Research Happy Place: June 25, 2024

I wanted to write another “Wikipedia Trawling” post, but the articles I’m linking to here aren’t from Wikipedia. It’s just as well, considering there are other online encyclopedias that I like to reference. It seems kind of dumb to have special posts dedicated solely to Wikipedia, Britannica, and so on. So I’m making a general designation for anything reference-related. The downside is that my OCD is already hating that there’s only one “Wikipedia Trawling” post, and it especially hates that I didn’t try alliteration with “Wikipedia Wandering”, and it hates that I can’t think of clever alliterations at all…

Aaaaaanyway…

Other than the team behind The Annotated MST3K, it feels like I’m the only one doing this kind of thing. You know, Vinesauce: The Questening? Explaining the cultural references in a piece of media? Carrying on like I’m the only information nerd collecting references, pretending I’m on a quest of cultural significance, clopping about with coconut halves because I can’t afford a real horse…

So it was a real joy to find that some writers at Britannica, the most reputable encyclopedia out there, had done something similar with Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and Fall Out Boy’s 2023 update of the song. They’re not questing as I am, but the objective is still the same.

What sort of references can you expect through these long lists? I’ll give you a sample from each:

From “All 119 References in ‘We Didn’t Star the Fire,’ Explained”:

117) Hypodermics on the shore

In July 1988 more than 70 syringes and vials of blood washed up on New York’s Staten Island beach. The cause was improper disposal of medical waste at the area’s largest landfill: instead of following the proper procedures, workers were sending medical waste and other garbage out to sea.

From “All 81 References in Fall Out Boy’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire,’ Explained”:

56) Metroid

Released in 1986 by Nintendo, the intergalactic videogame Metroid allows players to control bounty hunter Samus Aran as she adventures on desolate planets or space stations. Constituting a franchise of more than a dozen titles, Metroid games have sold more than 20 million copies globally. Nintendo released Metroid Dread in 2021.

Perhaps this might spark a new type of quest in the future, a mission to find other pop culture info nerds who like to write lists of their findings. I shall tentatively name it Alone No More: The Findening.