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Stephen Colbert Wikipedia Prank Backfires
Vicissidude writes "The champion of 'truthiness' couldn't resist making fun of a website where facts, it seems, are endlessly malleable. But after making fun of Wikipedia on Monday night's "Colbert Report," Colbert learned some hard truths about Wikipedia's strength in resisting vandalism. Here's how the segment started: 'Colbert logs on to the Wikipedia article about his show to find out whether he usually refers to Oregon as "California's Canada or Washington's Mexico." Upon learning that he has referred to Oregon as both, he demonstrates how easy it is to disregard both references and put in a completely new one (Oregon is Idaho's Portugal), declaring it "the opinion I've always held, you can look it up."' Colbert then called on users to go to the site and falsify the entry on elephants. But Wikipedia's volunteer administrators were among those watching Colbert, and they responded swiftly to correct the entry, block further mischievous editing, and ban user StephenColbert from the website."
Only if Colbert had previously vandalized the Wikipedia definition of "hilarious". Actually, for most of Comedy Central that would probably be a shrewd strategy.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
His whole show is nothing more than a rip on O'Rielly. After about 5 minutes it's incredibly played. I thought it was a one show joke, but a series? Pulease! How come they don't do a spoof series on Larry King? Dan Rather? CNN? Oh right, because they're all liberals like Colbert and all of Comedy Central.
One sided humor is just lame. Sorry.
"No one would be censoring you. You are perfectly free to start your own discussion website [slashcode.com] and run it the way you'd like it."
Wow! I never realized this before!!!!!
Where were you when the voynix came?
For instance, if you use the words, right wing before the word radio, you can create the impression that radio talk shows are somehow biased or deceitfully biased. It'd be like if we used blanket statements like, "left wing web logs" or "idiot poster" when talking about slashdot.
Although the actual statement made by Al Gore had nothing to do with funding, it was clearly an attempt by him to take credit for the internet's creation, despite the fact that this was really an ancillary effect of the funding Mr. Gore actually voted for. The statement reveals that Gore is the worst kind of liar: he uses statements that are technically true to craft mistaken impressions.
Ironically, this is pretty much the opposite of your post, which uses mistaken impressions and jingoistic terminology to make a statement that is, in fact, profoundly true.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Other than coining the term "truthiness" (which was funny right up until the moment he explained it), Colbert really doesn't seem to come up with a lot of original material. But he commits a far greater sin as a comedian than not being original: He's not very funny.
Don't get me wrong, he's witty. He skewers his targets with laser-like precision. He's just not all that funny when doing so.
To do really great satirical attacks, you need to LOVE the material you are making fun of, if only a little bit. The works of "C.P.E. Bach" would not be funny in the least if Peter Schickele wasn't a devotee of both orchestral music and the intellectual culture which surrounds it. "The Blues Brothers" was one of the funniest movies ever made because Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were really, really in to the (then) fading Chicago blues scene. "Dogma" was pants-wettingly funny because Kevin Smith was, and is, a practicing Catholic. The guys behind "Spinal Tap" were obviously big fans of metal. If John Cameron Mitchell didn't like drag shows and glam punk, he never could have made "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." The list goes on.
Stephen Colbert, on the other hand, clearly loathes and detests the rising tide of right-wing opinion personalities (O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, etc.) This makes him very much the wrong person to attempt to effectively satirize them for the sake of comedy. His send-up of them is good enough to get smirks and nods of approval from those who share his disdain, but little else. He gets most of his laughs via typical SNL "Weekend Update" type bits, or by interviewing people who are more funny than he is.
For the record: Seeing Dennis Miller savage the left isn't really very funny most of the time either.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
A liberal is just a conservative who hasn't been mugged. Actually, that's not quite right, a social batshit crazy democrat is just a theoretically rightist but in reality not really whose political leaders also major hypocrites albeit not as bad as the front-runners in the leftist field who hasn't been mugged. Amercan liberals are not liberals at all.
I was modded as a troll for daring to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. Don't worry about it, I've got karma to burn.
While I'm at it, I might as well point out:
Microsoft Windows works a lot better these days than it used to.
Linux, while great for the server room, is still not ready to go on my mom's desktop.
"The Family Guy" sucks. Really. A lot.
There's more to anime than tentacle porn.
The Nintendo Wii is nothing special.
Grown men playing with LEGO blocks is kind of sad.
The PATRIOT Act is pretty much the same thing as RICO, with "mobsters" crossed out and "terrorists" written in its place.
HDMI is just another cable connection standard, and will not suck all the joy out of your life.
Most people don't give a shit about how badly MySpace code is written, nor how ugly the pages are.
And finally, to serve back on-topic:
Wikipedia is a great first place to go to learn about a subject when you know nothing about it, but simply having read the "wiki" on a subject should never be mistaken for actual knowledge.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'm jutht getting thtarted! ;)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Dude, are you Jeff Albertson? :-)
You are aware that cartoon characters are not real, yes?
Because, if not, I have some bad news for you. You had better sit down.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Carlin, Pryor, Black, and Hicks are not satirists. They attack their targets directly, not ironically.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Your ideas are intriguing and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
;)
Play your cards right, and maybe I'll give you a blog link.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.