Annie Rauwerda is a 24-year-old comedian who had never been to western Massachusetts. But, she certainly knows a lot about it. She’s read up on Bill Cosby’s time at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, Dr. Suess’ many attempts at boner jokes (not what you think it is), and the Yankee Candle Factory in Deerfield. Rauwerda found these factoids through an endless quest for information she’s turned into a career with “Depths of Wikipedia,” a social media enterprise boasting millions of followers across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
Sitting next to me, as soon as Rauwerda begins her set, my friend turns to whisper, “She’s clearly the coolest person in this room.” She’s right. Rauwerda’s stage presence is awkward and self-deprecating in the same way all people who come from internet fame seem to be. But, she has an authenticity that takes the edge off and makes her feel essentially different from the people who try to mimic her delivery from the audience. Her personal Instagram account, followed by a modest (comparatively only, of course) 38 thousand people, gives you a glimpse into her brand of cool. It’s filled with Photoshop edits and memes, pictures with her boyfriend and news stories that give evidence of her internet fame.
On Dec. 3rd at The Drake in Amherst, she merged these accounts — essentially a compilation of the weirdest recesses of public information and what I can only assume is her best representation of herself — into an hour-long comedy show. She began with a nod to one of her more significant imprints on internet culture, a “perpetual stew” she brewed for about 60 days and served in a park in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. I, like many, had eaten this stew. It was a perfect predecessor to her live show: gimmicky, silly, undergirded by some strange class dynamics, but ultimately about finding joy in a community of people who are as interested as they are interesting.
That’s really the crux of the whole show. The conceit is simple — a PowerPoint with strange anecdotes and an awkward delivery exemplary of the internet subgroup that the account spurred from. What feels special about Rauwerda’s act is her ability to bring the community she’s gathered online into the house lights, highlighting the joy of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.
After her introduction and a nod to Massachusetts, the five colleges and a species-saving turtle, Rauwerda invites six lucky contestants to play a round of Trivia. Despite my appreciation for the engaged audience, this is where the show lost me. The awkward, sort of stilted delivery that Rauwerda punctuates her internet jokes with feels rougher when it’s done by someone a tad too eager to share the spotlight. Her hold on the show loosens as one contestant grabs the microphone to joke that “orgasmatron,” the official name for those wire head massagers, is also a name for their girlfriend.
Luckily, the strangeness of the interaction is short-lived, and Rauwerda moves on to more trivia, this time about the invention of the site itself. This is where my second concern with the show comes to the forefront. The Drake is a great venue and the perfect size for the crowd. However, the plastic fold up chairs that convert the concert space into a comedy space make the visual nature of The Depths of Wikipedia show fall a little short. Rauwerda goes through her set guided by a PowerPoint displaying snippets of Wikipedia articles. She reveals punchlines slide by slide, and, even though Wikipedia has a strict “no jokes” policy, the fact that a thing exists and has been deemed important enough to be included in the online encyclopedia is funny enough that all Rauwerdahas to do to garner laughter is give it a spotlight. The mix of the short stage, single-level seats and the fact that most of the jokes only land if you can see the screen made pieces of the show slightly inaccessible.
Speaking with Rauwerda after the show, she left me with some Smith-related rabbit holes: the first is Alice Corbett’s mysterious disappearance from Clark House (now Clark Hall) 98 years ago. Second is the fact that Margaret Sanger’s successor at Planned Parenthood, Alan Frank Guttmacher, gave the commencement address to Smith’s class of 1970, whose ranks include Richard Nixon’s daughter. Her last bit of Smith trivia is a 1964 article in the New York Times detailing Ellen Emerson (the namesake of Emerson House) and friends’ purchasing of a “vicious” Prospect Park Zoo Hippo for $400.
Despite my small misgivings, The Depths of Wikipedia show was strange and silly, and reminded me of all the reasons why the internet is so important. It allows everyone with a passion, regardless of what that passion is, into a space where their genuine interest makes them cool. This account, a true labor of love, has unified at least 25 of my Instagram mutuals and about 1.3 million more in a subculture that glamorizes factoids, tidbits and knowing cool stuff.
In her set, Rauwerda refers to a quote that floats around Wikipedia fan spaces– some version of “Wikipedia doesn’t work in theory, but it works in practice.” That sentiment reveals itself in Rauwerda’s live show just as much as in its subject matter. The kind of online space she’s highlighting is unintelligible to the uninitiated yet wholly accessible to anyone who cares enough to give it a try. In short, its niche-ness is what makes it universal. The Depths of Wikipedia show allows even the most wary audience member to come face to face with a community that might seem strange on paper but is ultimately just strange enough to be successful as Rauwerda gets on stage and the first roar of laughter lets you in.
