Kamelopedia
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The Kamelopedia is a parody on the Wikipedia, which started from a private MediaWiki application and gained popularity in 2004. Like the original, the Kamelopedia, too, is a Wiki-style collection of web pages. Originally it started in German, but since September 2004 there is also an English edition. Currently (15 May 2005), there are 6534 entries in German and 136 in English.
There are no guidelines in Kamelopedia, however, predominant types of humour are:
- Fake homonyms. A familiar word is orthographically rewritten and re-interpreted through the meaning phonetically similar words. E.g. Europawahl ("European elections") becomes Europawal (without "h") in the Kamelopedia. Wal means "whale", which opens the door to jokes on the contradiction between size and importance.
- Connections to camels. Kamelopedians call themselves Kamele ("camels") and try to relate everyday words to the world of camels by rewriting them, inserting "camel". Examples are Kameleon or Kamelasagne, or "Hasta la camela, baby", a famous one-liner by Arnold Schwarzenhöcker ("Arnold Black-Hunch"), governor of Kamelfornien. Related references are those to the (assumed) world of camels, i.e. to Egypt, pyramids and palm trees.
- Explaining familiar words and names in a deliberately nonsensensical way, preferably with parallels to the real meaning. E.g. the career of Arnold Schwarzenhöcker.
External links
- German Kamelopedia (http://kamelopedia.mormo.org/index.php/Hauptseite)
- English Kamelopedia (http://en.kamelopedia.de)
- Link to Arnold Schwarzenhöcker's biography in Kamelopedia (German) ()