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Encyclopedia Dramatica

Screenshot File:EncyclopediaDramatica.pngEncyclopedia Dramatica's front page on August 6, 2019.
Type of site	Wiki, forums and parody
Available in	English
Owner	.com: Sherrod DeGrippo & Andrew Auernheimer .ch: Ryan Cleary .se: Garrett Moore & Brian Zaiger .rs: Conrad Rockenhaus & Brian Zaiger .wiki: Jacob Stellmach .online: Joint ownership
Created by	Sherrod DeGrippo & Andrew Auernheimer
Revenue	Advertising and donations
URL	https://encyclopediadramatica.online
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional (required to edit pages)
Launched	.com: December 10, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-12-10) .ch: April 15, 2011 .se: March 2012 .es: September 2013 .rs: March 2017 .wiki: January 2020 .online: December 2020-present
Current status	Online

Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED; also spelled Encyclopædia Dramatica) is an online community centered around a wiki that acts as a "troll archive". The site is known to host racist material and shock content; as a result it was filtered from Google Search in 2010. It has been linked to one school shooting and is known to participate in harassment campaigns.

Its articles lampoon topics and current events related or relevant to contemporary internet culture in an encyclopedic fashion. It often serves as a repository of information and a means of discussion for the internet subculture known as Anonymous. Encyclopedia Dramatica celebrates a subversive "NSFW" "trolling culture" and documents internet memes, events such as mass organized pranks; trolling events called "raids", large-scale failures of internet security, and criticism by those within its subculture of other internet communities which are accused of self-censorship in order to garner positive coverage from traditional and established media outlets. The site hosts numerous pornographic images, along with content that is misogynistic, racist, and homophobic.

Julian Dibbell, in Wired, described Encyclopedia 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." The site is also known for its pervasive clickbait advertisements, in addition to its having almost none of the rules expected on other similar communities. Ninemsn described Encyclopedia Dramatica as:

Misplaced Pages'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.

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. On the night of the Encyclopedia Dramatica shutdown, regular ED visitors bombarded the 'Oh Internet' Facebook wall with hate messages. The Web Ecology Project published a downloadable archive of Encyclopedia Dramatica content's the next day. Besides this archive, fan-made torrents and several mirrors of the original site were subsequently generated. Based on these archives, the site has repeatedly gone offline and come back under new domain names, with the website currently being hosted at encyclopediadramatica.online. Between 2013 and 2019, the website was hosted under various top level domains: .rs, .ch, .es, and .se, with each domain bearing the second-level domain "encyclopediadramatica".

History

DeGrippo Era (.com)

[In 1976, 11-year-old Gru plans to become a supervillain, assisted by the Minions, whom he has hired to work for him. Gru is ecstatic when he receives an audition invitation from the Vicious 6, a supervillain team led by Belle Bottom, who hope to find a new member to replace their founder, the supervillain Wild Knuckles, following their betrayal and the presumed death of Knuckles during a heist to steal the Zodiac Stone, a stone connected to the Chinese zodiac. Gru's interview goes poorly, as he is ridiculed due to his young age. However, much to the outrage of the Vicious 6, he manages to steal the stone and escapes with Minions Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, handing the stone to another Minion, Otto, for safekeeping.

After escaping to his basement lair Gru finds out that Otto has traded the stone for a pet rock, causing him to fire the Minions in anger before going alone to find the stone. However, Knuckles, who is revealed to be alive, kidnaps Gru before taking him to San Francisco and informs the Minions that if they do not give him the stone within 48 hours, Gru will be killed.

Trying and failing to locate the stone, Kevin, Stuart and Bob leave for San Francisco to rescue Gru, while Otto leaves in pursuit of a biker whom he realizes has the stone as a necklace. When they reach Knuckles' house, they are chased by his goons until Master Chow, a former Kung Fu teacher who now makes a living at an acupuncture clinic, rescues them by defeating the goons. Chow decides to teach them kung fu after they beg for her to do so, but the three prove to be incompetent students. Prematurely ending their training, the trio heads back to Knuckles' home to rescue Gru. Meanwhile, Otto manages to catch up to the biker at Death Valley, who gives the stone back and takes him to San Francisco.

Gru starts to bond with Knuckles after the latter's goons quit on him, and he later saves Knuckles from being eaten alive by crocodiles. Teaching Gru how to be a villain, the two decide to rob the Bank of Evil, managing to steal the Mona Lisa. As they are on the heist, the Vicious Six, having realized that Knuckles is alive, destroy his house in an attempt to find him. Failing to do so, they head towards Chinatown, with Kevin, Stuart and Bob in pursuit. Arriving back at his destroyed house, a shaken Knuckles laments his friends' betrayal and decides to give up villainy, sending Gru away.

At a Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown, Otto and Gru find each other with the stone but are cornered by the Vicious 6, who in turn are confronted by Anti-Villain League agents. However, after the clock strikes midnight, the Vicious 6 use the stone to turn themselves into superpowered versions of animals from the Zodiac and kidnap Gru, planning to kill him by tying him to a clock tower so as to rip him apart. Kevin, Stuart, and Bob manage to find Gru, but are turned into a rabbit, a rooster, and a goat, respectively. However, Knuckles returns and fights the Vicious 6 with the Minions.

Encouraged by Chow's teaching, Kevin, Stuart, and Bob find their inner beast and manage to defeat most of the Vicious 6, but Knuckles is badly burnt by Bottom when trying to take the stone back. Otto manages to save Gru, who uses the stone to turn the Vicious 6 into rats. The Vicious 6 are arrested, including Knuckles, who is taken to a hospital and seemingly succumbs to his injuries. At Knuckles' funeral, Gru gives a heartfelt eulogy but is overjoyed when it is revealed that Knuckles faked his death. Later, he and Gru drive off with the Minions.

In a mid-credits scene, Gru attempts to hire Dr. Nefario in gratitude for an invention of his that helped him steal the stone. Nefario originally declines but changes his mind after Gru and the Minions beg, giving them a ride on an airship.

Reception

The website received mainstream media attention after Jason Fortuny used Encyclopedia 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. The incident was addressed in a blog hosted at Wired News, where the blogger proposes that Encyclopedia Dramatica may be the "world's lamest wiki".

In 2006, "a well-known band of trolls" emailed Encyclopedia 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.

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

The celebration and archival of the "raids" organized on /b/ on Encyclopedia Dramatica, which acted as a "troll hall of fame" when used this way, has been seen by some scholars, among them Liam Mitchell of Trent University, as acting as a way to assuage the guilt that trolls feel for harming their victims and being confronted with evidence of this harm. By celebrating on Encyclopedia Dramatica, and archiving that which would make an individual member guilty, trolls collectively engage in a type of mob mentality where the idea that "none of us is as cruel as all of us" minimizes the actions they take individually: "One cannot reason with a multitude, let alone appeal to its conscience. If any of its members are not susceptible to reason or conscience—the province of the ego ideal, and therefore of the divide that characterizes subjectivity—then the trolling will proceed."

On December 16, 2008, Encyclopedia 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 Misplaced Pages coming in 3rd.

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

In January 2010, the Encyclopedia 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. 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). The publicity surrounding this served to raise the profile of the site. 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.

In 2020 Canadian court heard Alek Minassian, perpetrator of the Toronto van attack, was inspired by the high score article.

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.

In 2017, a suit was launched against the website seeking US$750,000 for alleged copyright infringement. The "life-threatening" suit is by millionaire Jonathan Monsarrat. Monsarrat's suit was dismissed in December 2017, with the judge ruling that the three-year statute of limitations for copyright infringement had expired before the lawsuit was filed.

See also

• Kiwi Farms
• List of Internet phenomena
• Lurkmore.ru
• Uncyclopedia
• Aztec High School shooting

Footnotes

Notes

1. In e.g. Nordic, æ is a letter, but in archaic English spellings of words it is a ligature of "ae".

References

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Further reading

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

External links

• Media related to Encyclopedia Dramatica at Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations related to Encyclopedia Dramatica at Wikiquote

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