Encyclopedia Dramatica


In Lulz We Trust
—Official Site Motto
Where Facts Die, And Stereotypes Lie
—Urban Dictionary

Encyclopedia Dramatica (NSFW) is a site that you either loved or hated. It's pretty much impossible not to be on one side of the fence. Its purpose is to parody and satirize the internet, and this is done in a format similar to The Other Wiki. Its second purpose is to document the lulz (pretty much just laughing at stupid things people do on the Internet) and Internet memes. However, this site is often mistakenly taken seriously. The users on this site are mostly trolls; hence, it is made deliberately offensive. Almost nothing on the site should be taken seriously. They would write something you find offensive on Asperger's Syndrome, and then it would turn out that one of the sysops has the condition. They would write something offensive about something you like, they say "just ignore it" and advise you to stop caring about what they think.

That said, if you are offended by anything at all, no matter how small, don't visit the site. You don't want to be there, and the users wouldn't have wanted you to be there, with the possible exception of the trolls who simply liked watching someone be angry or offended. Also, don't register an account there purely for the purpose of complaining. You would be trolled, and if you don't like being trolled, or trolls in general, this is a site you would hate. Finally, since it is a humor wiki that anyone (with an account) can edit, you would get a lot of mixed results and a lot of things that aren't funny. There is a big project trying to fix the overuse of memes in articles and anything else unfunny, but it isn't done yet. Quality can't be guaranteed.

There's another side to this, however. While 4chan's /b/ board, the trolls' other playground, is an image board where threads eventually get bumped off the site for good and the users themselves have legendarily short attention spans, Encyclopedia Dramatica keeps permanent archives of just about everything, providing budding young trolls with a convenient list of 4chan's Acceptable Targets and, often, a cheat sheet on how to effectively harass them. Given the never ending supply of "budding young trolls", this ensured that anyone who's been documented on the site may never have truly heard the end of it.

On April of 2011, Encyclopedia Dramatica was temporarily killed. That didn't stop people from re-establishing the site at a new domain a few months later. In fact, due to its contents the site tended to change top-level domains from time to time. There have also been fairly significant lawsuits of variable merit directed against the site's administrators, or against individual users, mostly alleging libel or defamation, discrimination or copyright infringement.

In early 2020, the site went off-line with the bizarre explanation "Encyclopedia Dramatica is down because our admin is in jail and didn't give anyone the password. (He's not in jail for anything site related. He's in jail for forgery)". In March 2020, the site re-emerged, with an article detailing their plans for the future and throwing shade at the old owners.

And as you might figure, Encyclopedia Dramatica has an entry on the original TV Tropes wiki with heavy criticism of them. Knowing TV Tropes' reaction to criticism... It doesn't have a page about All The Tropes, but it did have a mention of it.

They also have some games created on their forums which you can find here.

Tropes used in Encyclopedia Dramatica include:
  • Accentuate the Negative: A trademark of the site.
  • Acceptable Targets: Averted. Having acceptable targets implies that some are unacceptable.
  • Anarchy Is Chaos: Played fairly straight by the Self-Demonstrating Article on "Anarchy", which would not be out of place on Uncyclopedia.
  • And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Parodied with their main page's featured articles section, "THE MOAR YOU KNOW."
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The last offensive picture in the "Offended" page is George W. Bush.
  • Brain Bleach: You better have this on hand before clicking a link to ED. On the off-chance you decide to actually take a complete Wiki Walk there (holy crap what are you thinking?!), bring a 9001-gallon tanker of Brain Bleach.
  • Brand X: Some of the "ads" that pop up offer Pedobear T-shirts, Long Cat plushies, links to fake dating sites, and some other things... Yes, even that.
  • But You Screw One Goat!: Several of the people documented — including some almost-literal examples from people who apparently thought telling the whole world about it was a good idea.
  • Crosses The Line 2.28811^11 Times
  • Cute Kitten: Cruelly parodied. "Kitten" redirects to "Cat", which, ironically, is (mostly) safe for work. "Kittens", on the other hand...
  • Dead Baby Comedy: They dedicate an entire page to this and a caption of a harlequin baby is "fried to perfection."
  • Deviant ART: A very common target for the site is Deviant ART and its members. In fact, a noticeable amount of the people shown on ED that could be considered examples of Small Name, Big Ego are members of Deviant ART, as are members of the Furry Fandom.
  • Dying Alone: They have a page for it.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: Despite its content, people from various different backgrounds, races, religions, and sexualities read and edit the site when they create an account.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Harm a cat, and you will suffer the consequences of the Internet Hate Machine.
  • Evil Feels Good: Arguably one of the reasons why it has so much traffic.
  • Evil Versus Evil: As noted about the "accuracy" below, sometimes ED is the only place to get the real scoop on the shenanigans of the rest of the scum and villainy of the internet. Mostly because screencaps are highly valued evidence, documenting exactly why a certain target deserves it (and hosting it in a location said target can't just delete the offending entry). If ED is good for nothing else, it's the screencaps. Especially noteworthy is their entry for Electric Retard. When Encyclopedia Dramatica is telling you being offensive isn't the same as being funny...
  • Fan Hater
  • Fantastic Racism: They may be serious about the racism, or they may be joking. You just can't tell with this site. However, users who are suspected of being real racists are branded as such, and are sneered upon by most of the community. There's even a template that says: "THIS USER MAY ACTUALLY BE RACIST". Their pages for Stormfront and the KKK show that they think racists are just as retarded as those who try so hard to be politically correct.
  • Fetish: Dramatica has no qualms with poking fun at the strange fetishes people may have. Furries tend to be a popular target.
  • For the Evulz: Partial Trope Namer.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The article on "CP" (child pornography, specifically the posting thereof on 4chan). Other things that are referred to as "CP" (such as control points in Team Fortress 2) also link to this article, just for the hell of it.
  • Furry Fandom: Debatably their favorite targets; however, ED as a whole actually doesn't hate furries, and will welcome them as long as they don't fools of themselves; a prominent early admin, Jameth, is a furry.
  • Garbage Post Kid
  • GIRL: The Jason Fortuny prank on Craigslist. In September 2006, Mailer Daemon Jason Fortuny (a guy in real life) posted a personal ad pretending to be a woman seeking sexual domination. He then published more than 150 of the replies, complete with explicit photos and personally identifying info, to Encyclopedia Dramatica. One of his victims sued, obtaining a $74,252.60 default judgement.
  • GIFT
  • Gorn: Why you have to be careful when the pictures start loading.
  • Hatedom: It thrives here. The website is basically a combination of every hatedom in existence. Good luck finding a website that can match it in terms of over the top hatred of everything. Well, except Metapedia.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The part of "Offended" that isn't Squick.
  • Hive Mind: On the principle of Anonymous.
  • Jerkass: Pretty much the whole point of the site.
  • Kick the Dog: Some people who are attacked really do have personality and mental disorders that haven't been taken care of well. Encyclopedia Dramatica holds nothing back for those people.
  • Lighter and Softer: For a while, there were some SFW versions of the site, including Whatport80 and Oh Internet. These wikis are now defunct.
  • Love It or Hate It: Yeah.
  • Mascot: AE-tan.
  • Memetic Mutation: The only thing they seem to like. Just be careful though... you might get grossed out.
    • Oh, exploitable!
  • Moe Anthropomorphism: With AE-tan.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Making fun of drama queens and posting dirt on the anyone on the internet who has the tiniest shred of authority is one thing. Posting the personal information (that includes real life name, address, etc.) of someone who ruined your fun by getting an article removed thanks to a DMCA notice might be going a little too far.
  • Nausea Fuel: If you're reading an article there, odds are there's some Squicky porn or a Shock Site.
  • Non-Indicative Name: You would not automatically assume it is this kind of thing from the title, unless you're so net-bound you immediately thought "controversy" when you read "drama".
    • Allegedly, it used to be a legit wiki for a dead LJ community, until /b/ and the goons found it. The original articles themselves haven't been touched, oddly enough.
  • NSFW: The entire site, due to the ads if not the content. The content that is NSFW is Not Safe For Sanity either.
  • Over 9000: They seem to love this one. Its ubiquity is derided on some pages. On one of the new Improvement Drive pages, it pretty much says "No more. Alright? Stop."
  • Pothole: Possibly the Trope Codifier for using pot holes as a form of humor or commentary (some articles, such as "SHIT NOBODY CARES ABOUT", exist pretty much solely for this reason).
  • Rape As Comedy: Most of the time.
  • Rule 34: Lots. And not just the regular kind. There's some really creepy shit over there. ED even has Rule 34 of AE-tan.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Also the entire point of the site!
  • Refuge in Vulgarity: Speaking of which, NEVER, EVER, EVER go to the article titled "Offended", Your faith in humanity will automatically drop to zero. Let's put it this way: at one point, it manages to turn Pokémon furry porn into a breath of fresh air.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Just look at the "Girlvinyl" page (owner of the .com site). And at the "Oh Internet" page.
  • Sarcasm Mode: One of ED's favorite activities is, when writing an article, to say something along the lines of, say, "Elderly people are totally awesome", and have 'awesome' hyperlinked, leading to a page entitled "Lies" or "Bullshit".
  • Schmuck Bait: It says "DO NOT ENTER" on the entry page. So what do you do??
  • Shock Site: Another reason to be careful and avoid looking up Goatse. You will learn too much about the man behind the anus.
  • Shown Their Work: If it's an article about someone on the net, they're going to show lots of images and footnotes about that person's drama.
    • Even (perhaps especially) if there are embarrassing forum posts that the subject attempted to delete. ED contributors make sure to get screencaps so the lulz is forever preserved.
    • Generally, when they're not being hideously offensive (or perhaps because of it), ED is very accurate. Whereas things must be toned down or excluded from The Other Wiki even if (or sometimes seemingly because they) are factual in the name of neutrality, ED has no such illusions, and will gladly parade all the facts (and speculation and fiction, but it's easy enough to tell because these usually aren't sourced) that rules lawyering can get removed from The Other Wiki.
  • Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Uncyclopedia and The Other Wiki.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: In danger of falling off the Cynical end.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Goes by the name of "Unwarranted self-importance" there.
  • Start My Own: When the .com domain was both redirected, and redirected to something they didn't like, Anons grouped together and made the .ch domain, rallying most of the former members and plummeting the former site in the Alexa rank. They settled on .es in 2013, before going back to the .se because of necessity. In 2020, the site went to a .wiki domain.
  • Squick: See Brain Bleach above.
  • Stealth Parody: A few articles like the one on men or heterosexuals are obviously joking.
    • The whole damn site is this. Generally. However, much of the humour is so nasty that often you can't tell whether it's a stealth parody or an excuse to say really nasty things about people you don't like.
    • Keep in mind - it's a wiki. Even within a single article, some of the contributors may be tongue in cheek and others just using the excuse.
    • It depends on the whole article. If it's attacking a particular group, they're usually serious. If it's stuff like "You", "America", "Gays", "Jews," and "Women", it's just Dead Baby Comedy.
    • The "JEWS DID WTC" meme for example mocks those who believe in massive Jewish conspiracies to control everything. Their articles on pretty much every race (including white people) are clearly satirical. They simply don't make any effort to make it clear to people who are easily offended.
  • Step Three: Profit
  • Strawman Political: Politicians of all stripes get savaged fairly equally, and it's probably one of the only sites out there to give Barack Obama anything close to the same savaging as George Bush.
  • The Internet Is for Porn: When they have an article on a piece of media, chances are they have a gallery of Rule 34 near the bottom of it...And it occasionally comes with a caption mocking you for looking at it.
  • This Loser Is You: You ("You Suck" redirects to "Fail")
  • Torch the Franchise and Run‎: Girlvinyl's redirection of the original encyclopediadramatica.com domain to a new site, Oh Internet!, went over like a lead balloon in April 2011. This triggered a long string of attempts by other Encyclopedia Dramatica users to re-create or restore the original content using other top-level domains (.es, .se, .rs and .ch).
  • Tradesnark™: Used for their WikiFur® article.
  • Troll: The main goal of the wiki is to be so offensive that it will inevitably provoke people to write angry complaints, which means more material for the articles the complaints are related to.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: This trope is played around with on their Vincent Li article.
  • Unperson: Unfortunately, ED is this on the original TV Tropes simply because Fast Eddie didn't not like the fact that ED served as a muckraker to his site.
  • We ARE Struggling Together!: For now at least, almost complete aversion. The "greater good" of recovering internet history comes first. Let's see in a few months...
  • Wiki Schizophrenia: An entry can go from mocking its target, to mocking ED, to mocking who are against the target (for example: Nazis, which has an entry for trolling Nazis, trolling by pretending to be a Nazi, links blaming Jews, and links mocking Nazis for blaming Jews). This may be deliberate.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The article "It was a social experiment" mocks people's attempts at claiming to have set up one of these.
  • Your Mileage May Vary: In a very big way.
  • Your Mom: A perennial favorite.
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