Annie Rauwerda

Annie is a news writer at Input interested in internet subcultures, memes, and Wikipedia. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Believer, Vice, and more.

She has accumulated more than a million cumulative followers on social media as @depthsofwikipedia, where she shares weird, wild, and wonderful screenshots from Wikipedia such as sexually active popes and anti-Barney humor. She has hosted Wikipedia editing workshops and Wikipedia-themed comedy shows across the country. Earlier this year, she was profiled in the New Yorker and New York Times. Annie holds a degree in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. She loves biking, distance running, and her cat.

A ragtag community is keeping this aughts Wikipedia gadget alive

“The grid is down, massive rolling blackouts, tornadoes, but I must know about the history of the horseshoe sandwich!”

Culture
History

They forged enduring friendships from massive, same-name group chats

A 2500-member "Council of Bens," a Web 1.0 hangout for people named "Tahnee," and other exclusive online spaces for people with the same name.

Hello, our name is

Who the hell updated Queen Elizabeth II’s Wikipedia page so quickly?

Mere seconds after the news of her passing broke, User:Sydwhunte, whose edits are mostly on sports pages, had already changed "is" to "was."

Deaditors

Interns thought they could count on return offers. Then Meta dropped them.

“ATTENTION @meta interns. Now that we got fired by Facebook does anyone wanna come together to create a startup?? Serious inquiries only.”

Meta

How the internet turned dadcore staple, ‘fish fear me,’ into viral fashion

Once a fixture of fishing dads, the wry motto has become a favorite among young people.

Women love me

For farmer Dave Brandt, being a meme is honest work

Dave’s iconic image is all over the internet, but he’s been too busy pioneering sustainable agriculture techniques to notice.

Ain't much

The utterly delightful site dedicated to classifying plastic bread tags

The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group sounds super-official, but it’s just one very obsessed guy.

The everyday
Interview

Coffee geniuses use lasers to make cold brew in three minutes

The method was outlined in a paper published in Nature and cuts what would otherwise be a 12- to 24-hour process down to just three minutes.

Cup of Joe
Party in the back

A long-running Wikipedia hoax and the problem of circular reporting

Wikipedia’s citogenesis incidents range from quirky to concerning

Oops

Now Spotify wants to sell you concert tickets

Just like TikTok, Spotify is getting more involved in live events.

Groupies

Google’s voice recognition browser tool helps kids learn to read

Read Along offers digital storybooks for kids to recite and gives feedback on their pronunciation.

Let's read a book

Meta stands by its occasionally racist chatbot

A representative said that some of its responses were “painful to see” but that the project is “important for building truly robust conversational A.I.”

Zuck

People’s Twitter feeds are being overrun with gimmick accounts right now

Twitter feeds are awash in content that people didn’t ask for. The response has not been positive.

Crazy ass Ls that go hard

Judges crib notes from Wikipedia before making legal decisions, study finds

Hey, of course they do: it's accessible and usually right. But perhaps we should have a body of knowledge that's just as accessible but more authoritative.

crash course

Are you ready to drink a Velveeta martini?

The gimmicky consumable is available in limited release.

Oh Cheesus

People are really still hacking Neopets in 2022

Roughly 69 million accounts were compromised. Your Neopet will probably be fine, but your passwords and information might be at risk.

How the mighty have fallen

U.S. government is still buying ‘huge volumes’ of smartphone location data

Taxpayer dollars are funding purchases of smartphone user data from questionable brokers.

Privacy