Do you know about the Wadsworth Constant – the idea that the first 30 percent of any YouTube video contains no worthwhile information – or that time in 2004 when the Dave Matthews Band tour bus dumped fecal sludge onto a sightseeing boat?
Neuroscience student Annie Rauwerda loves trivia that's both educational and funny and Wikipedia is her favourite source.
A couple of years ago in lockdown, the 22-year-old started sharing screenshots of weird and amusing Wikipedia pages on her @depthsofwikipedia Instagram account.
Annie Rau, creator of @depthsofwikipedia Photo: Annie Rau / Instagram
Wikipedia is among the best sites on the internet, Annie tells Jim Mora.
"It has this early internet spirit that you don't see always anymore – the idea of people collaborating and coming together and making something for everyone to enjoy, it's rather selfless."
As an information source that anyone can edit, Wikipedia is not "completely reliable" but it is the closest thing we have to the sum of human knowledge, Annie says.
Because Wikipedia is community moderated, readers can see clearly why editing decisions are made on talk pages.
"Overall the community editing model tends to give more transparency and probably more democratic decisions in terms of censorship and moderation."
And without Wikipedia, many of us would never come across odd pieces of history like the Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident.
"Dave Matthews Band had a tour bus that was driving over the Chicago River in 2004 and the septic tanks on this tour bus were too full. The bus driver did something illegal - he opened the septic tank disposal while he was driving over Kinzie Street Bridge. The bridge has holes in it and fecal sludge actually hit a massive boat full of mostly tourists that were sightseeing."
According to Annie, life is just better when you know about goat towers...
..or that our very first dream in a new year is best if it features an eggplant, a hawk and Mount Fuji.
"December 31st of this year, you better go to sleep thinking about an eggplant, a hawk and mount Fuji because according to the Japanese concept of Hatsuyume, that will give you luck in the new year."
Thanks to the success of @depthsofwikipedia, people now recognise Rauwerda on her university campus and her email inbox has become "a lovely thing" full of people sharing interesting and fun facts.
She's curious to hear from anyone in New Zealand who feels like reaching out.
"If you send me a message and say 'hey, I heard you on the radio' that'd be great to hear, I'm curious."
