So I know that wikipedia isn't like the Encyclopedia Britannica of my youth, the end all and be all of knowledge. I know that some of the information found there is questionable at best. But I still trusted it and looked to it often for answers to questions like where did vampire legends really start and what was the Vietnam War all about. All of that changed after hearing one horrific anecdotal tale told today in church.
A guy was telling some long and awful story about an elaborate prank he played. For some reason he told it as a preface to a Sunday School lesson about faith. He was a Resident Advisor for a dorm, and one of his innocent little residents, a superstitious boy from Mexico, was terrified of ghosts. So he took some sort of hunting device that plays the sounds of dying animals to lure coyotes, hid it in this kids room, and then (using a remote) activated it every night at 12:26. Naturally, the kid came to him terrified and he told the boy some story about a Mexican worker who died there and to make his story believable he posted the whole thing on wikipedia!!! So because the story was on the internet, and therefore 100% true, the kid spent every night of his dorm experience in fear. He would pray each night that the "ghost" wouldn't harm him!
Not only was the story itself horrific (how the hell did he think that would make him believable as a teacher of Christ's message???), but I've now lost all my faith in wikipedia. If that one stupid guy (well, not really stupid since that was a pretty elaborate plot he thought up) could make a believable wikipedia entry for his own amusement, how can I trust any of the other entries? For all I know they're all made up! I feel like I just found out Santa Claus isn't real. Sigh.
1 comment:
this is terrible. like you, i know wiki isn't exactly infallible...but i just used it for some background info for my final speech. ah well...i don't think she's smart enough to check sources.
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