Wikismarts
June 28th, 2008
I would like to think of myself as a fairly intellectual person. While I admittedly lack common sense at times (specifically when rewiring something is involved), I am often teased by friends about being book smart. That is, I remember a lot of random and seemingly useless pieces of information, and occasionally bring them up in conversation.
That said, I find myself having to look up words and subjects quite often when having a conversation with someone who is consistently smarter than I am. Occasionally I will just ask about the meaning behind a word or phrase, but more often than not I use Google or Wikipedia to remedy my ignorance. Sometimes I will throw into the banter that I just looked up whatever it may be, but more commonly I will just continue with the conversation and enjoy my newly-gained knowledge.
However, I seem to be in the minority. More and more, I notice people choose to elaborate on whatever it is they just looked up, as if they’ve known about it their entire lives. They smugly proclaim, “Zeitgeist? Why, you mean the German expression which means ‘the spirit of the age’? It obviously describes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era!” Now, this guy is either a German expressionist/aficionado, or he is full of shit.
Depending on your personality, you may react to this in different ways. If you are someone who is not quick to judge others, you may think, “Wow, this is an educated guy.” If you are a German linguist, you may think, “Hmm, this guy has a fairly capable grasp of my language.”
If you are a teenager living in the middle of Nebraska writing a blog post about people who look things up on Wikipedia and pretend that this information has been implanted in their brain for a long period of time, however, you may think, “Alright you smug bastard. Looking something up before replying to my IM and pretending you’re an expert on the subject does not make you an intellectual, nor does it impress me. It makes me think you’re an arrogant ass who is too egotistical to admit that there is a piece of information under the sun that you don’t know.” But again, your reaction may differ.
I like to refer to this kind of knowledge as Wikismarts. Wikismarts are tidbits of information you learn because you had to look it up before you could reply to someone’s message. While there is nothing wrong with Wikismarts in theory, they can easily be abused. As outlined above, don’t pretend to be the most knowledgeable person in the world about the subject, just because you have the Wikipedia page opened. It is painfully obvious to the person you are talking to and makes you look like a pompous ass.
