In the age of ephemeral short-form content and endless doomscrolling prompted by the ever-worsening political news cycle, we here at Tubefilter like to keep an eye out for cool internet projects that reminds us good things do, in fact, exist. There’s YTCH, which presents long-form YouTube content in the style of 80s TV channels, and IMG_001, which collects unedited candid videos uploaded straight from people’s iPhones between 2009 and 2012.
And now, there’s WikiTok.
The site is the brainchild of Patina Systems founder Tyler Angert, who tweeted on Feb. 3, “Insane project idea: all of wikipedia on a single, scrollable page.”
Web developer Isaac Gemal spotted the tweet and ran with it. The “WikiTok” site was live two hours later.
All people have to do is go to https://wikitok.vercel.app, and they’ll be greeted with a new Wikipedia page every time they scroll. The articles pop up with full-screen images and short text excerpts; if users are interested in reading the full article, they just have to click “Read More” to be taken to the actual Wikipedia archive.
As you can see from our header image above, we were treated to a page about the Mindoro striped rat, a little rodent found only in the Philippines. The Wikipedia page has a hand-drawn rendition of it, but biodiversity-focused social network iNaturalist managed to snag some photos, if you’re curious.
WikiTok has no ads and no algorithms–just an endless scroll of factoids and in-depth information about millions of topics. Doomscrolling on this site will only expose users to more chances to learn. We’re not going to lie–it’s a refreshing brain cleanse after scrolling platforms like TikTok and X.
Gemal recognizes that: “I have had plenty of people message me and even make issues on my GitHub asking for some insane crazy WikiTok algorithm,” he told Ars Technica. “And I had to put my foot down and say something along the lines that we’re already ruled by ruthless, opaque algorithms in our everyday life; why can’t we just have one little corner in the world without them?”
Like the original Wikipedia, WikiTok is shaping up to be a community project. Gemal made its core code available on GitHub, which means other developers can contribute to the site. Right now, it has the aforementioned article previews, a sharing feature, and can translate articles into 14 different languages. Fast Company reports more features are expected to be added.
Even if WikiTok doesn’t get additional features and stays exactly the way it is, it’s a snapshot moment in digital culture that reminds us why the internet is so important. When we go online, we’re connected to a limitless pool of knowledge. People alive right now have the opportunity to learn more about our world than ever before–and we can’t afford to forget that.
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