Annie Rauwerda’s Curiosity Is Infectious Thanks to the Depths of Wikipedia

Annie Rauwerda, the woman behind the popular social media account Depths of Wikipedia, is an editor at heart. I can tell because during our Zoom call, she’s instinctively self-reflexive, noting when she deems an answer particularly good, or too long, or prime for paraphrasing. It’s a skill that drew her into Wikipedia culture. She started out small, editing typos in high school, and then, once COVID hit while she was in college, Rauwerda began editing the famous free encyclopedia more and more. Simultaneously, she started the Depths of Wikipedia Instagram and Twitter accounts. 

“I kind of look back on [college during COVID] with a little bit of fondness, even though it was bad for the world. For the first time I was on Wikipedia a lot, and I had this new, weird community on Instagram, suddenly,” she tells me. 

Rauwerda shares idiosyncratic, funny snippets from the website on the Depths of Wikipedia social media accounts, and these tidbits have either been found by herself or submitted by fans; recent posts include a list of sundial mottos, an Indian farmer who was legally declared dead despite still being alive, and a cosmonaut stranded in space when the Soviet Union fell. They’re the sort of odd facts that remind you just how strange and surprising our world can be, random trivia that makes us laugh and sparks our natural curiosity.

Depths of Wikipedia was founded in April 2020, but the account’s following grew significantly in July of that year when Rauwerda posted a screenshot from influencer Caroline Calloway’s Wikipedia page, in which a vandal had changed her occupation to “nothing.” Calloway had initially bought Instagram followers and fostered some real ones by documenting her years attending Cambridge; in the years since, she’s been called a scammer by critics for her various money making ventures, hence the mischievous edit on her page. When Calloway saw Rauwerda’s post at first, she was upset, but after reaching out and an apology post from Rauwerda, Calloway commented that “Our beef is solved.” Calloway started sharing Depths of Wikipedia posts on the regular, and the follower count for the page just kept growing, especially once 2021 started. (Side note: Their beef is well and truly squashed, because Calloway gave Rauwerda her cat Pearl, who is adorable.)

In the years since, Rauwerda has sold Depths of Wikipedia merch—something she’s stopped due to quality control issues and not wanting to hawk goods—and in late 2021 developed the account into a live show. “It really draws a nerdy crowd,” she tells me about the event, which she describes as “a comedic lecture.” Rauwerda’s even had some famous guests at the show, like fellow Wikipedia fan Jesse Eisenberg, who answered trivia questions and reenacted the 1904 Olympic Men’s Marathon for the audience. Her run of live shows in autumn of 2023 was her “final hurrah,” since she doesn’t plan on doing them in the future.

“Ultimately, I feel a lot happier working by myself on the computer. I feel like it’s more satisfying, less stressful,” Rauwerda says. As we keep talking, she adds: “I’ve never wanted to be a stand-up comedian really that badly. And so yeah, I feel like I’ve given it a try. I didn’t become obsessed with it or anything.”

The main motivation behind the live shows was a means of monetizing something Rauwerda had devoted so much time to; thankfully, she’s found another way to make a living from her love of Wikipedia. Rauwerda is writing a non-fiction book on the culture of the website (in addition to her excellent Substack), which makes sense because these days, she says, “I care more about editing than I do about posting.” She’s traveled all over the globe for Wikipedia-related conferences—Singapore, Serbia, Ireland, Greece, and Canada—and met fellow editors obsessed with the encyclopedia and its policies. The internal politics are fascinating, if a little obfuscated because there’s so much esoteric knowledge involved. 

“There’s just enough very strong personalities where people are mad about everything. Also, every policy is written in language that usually leaves room for interpretation in some ways,” Rauwerda says. 

Later on, she tells me, “I think the culture is fairly insular, and in some ways, that might not be an entirely bad thing. There is kind of a barrier to entry. It’s not immediately obvious to people what the policies are, and what the style guidelines and the formatting are… It’s not like a lot of modern UX, where it’s designed to be automatic. You do have to go spelunking into these weird guideline pages and learn, and if you don’t, people will get mad at you.”

At the same time, Rauwerda doesn’t want people to be discouraged from trying to become editors and get involved: “The thing I would tell people is that if your first article gets deleted, or if somebody leaves a really angry message on your talk page criticizing the way you cited something or formatted a table, just do not take it personally because it’s hard to learn for everyone. Like my first article, I think it got deleted a while ago. People are way nicer than sometimes they come across.”

Part of her passion for Wikipedia’s culture comes from Rauwerda’s Internet optimism, and her belief that “as much as I do mourn the loss of so many sites that used to be less poisoned by corporate interests, I feel like that earnest, social hacker ethos still exists on the internet all over, you just have to look for it.” 

As someone who often hears (and feels) that the Internet is ruining our lives the more it becomes inextricably intertwined with them, Rauwerda’s perspective is a welcome breath of fresh air. She suggests seeking out “places like Wikipedia, or there’s all these Discords, and even some subreddits or other wikis and webpages that somebody has lovingly maintained to document all the film photo booths in the world and whether they’re still in operation. All the good stuff is still there, even though there’s also a lot of bad stuff.”

The internet, at its best, rewards insatiable curiosity, and Rauwerda is an endless font of inquisitiveness. It’s that quality that made Depths of Wikipedia so successful, informs her upcoming book, and compels her to possibly pursue a career as a science teacher one day. Frankly, that curiosity is something we could all do with a little more of.

Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s assistant comedy editor. Go harass her on Twitter @theclaremartin.