Press. pp. 54-55. ISBN 978-0-674-36829-3 – via Internet Archive.
  9. Melissa Click (January 8, 2019). Anti-Fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age. NYU Press. pp. 49–50. ISBN 978-1-4798-5104-1 – via Google Books.
  10. Popkin, Helen A.S. (April 18, 2011). "Notorious NSFW website cleans up its act". Digital Life on MSNBC. Archived from the original on November 1, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
  11. Quigley, Robert (April 15, 2011). "Encyclopedia Dramatica Becomes OhInternet". Geekosystem. Archived from the original on April 17, 2011. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
  12. Leavitt, Alex (April 15, 2011). "Archiving Internet Subculture: Encyclopedia Dramatica". Web Ecology Project. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved September 29, 2011.
  13. Stryker 2011, p. 155.
  14. Hughes, Jeff (April 19, 2011). "What? Encyclopedia Dramatica is evolving!". Digital Trends. Archived from the original on April 26, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2011.
  15. Eordogh, Fruzsina (July 26, 2011). "Encyclopedia Dramatica's seething satire is back". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on April 25, 2012. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
  16. Read, Max (April 16, 2011). "What Happened to Encyclopedia Dramatica?". Gawker. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
  17. Schwartz, Mattathias (August 3, 2008). "Malwebolence". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on April 18, 2009. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
  18. Stryker 2011, p. 137-139.
  19. Himmelein, Gerald (February 28, 2008), "Das Trollparadies", C't, pp. 100–101 online copy Archived May 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  20. Tsotsis, Alexia (February 4, 2009), "My Date With Anonymous: A Rare Interview With the Elusive Internet Troublemakers", LA Weekly, archived from the original on June 12, 2009, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  21. Dibbell, Julian (January 18, 2008), "Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World", Wired (16.02), archived from the original on May 12, 2009, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  22. Dee, Jonathan (July 1, 2007), "All the News That's Fit to Print Out", The New York Times Magazine, p. 5, archived from the original on December 6, 2014, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  23. Mitchell, John (May 20, 2006), "Megabits and Pieces: The Latest Teen Hangout", North Adams Transcript.
  24. Staff Writer (December 16, 2005), "2 Do: Monday, December 26", Chicago Tribune RedEye Edition, p. 2.
  25. Davies, Shaun (May 8, 2008), "Critics point finger at satirical website", 9-News, archived from the original on June 5, 2011, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  26. Peckham, Charles H. (February 7, 2008), "Encyclopedia Dramatica", Chico News & Review, archived from the original on December 6, 2014, retrieved May 16, 2008.
  27. Douglas, Nick (January 18, 2008), "What The Hell Are 4chan, ED, Something Awful, And 'b'?", ValleyWag, gawker.com, archived from the original on July 24, 2008, retrieved August 25, 2008.
  28. Hogge, Betty (June 5, 2008), "A lesson in hai culture", The New Statesman, archived from the original on June 12, 2008, retrieved June 11, 2008.
  29. Zimmer, Benjamin (May 18, 2007), "Lol-lexicography", Language Log, archived from the original on June 10, 2008, retrieved August 25, 2008.
  30. Stryker 2011, p. 140.
  31. Tate, Ryan (December 8, 2010). "Noose Closes Around Pro-Wikileaks Vigilantes". Gawker. Archived from the original on August 12, 2011. Retrieved July 30, 2011.
  32. Isaac, Mike (December 8, 2010). "Facebook and Twitter Suspend Operation Payback Accounts". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 14, 2011. Retrieved July 30, 2011.
  33. Stryker 2011, p. 142.
  34. Stryker 2011, p. 141.
  35. LaCapria, Kim (April 15, 2011). "Encyclopedia Dramatica gone for good". The Inquisitr. Archived from the original on April 19, 2011. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  36. ROFLCon Summit – Internet Underground – Part 2. ROFLCONsummit. November 11, 2011. Event occurs at 1:47. Archived from the original on May 4, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2011 – via YouTube.
  37. ROFLCon Summit – Internet Underground – Part 3. ROFLCONsummit. November 11, 2011. Event occurs at 4:41. Archived from the original on May 22, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2011 – via YouTube.
  38. ROFLCon Summit – Internet Underground – Part 4. ROFLCONsummit. November 11, 2011. Event occurs at 0:31. Archived from the original on August 11, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2020 – via YouTube.
  39. Pauli, Darren (May 10, 2011). "Anonymous DDoSed by mutineer". CRN Magazine. Archived from the original on May 13, 2011. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
  40. "Teenager arrested on suspicion of hacking". BBC News. July 21, 2011. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
  41. Greene, Richard Allen (June 22, 2011). "Hacker group LulzSec downplays arrest, claims Brazil attack". CNN. Archived from the original on January 19, 2013. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
  42. Eordogh, Fruzsina (September 6, 2011). "Encyclopedia Dramatica is back up but still experiencing drama". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2011.
  43. Fruzsina Eördögh (March 21, 2012). "Encyclopedia Dramatica suffers minor outage". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on February 25, 2013. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
  44. Schreier, Jason (January 16, 2013). "Someone Made A Game In Which You Shoot The Head Of The NRA". Kotaku. Archived from the original on August 24, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  45. Akers, Royce (February 9, 2015). "An Idiot Made a Game Called 'Muhammad Sex Simulator". vice.com. United Kingdom. Archived from the original on April 18, 2015. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  46. "Craigslist". Wired.com. September 8, 2006. Archived from the original on January 11, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2010.
  47. Kim, Gus (July 12, 2007), "Anonymous operation leads to arrest of alleged pedophile", Global Television Network News, archived from the original on February 22, 2011, retrieved May 14, 2011.
  48. Whipple, Tom (June 20, 2008), "Scientology: the Anonymous protestors", The Times, London, archived from the original on June 15, 2011, retrieved May 14, 2011.
  49. Lee, Joe (February 11, 2008), "Anonymous Protests Outside Scientology Sites", Londonist, londonist.com, archived from the original on April 1, 2008, retrieved August 25, 2008.
  50. Singel, Ryan (September 19, 2008), "Palin Hacker Group's All-Time Greatest Hits", Wired, blog.wired.com, archived from the original on May 2, 2009, retrieved August 25, 2008.
  51. Cabron, Lou (March 8, 2007), "John Edwards' Virtual Attackers Unmasked", AlterNet, alternet.org, archived from the original on June 29, 2011, retrieved May 14, 2011.
  52. Cabron, Lou (March 5, 2007). "John Edwards' Virtual Attackers Unmasked". 10 Zen Monkeys. Archived from the original on November 20, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  53. Dibbell, Julian (July 11, 2008), "Sympathy for the Griefer: MOOrape, Lulz Cubes, and Other Lessons From the First 2 Decades of Online Sociopathy", GLS Conference 4.0, Madison, Wisconsin: Games, Learning and Society Group, archived from the original on July 14, 2011, retrieved November 7, 2008.
  54. Cashmore, Pete (December 16, 2008), "People's Choice Winners", Open Web Awards Winners, mashable.com, archived from the original on August 26, 2009, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  55. Golson, Jordan (November 8, 2008). "Briefly: Encyclopedia Dramatica threatens shutdown". The Industry Standard. Archived from the original on May 15, 2009. Retrieved May 14, 2011.
  56. Google agrees to take down racist site, Sydney Morning Herald, January 15, 2010, archived from the original on June 5, 2011, retrieved May 14, 2011.
  57. Riley, Duncan (January 14, 2010), Aus Media Gets Encyclopedia Dramatica Story Wrong, Only Some Search Links Removed, The Inquisitr, archived from the original on January 19, 2010, retrieved January 15, 2010.
  58. Australian Anti Discrimination Act Complaint, Chilling Effects, archived from the original on January 18, 2010, retrieved January 15, 2010.
  59. Keep, Elmo (January 18, 2011). "Google Australia censors search results. WTF?". Hungry Beast. ABC. Archived from the original on June 26, 2012. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  60. Corfield, Gareth (July 29, 2016). "Encyclopedia Dramatica user hit with £10k damages after calling ex-councillor a 'paedo'". theregister.co.uk. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
  61. Gilmour, David (July 5, 2017). "The lawsuit that could kill Encyclopedia Dramatica". dailydot.com. Archived from the original on October 2, 2017. Retrieved November 27, 2017. Monsarrat is now suing Encyclopedia Dramatica for alleged copyright infringement and seeking a total of $750,000 in damages.
  62. Christian, Jon (October 4, 2017). "Everipedia is the Wikipedia for being wrong". theoutline.com. Archived from the original on January 2, 2018. Retrieved November 27, 2017. Encyclopedia Dramatica, which is currently facing a life-threatening copyright lawsuit, is an ad-supported cesspool of surreal troll humor founded by online provocateur Sherrod DeGrippo in 2004.
  63. Mystal, Elie (October 25, 2017). "The Pedobear Motion Practice You've Been Waiting For". abovethelaw.com. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 27, 2017. Out there in meme-culture, a major lawsuit is happening. Encyclopedia Dramatica, "Wikipedia’s evil twin," is being sued by Jonathan Monsarrat, an eccentric millionaire.

References
  • Stryker, Cole (2011). Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web. New York: Overlook Press. ISBN 978-1590207109.
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