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All statements about Wikipedia

95 statements about Wikipedia in 62 videos, by upload date.

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2007

Also named in: Jun 5th: S-S-S-Somethin From the Forum

2008

  • 2008-04-30 (said on 2008-05-01, implied) · BLOOD! I'm a KILLER! — Hank: Citing a video he just watched, Hank says Wikipedia took about as much time to make as it takes 100 million Americans to watch the Super Bowl. — 00:02:49
  • 2008-05-19 · Three Things — announcement: John reveals that he and Hank have been working on a semi-secret wiki about lies rather than facts, Omnictionary, named after the Wikipedia-like reference source in Paper Towns; Hank acquired the domain. — 00:02:11
  • 2008-05-19 · Three Things — John explains the idea: just as Wikipedia is a user-created encyclopedia, Omnictionary can become a user-created novel, read in any order and written by everybody, though he doubts it will work. (hedged) — 00:02:44

2009

  • 2009-01-11 · SOMALI PIRATES! France Penetrates Chad! — John reads from Wikipedia's Chad page that the French first 'penetrated' Chad in 1891, then plays the wording for laughs. (playful) — 00:01:01
  • 2009-02-21 (said on 2009-02-14, implied) · Paper Towns and PUPPY — John: He named the book's wiki Omnictionary not for fear of a Wikipedia lawsuit but for literary reasons: the name means it contains all knowledge. — 00:01:00

Also named in: Brotherhood 2.0.0.9, Big Oil RIPS YOU OFF — via Unfair Mathematics

2010

  • 2010-01-08 · GUS HAS NO FUZZ! — announcement: John notes that the link to the hand-dryer study went down from too many clicks, and points readers to Wikipedia's hand dryer article for its conclusions. — video description

2011

  • 2011-07-22 · Your Yard Is EVIL — John's sources for his lawn figures: Wikipedia for turf grass being the biggest irrigated US crop by a factor of three, and EPA estimates that a third of residential water (four billion gallons of potable water a day) goes to watering lawns and that 70 million pounds of pesticides are used on lawns each year. — video description
  • 2011-11-04 · You CAN Judge a Book by its Cover! — Hank says that, according to her Wikipedia page, John Waters cast Hatchet-Face with a one-line ad asking for a girl with a good body and an alarming face who is proud of it. — 00:00:43

Also named in: WE ARE 812 YEARS OLD, John Green is an IDIOT! And so are you.

2012

  • 2012-02-28 · On Cuties and Cooties — John defines cooties, quoting Wikipedia, as a fictitious childhood disease said to infect people perceived as different or socially stigmatized. — 00:00:00
  • 2012-03-27 · Wrong but Right: Thoughts from Places Amsterdam — John corrects what he said in the video: Hazel wrongly concludes that the set of numbers (not whole numbers) between 0 and 1 is smaller than the set between 0 and 2; in fact they are the same size, and he points to Wikipedia's article on infinite cardinality for proofs. — video description
  • 2012-06-22 · Hank is Maybe Crazy — Hank: Stretching Blu-Tack ('ticky tacky') for stress relief, Hank says he read its whole Wikipedia page and that it was created completely by accident, like many of science's greatest accomplishments. — 00:00:33
  • 2012-11-20 · Great at Being Terrible: The Florence Foster Jenkins Story — John reads Wikipedia's first sentence on Jenkins: an American amateur operatic soprano known and ridiculed for her lack of rhythm, pitch and tone and her poor singing. — 00:00:04

Also named in: Thoughts from Places: The Tour

2013

  • 2013-01-08 (said on 2013-01-05, implied) · Addicted to the Internet — John says he and Henry spent 20 minutes on the Wikipedia whale shark article settling whether whale sharks bite humans; he was right, and learning it cost nothing. — 00:01:20
  • 2013-02-01 · Football For Nerds — Hank says Americans will collectively spend 300 million man-hours watching the Super Bowl this year (2013), which he calls the time it took to create Wikipedia. — 00:00:29
  • 2013-04-23 · DOCTOR GREEN — John says he looked on Wikipedia and found that, as an honorary doctor, he cannot call himself a doctor. — 00:01:23
  • 2013-12-31 · GOOD NEWS: 14 Reasons 2014 May Be the Best Year Ever — John says most of the video's statistics came from the UN, from Human Progress, or from Wikipedia's list of US motor vehicle deaths by year. — video description

2014

  • 2014-10-21 · Ebola: What IS Terrifying — John: Smallpox was eradicated, so no one will die of it again; Wikipedia's smallpox page begins 'Smallpox was an infectious disease.' — 00:00:11

Also named in: Understanding Ukraine: The Problems Today and Some Historical Context

2015

  • 2015-02-10 · Understanding Boko Haram — recommendation: John offers links for further reading: a timeline of Boko Haram's attacks and a detailed introduction to the group, an overview of how Islam came to sub-Saharan Africa, and more on the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War. — video description
  • 2015-03-20 · A Sacrifice of Individuality and the Internets — Hank says the internet enabled crowdfunding (Patreon, Indiegogo, Kickstarter), crowdsourcing that built Wikipedia, and the wisdom of the crowd: upvotes on Reddit and choices on YouTube and Facebook that help curate content. — 00:01:01
  • 2015-06-19 · 19 Ways to Not Suck on the Internet — recommendation: Hank says anyone can edit Wikipedia: fix spelling mistakes, undo vandalism through the page history, and read about serious editing before making big changes. — 00:01:56
  • 2015-07-07 · Understanding the Financial Crisis in Greece — recommendation: John lists the video's sources: Anil Kashyap's primer on the Greek crisis, The New York Times' introduction, Wikipedia's history of the European debt crisis, and The Economist's coverage, which he calls excellent, of Greece, the bailouts, the debt and how the banking system works under capital controls. — video description
  • 2015-08-28 · ALL of Wikipedia in One QR Code? — ask: In the description Hank invites viewers to check his maths and tell him if he got anything wrong, and links MinutePhysics' 'How Far Can Legolas See' and a video decoding a QR code by hand. — video description
  • 2015-08-28 · ALL of Wikipedia in One QR Code? — Hank asks whether all of Wikipedia could be printed on one QR code and scanned by a camera, calling it a dumb question of the kind he enjoys answering. (hypothetical) — 00:00:26
  • 2015-08-28 · ALL of Wikipedia in One QR Code? — Hank says just the text of just the English Wikipedia is about 24 terabytes, 24 trillion bytes. (doubtful: about 24 terabytes; doubtful: 24 trillion) — 00:00:42
  • 2015-08-28 · ALL of Wikipedia in One QR Code? — Hank: Multiplying by 8 squares per byte, taking the square root and assuming 2 mm blocks, Hank gets a QR code 27 km on a side holding all of Wikipedia. (hypothetical) — 00:00:49
  • 2015-08-28 · ALL of Wikipedia in One QR Code? — Hank's answer: yes, Wikipedia can be printed as a scannable QR code, not really with current technology, but it is possible. (hypothetical) — 00:03:30
  • 2015-11-03 · Monkey Hangers — John: Reading about the game, John found the headline 'Dons Down Monkey Hangers', which led him down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. — 00:00:30

Also named in: WE WON! Net Neutrality and Re-Thinking Cynicism

2016

  • 2016-02-23 · How Energy and Time Change Everything — John says about 1.3 billion people lack regular access to energy: without it kids can't study after dark or reach Wikipedia, farms grow less food, and clinics can't be sterilized. — 00:00:44
  • 2016-04-26 · Understanding the Tax Plans of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — John lists his sources: analyses of both Cruz's and Trump's plans from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and the right-leaning Center for Federal Tax Policy (Tax Foundation), a primer on Cruz's VAT or "business flat tax", the National Priorities Project on the federal budget, and Wikipedia on US federal income tax. — video description
  • 2016-10-07 · Changing Our Business a Bit — Hank says the idea 'imagine others complexly' has its own Wikipedia page, part of Wikipedia's essays on civility, which he finds unusual and amazing. — 00:01:58

2017

2018

2019

  • 2019-07-02 · On Sunlight — John notes Wikipedia's long list of solar deities: Egypt's Ra, Greece's Helios and the Aztec Nanahuatzin, who leapt into a bonfire to become the sun. — 00:01:27
  • 2019-07-30 · The Mexican Repatriation — recommendation: The description calls Wikipedia's article on the Depression-era repatriation quite good. — video description

Also named in: Seemed Like a Good Idea: Eugene Schieffelin and the European Starlings

2020

2022

  • 2022-03-04 · The 2022 P4A Meme Review!!! — Hank says he wanted his forehead on Wikipedia and someone briefly made it happen, though with the picture where a balloon task had him write 'butt' on it. (playful) — 00:03:54
  • 2022-12-09 · Things are Changing Very Fast — Hank says ChatGPT is not good at replacing Wikipedia: it confidently states true and untrue things alike, and only fact-checking tells them apart. — 00:02:55

2023

2024

  • 2024-02-13 · Why Doesn't ❤️ Look Like a Heart? — recommendation: The description credits Martin Kemp's book Christ to Coke for the heart-shape section, the smiley face metaphor and much background, and calls Wikipedia's article good if limited. — video description
  • 2024-05-10 · Three Whole Onions with Secretary Pete Buttigieg — Hank explains secretary birds are African birds of prey that eat snakes among other meat, though Wikipedia says snakes' importance has been exaggerated. — 00:17:33
  • 2024-11-12 · BELIEVE: The Jimmy Glass Story — John says relegation out of the Football League can be devastating: relegated clubs not uncommonly go bankrupt and cease to exist, and Wikipedia's football history, e.g. Hereford United, is full of past tense. — 00:01:27
  • 2024-12-20 · Fine, I'll Talk About the Drones… — Hank reveals the video's opening was copied from the Wikipedia page on the 2019-2020 Colorado drone sightings, and replays it. — 00:12:02

2025

  • 2025-05-02 · I Found the Dumbest Time Zone — Hank reads and praises a Wikipedia sentence saying UTC is assumed south of 80 degrees latitude despite the limited presence of clocks. (playful) — 00:04:03
  • 2025-09-30 · WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING — Hank says he once had a Wikipedia page and then lost it; on the talk page an editor said having a notable brother does not confer notability. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • 2025-09-30 · WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING — Hank agrees that a notable brother does not confer notability; deciding what does is one of Wikipedia editors' hard jobs, and he thanks them. — 00:00:42
  • 2025-09-30 · WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING — Hank says John was right in his video that there are many new people here who don't know the channel's history, so he looked it up on Wikipedia. — 00:01:05
  • 2025-09-30 · WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING — Hank finds that the brothers, the Vlogbrothers channel and Nerdfighteria each have a Wikipedia page, as do Crash Course, SciShow and John's books. — 00:01:27
  • 2025-09-30 · WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING — Hank jokes they went from too few Wikipedia pages to too many, a presence stretching from tuberculosis activism to nerdpunk to VidCon that leaves newcomers no way to catch up. (playful, hedged) — 00:01:27
  • 2025-10-01 · Real Reasons for Hope — John thanks Hank for recalling that the talk page of his proposed Wikipedia page said having a notable brother does not convey notoriety; Hank may be the more notable brother today, but John will always be the first notable brother in the eyes of Wikipedia editors. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • 2025-10-21 · Is Book Publishing Dying? An Author's Perspective — John says that while reading he often feels the siren call of his phone: he wonders if there's a Wikipedia page about something, and then he's off. — 00:02:53
  • 2025-11-24 · Good Store Holiday Gift Guide LIVE with Hank and John — John: Looking at Wikipedia's list of Eckerd College alumni, John says Hank is overwhelmingly the most famous, with writer Dennis Lehane second. — 00:38:39
  • 2025-12-09 · Hank Green, from A to Z — John: Trying to recall the name of Hank's 1990s Mars website, John scrolled past a completely wrong Google AI response and learned from Wikipedia it was Hank Green's Mars Exploration Page. — 00:00:00

Also named in: So I Bought My Team a Pro Football Player, The Web is Going to Die

2026

  • 2026-02-27 · Can We Do a Science Together?? — Hank says Wikipedia has a list of notable people and fictional characters plus public pageview data that can stand in for how famous each is. — 00:03:09
  • 2026-02-27 · Can We Do a Science Together?? — ask: Hank asks people in nearby fields who can extract Wikipedia data and build a Tinder-style yes/no test, seeded with fake names to catch lying and tiered by fame, to send grant proposals to hankandjohn@gmail.com. — 00:03:38
  • 2026-05-12 · Lies, Damn Lies, and Bart Giamatti — John: Talking on the livestream about giving Rice University's commencement address, John named Giamatti as his speaker; someone marvelled that Paul Giamatti's dad spoke, so John checked Wikipedia. — 00:00:20
  • 2026-09-25 · Who Has Signed Their Name the Most Times? — Hank says the Guinness title is a very weird thing to have on John's Wikipedia page, while old bureaucrats beat him by a mile on total signatures. (playful) — 00:08:45