A joke authored by Elon Musk has turned into a merchandising opportunity for one of YouTube’s most iconic channels. Smosh, the comedy hub founded by Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, has started selling Dickipedia-branded shirts after Musk mentioned that portmanteau as part of a dig against Wikipedia.
Musk called out Wikipedia on X, the platform he acquired a year ago. “Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone,” Musk wrote. “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
Even if Wikipedia C0-Founder Jimmy Wales wanted to call Musk’s bluff, he’d still have to negotiate with the owners of Dickipedia.com. As it turns out, that domain belongs to Smosh. It’s kind of a funny story: When Smosh’s partner network Defy Media went belly up, it liquidated its assets via a sale. Hecox noticed that Defy had owned the rights to some strange URLs, including Dickipedia.com. “Defy owned a bunch of really gross domain names, so we threw that into our asset purchase list as well,” he said during a recent interview with Jon Youshaei.
At the time, Hecox may not have thought that he’d ever find a use for the Dickipedia domain. Musk changed all that. The Chief Twit’s anti-Wikipedia screen led to the development of some official Dickipedia merch, which is now available — you guessed it — over at Dickipedia.com. (The URL redirects to the Smosh store.)
The shirts currently retail for $32 apiece. Each purchase includes a $5 donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, which helps keep the lights on at The Free Encyclopedia.
The Dickipedia business comes four months after Hecox and Padilla reunited as the Co-Owners of Smosh. Padilla had previously departed the channel in 2017 after spending more than a decade as Hecox’s creative partner.
It’s now been 17 years since Hecox and Padilla emerged as two of YouTube’s first homegrown stars. The latest chapter in their shared saga comes with a lesson: Even if your partner network shuts down and screws over dozens of creators in the process, it’s still possible to turn that mess into a success. All you need to do is study a list of domain names and find the weirdest ones.
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