In Search Of Wikipedia’s Shrug Guy
April 14, 2023 10:21 AM   Subscribe

The real triumph of the “Shrug” article, though, is its sole photo. It’s a man with a perplexing assortment of accessories: a tiara labeled “SCAMPER,” a neon wristband, a comically loose paisley tie. (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan (13 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
For a while, Nate struggled to determine whether he chose the shrug life or the shrug life chose him.
lol
posted by Glinn at 10:27 AM on April 14, 2023 [9 favorites]


What began the photo’s trajectory into notoriety turned out to be all in the metadata tags, which included “shrug.” By early 2007, Nate recalls, the photo was the number one Google Image Search result for “shrug.”

Back in 2006 you really could be the number one google search result without trying... for a while I was the number one result for "sasunaru fanfiction" because I had a recommendations list on my personal webpage...
posted by subdee at 11:23 AM on April 14, 2023


Looking forward to a couple decades from now when someone goes searching for Wikipedia's Cow Tools guy.
posted by bondcliff at 11:30 AM on April 14, 2023 [21 favorites]


I love this - finding a mostly obscure thing that somehow many have seen or knows about tucked away in a closet of their brain, and doing a dive to learn the who/what/how/etc.
posted by davidmsc at 12:45 PM on April 14, 2023


Reminds me of the article digging into the backstory behind the "too slow" photos used for the Wikipedia "high five" article.
posted by flod at 12:55 PM on April 14, 2023 [9 favorites]


This is by Annie of Depths of Wikipedia! She’s so funny.
posted by ellieBOA at 2:01 PM on April 14, 2023 [5 favorites]


Reminds me of the article digging into the backstory behind the "too slow" photos used for the Wikipedia "high five" article.

Particularly the part where they linked to the article in the second paragraph.
posted by zamboni at 2:15 PM on April 14, 2023 [4 favorites]


From the too slow article:
“Victim misses” had become “victim Mrs."!

Incredible pun. I feel like Salieri watching Mozart.
posted by ZaphodB at 2:30 PM on April 14, 2023 [6 favorites]


I love the stories of the shrug and too slow photos. And grind, which was linked in one of the articles. And the victim Mrs pun was fantastic.

It does make me think about the possibility that there were (and probably still are) demographic differences between wikipedia editors and the general public (and also probably people posting CC images to flickr that were getting picked up by wikipedia). I feel like some very trivial biases might snowball as images are pulled from specific places to train AIs, etc. It was refreshing to see a buddhist monk on the thumbs-up page and the skaters at the top of the fist bump page.
posted by snofoam at 3:07 PM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]


I've always loved the Free Shrugs kid. I managed an IT helpdesk ages ago, and on a particularly technically difficult day, the staff hung that on the door. I closed early and got them burritos.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:13 PM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]


Back in 2006 you really could be the number one google search result without trying

For reals! I knew a guy whose AIM handle appeared in the top image search result for some common adjective, like "awesome" or "cool", and randos were always IMing him to be like "hey!! Did you know you're [adjective] guy?! How did that happen??" He actually made some real friends that way. The internet used to be so cute
posted by potrzebie at 4:22 PM on April 14, 2023 [4 favorites]


Some rando had posted on their public Amazon wish list that they were wishing on a can for holding trash. So Leslie Harpold bought it for them. This continues to bring me joy.
posted by zenon at 7:15 PM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]


Don't worry folks — I got Fotomat covered.

And I probably didn't pay for it. I worked there. ^At that Fotomat, there.^ Peabody, MA. 1987.

Most asked question: "Where do you go to the bathroom?"

Answer: [I then stand up in the booth and fake walking down a spiral staircase.]

This is my fame.
posted by not_on_display at 9:47 PM on April 14, 2023 [6 favorites]


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