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]

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
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional (required to edit pages)
Launched
  • December 10, 2004; 19 years ago (2004-12-10)[1][2]
Current statusOnline

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 September 2024, the only active mirrors of ED are encyclopediadramatica.win and edramatica.com.

History

DeGrippo Era (.com)

 
Encyclopedia Dramatica's historical logo (2005–2010)

Encyclopedia Dramatica was founded in 2004 by Sherrod DeGrippo, also known by the online pseudonym "Girlvinyl".[1][7] 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.[23]

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.[24] DeGrippo created Encyclopedia Dramatica in order to "house some information from livejournal and some drama about hackers Theo de Raadt and Darren Reed."[22]

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"[7] that it labeled a "troll archive".[7] C't, a European magazine for IT professionals, noted the site's role in introducing newcomers to the culture of /b/, a notorious Internet imageboard at 4chan.[25] Encyclopedia Dramatica defines trolling in terms of doing things "for the lulz" (for laughs),[26] a phrase that it qualifies as "a catchall explanation for any trolling you do."[26]

The targets of this trolling come from "every pocket of the Web",[27] 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 Encyclopedia Dramatica's own forum members).[27][28][29] These are derided in a manner described variously as "coarse", "offensive", "obscene",[30][31] "irreverent, obtuse, politically incorrect",[32] "crude but hilarious",[27] and "crude and abusive".[33] 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."[32]

Articles at Encyclopedia Dramatica were particularly critical of MySpace[30] 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".[28] 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."[32] 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."[34] This coverage of Internet jargon and memes had been acknowledged in the New Statesman,[35] on Language Log,[36] in C't magazine,[25] and in Wired magazine.[27]

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.[37]

Predating sites like the former Cheezburger Network (now known as Know Your Meme) by several years, Encyclopedia Dramatica was the first encyclopedia dedicated to the memes and "mean-spirited trolling"[38] of 4chan culture.[39]

2010 ownership by Evers

In March 2010, a "Joseph Evers" was recognized as the owner by ABC News, reporting on the site being blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.[9]

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) contacted Evers threatening him with charges under Australian law.[11]

On December 8, 2010, Encyclopedia Dramatica deleted its article on Operation Payback.[40] On the same day, Facebook deleted its Operation Payback page, and Twitter suspended Operation Payback's account.[41] An anonymous source told Gawker that the Encyclopedia Dramatica article was deleted as the result of court orders.[40]

In June 2020 it was reported by Canary Mission that Andrew "weev" Auernheimer is both the "weev" who "Zoombombed" a March 2020 chat for Jewish teens, and the "Joseph Evers" who owned and co-created the 2010 instance of ED and who has been wanted by the Australian Human Rights Commission since.[42][43]

2011 establishment of Oh Internet

 
Oh Internet main page

DeGrippo reportedly "came to hate" Encyclopedia Dramatica.[44] She had hoped that ED would return to its roots and focus on LiveJournal drama.[45] Furthermore, according to her, Encyclopedia Dramatica never turned a profit during the time she owned it, due to its content putting off advertisers.[46]

On April 14, 2011, the URL encyclopediadramatica.com was redirected to "Oh Internet",[16] an entirely different safe-for-work website that DeGrippo had created.[16][47] The name "Oh Internet" is meant to convey "Oh, Internet, you are so crazy!"[44] DeGrippo stated that "Shock for shock's sake is old at this point [...] ." Some regular users of Encyclopedia Dramatica were displeased by the change and attacked the website's official Facebook fan page[17] with "hate messages and pornography".[16]

In a question and answer session at the ROFLCon summit in October 2011, DeGrippo was asked why Encyclopedia 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."[48] 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.[49] She also stated that hosting Encyclopedia Dramatica caused her to have troubles involving the FBI.[50]

Cleary (.ch)

From April 2011,[51] Ryan Cleary hosted a fork of Encyclopedia Dramatica at encyclopediadramatica.ch.[21][52] 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.[21] On June 21, 2011, Scotland Yard arrested Ryan Cleary based on alleged connections to online attacks on Sony.[53][54] The arrest temporarily disrupted operation of the wiki, but other members were able to resume Cleary's duties.[21]

Moore (.se)

Garrett E. Moore later became the fork's owner.[21] Moore reported difficulties in securing a host for the website.[21][55]

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."[56]

Moore told an interviewer for The Daily Dot in July 2011:

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.[21]

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.[21]

In a September 2011 interview with The Daily Dot, Moore defended his community's belief in free speech.[55]

Gizmo games

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 of America.[57] In February 2015, Muhammad Sex Simulator 2015, another video game by the same user, attracted further controversy because of the recent Charlie Hebdo shooting.[58]

Aztec High School shooting

On December 7, 2017, 21-year-old William Atchison opened fire at a high school in Aztec, New Mexico, killing two before committing suicide. Atchison had been a site admin on Encyclopedia Dramatica (posting under the name AlGore) and had an obsession with mass shootings.[59]

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.[7][60] 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".[61]

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."[12] 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

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.[3]

In 2006, "a well-known band of trolls"[7] 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 and escort services, and sent death threats and threats of rape to DeGrippo's apartment.[7]

Encyclopedia Dramatica became a "favourite target for critics, who accuse Anonymous of propagating hate,"[32] 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,[62] when they demonstrated against Scientology in London;[63][64] when a member of the group broke into the e-mail account of former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin,[65] and when a member of Anonymous claimed credit for an attack on the virtual Second Life headquarters of former presidential candidate John Edwards.[66][67] The convergence of Encyclopedia Dramatica with the anti-Scientology campaign of Project Chanology was noted by technology journalist Julian Dibbell.[68]

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,[69] 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.[14]

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 Wikipedia coming in third.[70]

In December 2008, a message on Encyclopedia Dramatica asked for donations and claimed that the website was under attack and had lost its advertisers.[71]

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.[10] 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).[72][73] The publicity surrounding this served to raise the profile of the site.[74] 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.[11]

In 2020, a Canadian court heard that Alek Minassian, perpetrator of the Toronto van attack, was motivated by the High Score article.[75][76]

Lawsuits

In 2016, a United Kingdom court determined an ED user must pay £10,000 in libel damages for making false statements about a former Labour councillor.[77]

In 2017, a suit was launched against the website seeking US$750,000 for alleged copyright infringement.[78] The "life-threatening"[79] suit is by millionaire Jonathan Monsarrat.[80] 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.[81]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "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. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c d e f g Schwartz, Mattathias (August 3, 2008). "Malwebolence". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on April 18, 2009. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
  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. ^ a b "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. ^ a b "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..
  11. ^ a b c "Dramatica owner could face charges". Nine News. March 16, 2010.
    Paget, Henri (March 16, 2010), Dramatica owner could face charges, ninemsn, archived from the original on March 22, 2010, retrieved March 16, 2010.
  12. ^ a b 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. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c d 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. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c d e f g h 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.
  22. ^ a b Read, Max (April 16, 2011). "What Happened to Encyclopedia Dramatica?". Gawker. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
  23. ^ Stryker 2011, p. 137–139.
  24. ^ Stryker 2011, p. 137-139.
  25. ^ a b Himmelein, Gerald (February 28, 2008), "Das Trollparadies", C't, pp. 100–101 online copy Archived May 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
  26. ^ a b 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.
  27. ^ a b c d Dibbell, Julian (January 18, 2008), "Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World", Wired, vol. 16, no. 2, archived from the original on May 12, 2009, retrieved August 11, 2009.
  28. ^ a b 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.
  29. ^ "What People Miss When They Use 'Autistic' As An Insult". Kotaku. April 20, 2017. Retrieved January 29, 2023.
  30. ^ a b Mitchell, John (May 20, 2006), "Megabits and Pieces: The Latest Teen Hangout", North Adams Transcript.
  31. ^ "2 Do: Monday, December 26", Chicago Tribune RedEye Edition, p. 2, December 16, 2005.
  32. ^ a b c d 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.
  33. ^ Peckham, Charles H. (February 7, 2008), "Encyclopedia Dramatica", Chico News & Review, archived from the original on December 6, 2014, retrieved May 16, 2008.
  34. ^ 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.
  35. ^ 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.
  36. ^ Zimmer, Benjamin (May 18, 2007), "Lol-lexicography", Language Log, archived from the original on June 10, 2008, retrieved August 25, 2008.
  37. ^ Stryker 2011, p. 140.
  38. ^ Stryker 2011, p. ¶12.30.
  39. ^ Stryker 2011, p. ¶12.11For several years, Encyclopedia Dramatica was the only place to go to read about 4chan culture.
  40. ^ a b Tate, Ryan (December 8, 2010). "Noose Closes Around Pro-Wikileaks Vigilantes". Gawker. Archived from the original on August 12, 2011. Retrieved July 30, 2011.
  41. ^ 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.
  42. ^ "Andrew Auernheimer". Canary Mission. March 7, 2021. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  43. ^ "New evidence links white supremacist 'Zoombomber' to man wanted in Australia". Jewish News Syndicate. June 8, 2020. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. New evidence uncovered by the Canary Mission, an anti-Semitism watchdog site, has revealed that Auernhaimer has another pseudonym, "Joseph Evers," who was listed as the owner and creator of a racist website and Wikipedia parody site called Encyclopedia Dramatica created in 2010. Since 2010, Evers has been wanted by Australia's Human Rights Commission for violating the country's Racial Discrimination Act in connection to his creation of the racist website.
  44. ^ a b Stryker 2011, p. 142.
  45. ^ Stryker 2011, p. 141.
  46. ^ Stryker 2011, p. ¶12.31.
  47. ^ LaCapria, Kim (April 15, 2011). "Encyclopedia Dramatica gone for good". The Inquisitr. Archived from the original on April 19, 2011. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  48. ^ 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.
  49. ^ 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.
  50. ^ 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.
  51. ^ "Main Page - Encyclopedia Dramatica". Archived from the original on April 17, 2011. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  52. ^ Pauli, Darren (May 10, 2011). "Anonymous DDoSed by mutineer". CRN Magazine. Archived from the original on May 13, 2011. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
  53. ^ "Teenager arrested on suspicion of hacking". BBC News. July 21, 2011. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
  54. ^ 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.
  55. ^ a b 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.
  56. ^ Eördögh, Fruzsina (March 21, 2012). "Encyclopedia Dramatica suffers minor outage". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on February 25, 2013. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
  57. ^ 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. A member of the Encyclopedia Dramatica forums has created a game called Bullet to the Head of the NRA, a rudimentary first-person shooter that lets you shoot NRA boss Wayne LaPierre. Released yesterday, Bullet to the Head of the NRA seems to have been designed just to piss people off. "Share this everywhere, especially gun-nut and anti-game websites," creator and forum user gizmo01942 writes. "Also see if you can't send it in to the NRA somehow, like through the feedback on their website or something." ED forum user gizmo01942 is also developing a game based on the Sandy Hook shooting, he says, in which you'd go into the Connecticut school and shoot kids. This NRA game is a demo, he writes. It will be a bonus level in the Sandy Hook shooter.
  58. ^ 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. Is Muhammad Sex Simulator 2015 the same sort of "satire"? In a statement on internet forum Encyclopedia Dramatica, gizmo01942 took responsibility for the game
  59. ^ Zadrozny, Brandy; Collins, Ben (December 15, 2017). "New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on December 15, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
  60. ^ 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.
  61. ^ "Craigslist". Wired.com. September 8, 2006. Archived from the original on January 11, 2010. Retrieved January 12, 2010.
  62. ^ 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.
  63. ^ Whipple, Tom (June 20, 2008), "Scientology: the Anonymous protestors", The Times, London, archived from the original on June 15, 2011, retrieved May 14, 2011.
  64. ^ 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.
  65. ^ 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.
  66. ^ 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.
  67. ^ 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.
  68. ^ 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.
  69. ^ Stryker 2011, p. ¶12.28.
  70. ^ 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.
  71. ^ 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.
  72. ^ 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.
  73. ^ Australian Anti Discrimination Act Complaint, Chilling Effects, archived from the original on January 18, 2010, retrieved January 15, 2010.
  74. ^ 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.
  75. ^ Humphreys, Adrian (December 1, 2020). "Alek Minassian feels neither regret nor pleasure after Toronto van attack, court hears". National Post.
  76. ^ H, Talha (December 5, 2020). "Defence's star witness testifies, Minassian could not comprehend his actions". Burnout Digital.
  77. ^ 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.
  78. ^ 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.
  79. ^ 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.
  80. ^ 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.
  81. ^ "Judge rules man waited too long to sue Web site that transformed a photo of him as a beaver into a photo of him as a pedobear". Universal Hub. Retrieved October 18, 2020.

Further reading