History Main / WikiWalk

* In one episode of ''The Simpsons'', Marge is trying to find a way to bring culture to Springfield

* Let's face it, you're probably in the middle of one right now.

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* {{Stephen Colbert}} goes on purposeful {{Wiki Walk}}s on ''{{The Colbert Report}}'' using [[http://www.wikiality.com/The_DaColbert_Code The DaColbert Code]] for purposes ranging from predicting Oscar winners to solving the murder of JFK.

* An example that predates the Web would be the BBC series Connections and it's succesor series which would take two seemingingly unrelated facts or inventions and through a fascininating chain of thought demonstrate how they were inextricably linked.

* ''{{Connections}}'' is a documentary series starring James Burke. Each episode is a WikiWalk through history, science, and technology, showing how twisted the tree of [[TechnologyLevels]] is.

* An episode of StepByStep had Cloudcuckoolander Cody give advice for dealing with a hickey through a crazily meandering chain of word associations, before finally coming back around to "Wear a turtleneck!" OrSoIHeard.

* Lunch conversations also can take {{Wiki walk}}s. On one classic occasion, a twenty minute lunch conversation at our table covered topics including: farm tractors, Napoleon, accounting, and liturgical law.
* Much OlderThanTheyThink: Long before there were wikis, far too many students discovered that you could do the same thing with a good encyclopedia. Or even a nice big dictionary, for the etymologically-inclined.
* This troper Encountered a version of this as early as middle school, people bored in class would emulate chose your own adventure books, By writing a message and saying turn to page XXX then a message like now go to page XYX ect, many times it was a form of trolling as well.
* Let's face it, you're probably in the middle of one right now.

->''There is no protection from the evil blackhole that eats time that is TVTropes. [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife It's like the Bermuda Triangle of the Internet]].''
-->--[[http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=259944 A poster]] on Kerberos Production forums

* Bruce Coville's ''My Teacher is an Alien'' series perfectly describes the Wikipelunking phenomenon, [[OlderThanTheyThink many years before wikis existed]]. In it, aliens have developed an integrated virtual reality that is perfectly realistic, and used entirely for research purposes, showing the user whatever they want (basically, Wikipedia meets a LotusEaterMachine). The aliens have learned to put time limits on the technology so that no one ''starves to death''.

->''There is no protection from the evil blackhole that eats time that is TVTropes. It's like the Bermuda Triangle of the Internet.''

Named for the ability of anybody to start out on a page and, two or three links later, find himself reading a totally unrelated trope. Definitely an example of TruthInTelevision. Often cannot be recreated, as anyone who has spotted an interesting trope en route, planned to come back to it, and then forgotten what it was will attest. Also results in loss of TheGame. Doing it intentionally for fun is known as "playing Wiki Tag."

* Bruce Coville's ''My Teacher is an Alien'' series perfectly describes the Wikipelunking phenomenon, [[HilariousInHindsight many years before wikis existed]]. In it, aliens have developed an integrated virtual reality that is perfectly realistic, and used entirely for research purposes, showing the user whatever they want (basically, Wikipedia meets a LotusEaterMachine). The aliens have learned to put time limits on the technology so that no one ''starves to death''.

* So, how did you end up at this Trope? I started by looking up Gold Digger (the comic, not the trope with the same name).
** I started by looking for a way to set UNIX environment variables from an Ant script for compiling a Java program. Don't ask. I'm hoping my boss won't.
** I started up at WarriorCats. No, seriously.
** I seem to have started on YouMakeMeSic
** I can't even remember now...I've got some 50 tabs up as I'm typing...you bastards.

** I started by looking for a way to set UNIX environment variables from an Ant script for compiling a Java program. Don't ask.

* Lakheenahuknaasi, in ''[[TheSalvationWar Armageddon]]'', thinks that the tendency to be lead on {{Wiki Walk}}s is "an insidious spell" protecting "wiccan pee-dee-ah".

* The Icelandic monk Sulien, in Dorothy Dunnett’s ''King Hereafter'', takes {{Wiki Walk}}s across the world. For example, in a simple trip from Scotland to Rome, he makes it to Russia, among other places across Europe. And it all seems logical at the time.

* Constable Frank Gladstone from ''TheThinBlueLine'' is a master of this, often omitting the intervening steps and just announcing his seemingly random conclusions to his perplexed comrades. His explanation of why fridge magnets are to blame for teen graffiti is a classic.