WikiHow describes itself as "the world's most popular how-to website" that provides "easy, well-researched, and trustworthy instructions for everything you want."
But as celebrities who are constantly hunted by paparazzi would tell you, popularity comes with a price.
In a humorous twist, the subreddit 'Disney Vacation,' with its 623K members, is dedicated to collecting weird, terrifying, and downright bad illustrations from wikiHow and re-captioning them for each other's entertainment.
We've featured this community a few times already, but in homage to their unwavering efforts, we decided to put together a collection of the best images they have ever produced. Enjoy!
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Isn't that the name of the CPR dummy? Or am I confusing that with something else?
wikiHow was introduced to the internet by Jack Herrick on January 15, 2005. This date was chosen to honor Wikipedia, which was also launched on January 15, only in 2001.
And silly as some of the illustrations might seem, wikiHow founder Jack Herrick says the goal of the platform is to give everyone on the planet a "practical education" – whether it's sexing turkeys, casting a love spell, or wearing fishnets.
Before Wikihow, Herrick founded eHow, a site with a similar idea but that paid its contributors. However, according to the businessman, this concept wasn't working.
Then, in 2004, he stumbled across Wikipedia. "It was clear it was going to be an amazing resource and become the best site on the internet," Herrick told WIRED. "And I said: 'If this works for an encyclopedia, does it work for a how-to guide?'"
He borrowed the open-source wiki software, and the next year released Wikihow. "Pretty much nothing happened," he recalled. "In those first days, we had almost no users, almost no edits. I think we had 2,000 people visit us that first month."
Herrick, who is still heavily involved in the day-to-day running of Wikihow, wanted to encourage people who did jump in and make edits to stick around. "Anyone who edited the site, I’d send them a personal note. It was that level of detail. I would look over every single change." And it slowly caught on.
Volunteer contributor Eric Wester first visited the site in 2007. "I don't remember the specific article that was featured that first brought me to Wikihow, although I was hooked pretty quickly," he said. Now, Wester does everything from writing articles to checking licensing on uploaded images, moderating pages for deletion, and helping teach new editors. "It's fun to be able to learn more about people's passions and then help point them in the direction of an editing tool that they might really find their niche in," he added.
Initially, the site only had Creative Commons images pulled in from Flickr or Wikimedia, but these were mostly generic and not instructive.
So to improve them, wikiHow hired a photographer, tasking them to illustrate a few articles. It worked, so more photographers were quickly hired. And they still do photography, but as you can see, there are some things you just can't photograph.
wikiHow didn't expect a strong reaction to its illustrations, nor the memes. The funny thing is that Herrick is actually aware of 'Disney Vacation.'
"Whoever is making those memes, super clever – very funny. There's some unbelievable stuff on there. It's comedy gold," he said.
These illustrations may be part of what has made wikiHow so famous online, but as WIRED's Nicole Kobie points out, what makes the site truly stand out isn't so obvious on its pages.
It's just a nice place to scroll through. Plenty of online communities devolve into cesspits of trolling and abuse, but wikiHow has managed to stay friendly. Let's hope it stays that way, too. Otherwise, where would we get all of these hilarious images?
At least it's not a Canada Goose (capitalized out of fear induced respect)
Jesus f’in Christ, BoredPanda. You censor the words d**k and W***y, but this is somehow alright? This site is so weird 😂
As long as it's not words or women's nipples it seams OK? 😬🤷♂️
Load More Replies...I friggin hate this! I'm in class this made me laugh so hard now the teacher's glaring at me :/
Was the teacher glaring the whole time you wrote this comment, too? 🤔
Load More Replies...BoredPanda not paying any attention to what they post or just not giving a flying f**k anymore 😂
Load More Replies...Several neighborhoods in Boston too from what I've learned through looking at real estate websites. Apparently to live comfortably in the Boston area one needs to make over 100,000 dollars a year, or around $60 an hour. Why do I mention this? I just got back from vacation in Boston and I absolutely fell in love with it. But I don't make that kind of bread.
I pledge allegiance to Windows XP, the OS of old, With Taskbar gleaming, and Start Menu bold. From the bluescreen of death, it kept us free, Oh, how we miss that sound of USB! For Clippy, and games like Solitaire, I promise to cherish, with love and care. So here's to the windows of yesteryear, In my heart, you'll always be near!
Maybe it is me. Maybe I am just not in the right state of mind for this kind of humor right now....
With a lot of these I wonder what the illustrations were originally intended for.
BoredPanda censors the words d**k, W***y, and c**p yet posts really disturbing memes about aborting and murdering a child. This furthers my hypothesis that BoredPanda had no idea what the hell they are doing or are the biggest trolls in existence.😂
Maybe it is me. Maybe I am just not in the right state of mind for this kind of humor right now....
With a lot of these I wonder what the illustrations were originally intended for.
BoredPanda censors the words d**k, W***y, and c**p yet posts really disturbing memes about aborting and murdering a child. This furthers my hypothesis that BoredPanda had no idea what the hell they are doing or are the biggest trolls in existence.😂