A viral TikTok reminds us that sometimes inspiration can spark from the most mundane of sources.
Take a look around your logic gate right beforeboarding calland you ’ll witness the largeness of human experience : airport dadswho have been line up since before the plane arrive , lover phone their sol one last time , and technical school bros voraciously type to get that final email out . Me ? I wish to pass this sentence meter reading , and my content of choice is the Wikipedia Sir Frederick Handley Page dedicated to the country or city I ’m about to travel to . I wo n’t board that plane until I ’ve made it all the way down to “ See also . ”
We ’ve all been evidence by some elementary shoal teacher not to trust Wikipedia . To that I say , try on to stop me . The free , on-line encyclopedia is , in my opinion , one of the best and most accessible ways to get a grand overview of a position . When you ’re seeking a shot of the seat you ’re about to encounter — geographic fact ! historic photograph ! similitude cities!—this sparsely decorated site , with its democratisation of cognition , is the place to be .
It always start up with a random fact , something like , “ Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a double landlocked country located in Central Asia . ” Who knew Uzbekistan was doubly landlocked , and what does that even mean ? get through that blue hyperlink , or stay on on . Skim through “ Economy ” and “ Demographics ” until you get to the fun part : “ civilisation . ”
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That ’s where you ’ll find info on traditional ravisher ( mumbo sauce in D.C. ) , niche medicine style ( Brazilian lam metal in Río ) , unique conferences ( Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin ) , and interesting nugget of info ( how Beat source Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were deeply revolutionise by Mexico City ) . My favorite segment is “ celebrated the great unwashed , ” because , for some reason , knowing that Seth Rogen is from Vancouver was intact to my experience of Vancouver .
Wikipedia is that charmingly lowbrow — presume I say , y2k — author of information that ’s making a comeback . TheWiki rabbit hole gamehad a second during the pandemic , and it seems as though I ’m not the only one who uses it on my travels . In this viral TikTok , a boyfriend downloads a Wikipedia pageboy on “ aircraft ” to read as he flies . And as one commenter points out , if you download the Wikipedia app , you could lay aside article for offline reading . Genius .
