Encyclopædia Dramatica

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“”RationalWiki used to be a (sort of) funny troll parody of the Republicans who got banned from Wikipedia and created Conservapedia because they hated President Obama.

—Encyclopædia Dramatica on RW[1]

Encyclopædia Dramatica (ED) is an extremely hateful troll wiki whose stated mission is to document Internet culture, memes, and "drama" for the lulz. It is also happy to document everything the userbase thinks is wrong with the Internet, but proudly does so in a style that exemplifies the very things wrong with the Internet. Unsurprisingly, it is filled with homophobic, racist, misogynistic, transphobic/enbyphobic, and (perhaps most infamously of all) antisemitic content.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 The Good
* 3 The Bad
* 4 The Ugly
* 5 Management
* 6 Twitter bans
* 7 See also
* 8 Notes
* 9 References

## History[edit]

ED was started in 2004 by the trolls at LJDrama.org, documenting and encouraging LiveJournal users and their overblown drama and unwarranted self-importance. The owner and founder was Sherrod DeGrippo, aka Girlvinyl. The site quickly attracted similar netizens from 4chan, the GNAA, Bantown, and so forth.

The site was shut down in mid-April 2011 and redirected to "OhInternet", a blatant ripoff of Know Your Meme. DeGrippo had apparently shut down ED for good, replacing it with "a more toned down content style and a streamlined design", having decided that having every second wikilink take you to extremely hateful, racist, and homophobic pages was no longer financially viable in the face of escalating liability over various attack pages. It's also possible that there were no more places to put porn ads.[2] OhInternet, in turn, died in October 2013; nobody cared or noticed.

Fans promptly started a few forks, dredging ED pages out of the Google cache. Here's a list:

* encyclopediadramatica.ch (dead)
* encyclopediadramatica.se (dead)
* encyclopediadramatica.es (dead)
* encyclopediadramatica.se (came and went again)
* encyclopediadramatica.rs (dead)
* encyclopediadramatica.fyi (dead)
* encyclopediadramatica.wiki (dead)
* encyclopediadramatica.online (dead)[3]
* encyclopediadramatica.top (online as of May 2024)[4]

The encyclopediadramatica.se fork has been the most successful reanimation, but has been down for some time without even bothering to pretend it has any legal oversight. With no porn ads… just kidding, porn ads again. Yeah, they were that site — the one that seriously still used pop-up ads. The second incarnation loaded somewhat faster than the original, and the aforementioned ads had been relegated to the sidebar, but this is a reminder that an ad blocker, again, is strongly advised. See the above section for more information.

There have been many domains used for ED in its history, such as .rs, .ch, .es, and .se. At one point from November 2020 to around July 2021, due to internal drama among administrators, there were two versions of Encyclopædia Dramatica that existed: .wiki (which was more strict with editing, requiring approval first, and somewhat redesigned) and .online (which was looser with editing, only requiring account creation first, and appears similar to the site before it was taken down in 2020).[5][6][7] In the end, .wiki ED was shut down and .online ED became the definitive version of ED, except during those occasions when the ED admins forget to pay their server bills.[8] In May 2024, .online died as well. It was resurrected by yet another domain, .top.[4]

## The Good[edit]

ED is good at documenting memes and internet events and gives frank reviews of popular websites. Since it's not limited by Wikipedia's stringent reliable source policies, it has better… je ne sais quoi. In particular, its article on Metal Archives,[note 1] its articles on Twilight[11] and other[12] bad[13] fictions,[14] and its extensive section on DeviantArt[15] could be considered, if not praiseworthy, then at least interesting. ED was also involved in Project Chanology.

## The Bad[edit]

In ED's own words, "expect blatant, biased lies, and expect boring truths to get deleted quickly".[16] Where ED fails is mostly in its own obsessions with goatse, (dead) internet memes, furries, racist, sexist, ableist humor, and shock value. This is hardly surprising given its contributor overlap with 4chan and Anonymous (as such, its article on 4chan is quite favorable in comparison to others). It has also been used frequently as a tool against others, with people creating accounts just to write unfunny articles about others they disliked in hopes that other ED readers would attack said person. According to white supremacist Andrew Auernheimer ("weev"), who is more recently associated with The Daily Stormer and also was recently exposed as the creator of the original ED,[17] many ED articles were purveying racism and pushing the "pro-racist dialectic of lulz".[18]

ED's content includes not only hosting extreme pornography (which is illegal to possess in certain countries e.g. the United Kingdom), but there's even a so called "Consent Withdrawal Policy" page, which actually just tricks users into clicking on a link which displays a page showing the real fucking most extreme of the extreme pornography that ED hosts. This page consists of a series of images that ED calls the "Pain Series". It first starts with goatse, then depicts things that are far too disgusting to be described on here. People often describe them as Not Safe For Life (NSFL). The Pain Series can be found on a page called "Kittens", but be warned that it shows as soon as you go to the page. You really should steer clear of that page if you value your sanity, and/or your freedom. As a result, many people hate Encyclopædia Dramatica. As if that weren't bad enough, this exposes children to pornography, since they are naturally curious and might come into contact with the "Pain Series".

From 2014 to 2015, the continued presence of Channers and Redditors (especially from Gamergate-related groups) tended to give new ED additions a reactionary alt-right bent. Strangely, this change doesn't seem to have affected anyone outside of ED.

Encyclopædia Dramatica was utterly infested with advertisements in the past. Back then, even clicking the search bar resulted in annoying pop-up ads for porn half the time. For a while, there was also a pop-under ad, which was particularly insidious because you could close the browser window to get rid of Dramatica as your boss was approaching, and find that in its place now was an explicit full-page ad for PunishTube. On the other hand, as their goal seems to be to offend (of course, without any actual insight, originality, real world knowledge, or understanding of what's being made fun of (what do you think they are, funny?)), that may have actually worked to their advantage. However, the staff announced this was problematic and fixed the issue:[19]

> ED is free of all javascript[sic] / popup / virus ads and only uses simple banner ads. Please whitelist us on AdBlock.

> ATTENTION: ED is NOT asking for donations.

> Anyone asking for donations to pay the server bills is trying to scam you.

## The Ugly[edit]

The perpetrator of the Aztec High School shooting was a sysop for ED (as well as a prolific poster at related sites like Kiwi Farms and Daily Stormer), until reportedly getting banned for appending too many pro-Columbine shooting memes and "shitty facebook commentaries" praising Donald Trump to the site's home page.[20]

The perpetrator of the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting was reportedly a target of a vicious bout of online cyberbullying in 2015, which included a "parody website" "which resembles Wikipedia" creating a page to "mock his weight and accuse him of engaging in illegal activity". The cyberbullying was reportedly vicious enough to cause the perpetrator to change his name that year.[21][22] Although no mainstream media source reported what the site in question was, it is perhaps no coincidence that ED has a lengthy page on the perpetrator, and actually updated the article after the shooting instructing ED readers to prepare for "when your favorite wiki gets DDoSed to hell by trannies, just like the Kiwi Farms."[23]

## Management[edit]

In 2019, Conrad Rockenhaus was the admin of Encyclopædia Dramatica and hosted the site through his company GreyPonyIT.[24][25] ED is protected by Cloudflare.[26][27] In August 2019, the site experienced a long period of downtime, but came back online by October. In October 2019, ED's official Twitter account responded, claiming Rockenhaus "hosts us through his hosting company" but is not the owner of ED.[25]Do You Believe That? In November 2019, both Conrad and ED's official Twitter accounts were permanently suspended.

In January 2020, the site went offline. Their official Facebook account posted, "RIP ED i guess lol", and also claimed that they could not restore the site using backups because "the people with the backups are in federal custody and soon to be prison".[28] The site returned in March 2020 under new management (again), up and running under the .wiki domain, but with much of the images missing, many of the articles in mangled condition (assuming they weren't mangled to begin with), and the forums completely gone.[29][note 2] Time will tell if ED's former "lulzy glory" is restored.

The creator and owner of the .wiki version of ED was Jacob Stellmach, and the company was registered in Nevada.[30][31][32] Stellnach described himself as a "technical analyst and darknet researcher".[33] It also contained links to his Twitter ban-evasion service and his "library" including such nice things like The International Jew and Mussolini speeches.

## Twitter bans[edit]

Encyclopædia Dramatica have been banned on Twitter many times. In April 2020, they opened yet another account:

> So here's how it's gonna work.

> Since Twitter so obviously likes us being here, we've got several throwaway accounts ready to be made instantly.

> We'll tweet from here, but only RT from main. Which means we can say whatever we want more or less even if suspended.[34]

In March 2023, this account was suspended from Twitter,[35] along with the more official(?) "@LulzWeTrust" account listed in the .online main contact page between August 2021 and January 2023.[36][37] At this time, it seems that ED is a bridge too far even for Elon "Unban Everyone" Musk...

## See also[edit]

* Kiwi Farms, which shares many users with ED
* 4chan
* 8chan
* DCinside
* Anonymous
* Cringe culture
* Reddit
* Lolcow
* The Daily Stormer
* Metapedia
* Rightpedia
* Infogalactic
* Alt-right
* Michael Coombs
* Gamergate
* Pewdiepie
* White nationalism
* Neo-Nazism
* Sexual objectification
* Slymepit

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ Compare Metal-Archives on ED[9] and Wikipedia,[10]
2. ↑ As of May 15, 2020, the forums are back online... for now...

## References[edit]

1. ↑ RationalWiki Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from November 3, 2019).
2. ↑ Encyclopedia Dramatica Is No More: OhInternet Rises from the Ashes by Robert Quigley (April 15th, 2011) The Mary Sue.
3. ↑ "Encyclopedia Dramatica is down and they dont know why lol sounds about right." ny @ant0m_x, Twitter, 2024 May 7, archived on 2024 May 7
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Encyclopedia Dramatica is BACK ONLINE." ny @ant0m_x, Twitter, 2024 May 17, archived on 2024 May 18
5. ↑ "As some of you know, there are presently two websites presenting themselves as "Encyclopedia Dramatica": .wiki and .online. After analyzing both parties, we have decided to recognize .online as the one most worthy of basing our subreddit on. Thus, we've removed aediot from this subreddit's moderation team and undid the censorship and bans aediot had done.", Reddit post, r/encyclopediadramatica, 26 Feb 2021, archived on 2021 Apr 26
6. ↑ See the archived Dramatica.online entry on "Aediot", archived on 2021 Mar 5
7. ↑ See the archived Encyclopediadramatica.wiki entry on "Dramatica Online", archived on 2021 Apr 26
8. ↑ "This domain has expired. If you owned this domain, contact your domain registration service provider for further assistance. If you need help identifying your provider, visit https://www.tucowsdomains.com/", encyclopediadramatica.online archive, 2023 December 2
9. ↑ Metal Archives Encyclopædia Dramatica' (archived from October 29, 2019).
10. ↑ Encyclopaedia Metallum Wikipedia (archived from October 26, 2019).
11. ↑ Twilight, or Why Mormons Shouldn't Write Vampire Fiction Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from July 8, 2019).
12. ↑ Fifty Shades of Grey Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from June 24, 2019).
13. ↑ Inheritance Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from May 27, 2019).
14. ↑ My Immortal Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from August 22, 2019).
15. ↑ DeviantART Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from August 23, 2019).
16. ↑ About Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from November 3, 2019).
17. ↑ New evidence links white supremacist 'Zoombomber' to man wanted in Australia
18. ↑ Richard Spencer is a Trap reply by by weev (2015) The Right Stuff Forum (archived from 11 Oct 2017 14:51:05 UTC).
19. ↑ Heart Encyclopædia Dramatica (archived from January 28, 2018).
20. ↑ "New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites" by Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, Daily Beast, 2017 December 15
21. ↑ "Details are coming to light about the alleged gunman who killed five people at an LGBTQ nightclub" by Majlie de Puy Kamp, Curt Devine and Scott Glover, CNN, 2022 November 23
22. ↑ "LGBTQ club shooting suspect’s troubled past was obscured by a name change, records show" by Joby Warrick, Robert Klemko, Razzan Nakhlawi, Alice Crites and Cate Brown, Washington Post, 2022 November 21
23. ↑ Anderson Lee Aldrich, encyclopediadramatica.online, archived on 2022 November 22
24. ↑ If you're interested in supporting the new home of ED and ED in general (since I pool the money) @GreyPonyIT starts with Basic VMs for $2.99/mo and VPCa for $1.99/mo. by Conrad Rockenhaus (@RockRockenhaus) (7:43 AM - 31 Aug 2019) Twitter (archived from November 3, 2019).
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 .@eddotse @RationalWiki For some reason, even though you've never identified an owner in centuries, you guys are trying to lie on @RockRockenhaus for owning us when he doesn't. He hosts us through his hosting company. Big diff. Oh, and you're lying about his discharge, L0LSUIT? by Encyclopædia Dramatica (4:54 PM - 29 Oct 2019) Twitter (archived from 30 Oct 2019 01:56:59 UTC).
26. ↑ encyclopediadramatica.rs Whois (archived from 30 Oct 2019 01:45:50 UTC).
27. ↑ encyclopediadramatica.se Whois (archived from 30 Oct 2019 01:35:05 UTC).
28. ↑ "RIP ED i guess lol", Encyclopedia Dramatica, Facebook, 2020 Jan 15
29. ↑ "Encyclopedia Dramatica:Restoration 2020", Encyclopædia Dramatica, archived from the original on 12 Apr 2020
30. ↑ Encyclopedia Dramatica LLC
31. ↑ Existential crisis at Encyclopedia Dramatica
32. ↑ "I came to this page to make clear that I am the current owner of Encyclopedia Dramatica LLC which is now registered in Nevada." Archived.
33. ↑ https://archive.is/xmPWW
34. ↑ http://archive.is/ZiosK
35. ↑ "Account suspended", @EDiotUser, Twitter, archived on 7 March 2023
36. ↑ "Account suspended", @LulzWeTrust, Twitter, archived on 7 March 2023
37. ↑ "Difference between revisions of "Main Page/contact"", Encyclopædia Dramatica, archived on 2023 March 7

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