Encyclopedia Dramatica

Encyclopedia Dramatica
Screenshot
Encyclopedia Dramatica's front page on August 6, 2023, with copyrighted elements obscured.
Type of site
Wiki, forums and parody
Available inEnglish
Created bySherrod DeGrippo[1]
RevenueAdvertising and donations
URLedramatica.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional (required to edit pages)
Launched
  • December 10, 2004; 19 years ago (2004-12-10)[1][2]
Current statusOnline

Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED or æ;[3] stylized as Encyclopædia Dramatica)[4][5] is an online community website, centered around a wiki,[6] that acts as a "troll archive"[7] and its community members frequently participate in harassment campaigns.[8] The site hosts racist material[9] and shock content; as a result it was filtered from Google Search in 2010.[10] The website's articles lampoon topics and current events related or relevant to contemporary internet culture in an encyclopedic fashion. It also serves as a repository of information and a means of discussion for the hacker group known as Anonymous.[11] Encyclopedia Dramatica celebrates its subversive "NSFW" "troll site culture"[12][13] 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.[14] The site hosts numerous pornographic images, along with content that is misogynistic, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic.[15]

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.[16] On the night of the Encyclopedia Dramatica shutdown, regular ED visitors bombarded the 'Oh Internet' Facebook wall with hate messages.[17] The Web Ecology Project published a downloadable archive of Encyclopedia Dramatica's content the next day.[18][19] Besides this archive, fan-made torrents and several mirrors of the original site were subsequently generated.[20] Based on these archives, the site has repeatedly gone offline and come back under new domain names. Between 2013 and 2024, the website was hosted under various top level domains: .rs, .ch, .es, .se, .wiki, .online, .top, .win and .gay.[21][22] As of October 2024, the only active mirror of ED is edramatica.com.

  1. ^ a b "About Encyclopedia Dramatica". Encyclopedia Dramatica. Archived from the original on January 6, 2018. Retrieved January 5, 2018. Encyclopædia Dramatica was created December 8-10th 2004 while girlvinyl was impatiently awaiting the delivery of her new ibook [sic]
  2. ^ "EncyclopediaDramatica.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info – DomainTools". DomainTools.com. Archived from the original on November 6, 2018. Retrieved October 25, 2016. Creation Date: 2004-12-08T18:01:34+00:00 using WHOIS function
  3. ^ Paget, Henri (March 9, 2010). "Interview: Encyclopedia Dramatica moderator". ninemsn. Archived from the original on October 1, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2010.
  4. ^ Jardin, Xeni (June 2, 2012). "Canadian politician: My internet spying bill would help us catch serial killers like Luka Magnotta". Boing Boing. Archived from the original on June 2, 2012. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  5. ^ Kaplan, Merrill (2013). "Curation and Tradition on Web 2.0" (PDF). In Howard, Robert Glenn (ed.). Tradition in the Twenty-First Century: Locating the Role of the Past in the Present. Logan: Utah State University Press. pp. 143–144, 148. ISBN 978-0-87421-900-5. OCLC 851156855. æ: Encyclopedia Dramatica.
  6. ^ West, Andrew G; Chang, Jian; Venkatasubramanian, Krishna; Lee, Insup (January 2012). "Trust in collaborative web applications". Future Generation Computer Systems. 28 (8): 1245 (7). doi:10.1016/j.future.2011.02.007.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference schwartz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Harrison, Stephen (March 2, 2021). "The Tensions Behind Wikipedia's New Code of Conduct". Slate Magazine. Archived from the original on March 2, 2021. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
  9. ^ "Dramatica owner refuses to remove 'racist' content". ABC News. March 18, 2010. Archived from the original on January 13, 2012. Retrieved June 6, 2022. The site's owner, Joseph Evers, has blogged that Encyclopedia Dramatica will "never be censored in any way". Mr Evers says the site's owners "laughed" when they discovered they were on the Australian Communications and Media Authority's list of websites to be banned under the Government's planned internet filter.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference google-agrees was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference 9news was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Dibbell, Julian (September 21, 2009), "The Assclown Offensive: How to Enrage the Church of Scientology", Wired, Wired Magazine, archived from the original on December 7, 2009, retrieved November 27, 2009.
  13. ^ Citron, Danielle Keats (September 22, 2014). Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Harvard University Press. pp. 54-55. ISBN 978-0-674-36829-3 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ Mitchell, Liam (April 24, 2013), Kroker, Arthur; Kroker, Marilouise (eds.), ""Because none of us are as cruel as all of us": Anonymity and Subjectivation", CTheory (eJournal), vol. Theory Beyond the Codes, Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, tbc051, archived from the original on July 1, 2013, retrieved April 16, 2021
  15. ^ Click, Melissa (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.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ Quigley, Robert (April 15, 2011). "Encyclopedia Dramatica Becomes OhInternet". Geekosystem. Archived from the original on April 17, 2011. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ Stryker 2011, p. 155.
  20. ^ Hughes, Jeff (April 19, 2011). "What? Encyclopedia Dramatica is evolving!". Digital Trends. Archived from the original on April 26, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2011.
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference thedailydot1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference gawkerinterview was invoked but never defined (see the help page).