Wikipedia and the end of the tall travel story

Wikipedia and the death of the tall story

Tall Stories

We’ve all been there: sitting round a table on a warm evening, bottles piling up steadily and the conversation getting louder and more unguarded. The group of friends, perhaps newly formed, are telling stories from their global adventures.

As the evening turns to night, the stories become more outlandish, more dramatic, and of course less believable. “And then this snake appeared – I’m not kidding it was 20ft long. I don’t know how I managed to rip its jaws apart in the nick of time”; or “it was at least 60C out there. Honestly, the road was melting and we had no water for the last 20km”. And so on…

This week I took an open-top bus tour of London as part of my work with a client in the tourist industry. The audio commentary came through a set of multi-lingual headphones, and as always my attention drifted in and out as the facts came thick and fast. But when I heard pieces of unexpected trivia (did you know that Tower Bridge is insured by Lloyds of London as a ship, not as a bridge?) my immediate reaction was to make a note and check the facts online when I got home. I wasn’t happy to accept it from this single source.

I know I’m not alone in this habit. It has become so easy now to find the answers to trivial questions at the click of a mouse that we have started to doubt anything that doesn’t fit our model of the world as we know it. A new unexpected piece of information needs to be verified by at least one other source; usually Wikipedia (a communal dumping ground of information that has been proved less than perfect on many occasions).

With smartphones people can even check a story from the table as it’s being told, either with subtlety or with open cynicism. “Oh wait, you said it was 60C. You’re talking crap, the maximum recorded temperature in Mongolia was 48C in 1934″.

Drink flows, stories follow

When the drink flows, good stories usually follow

Is this a good thing, this ability to fact check in real time? Will this lead to the storytellers of the world curbing their natural enthusiasm of elaborating the facts of a situation for dramatic effect?

I hope not. The world needs storytellers. They create memories, legends and can build a sense of community among a group of strangers in a special way. When we hear a great story, finding out later that it had been less than accurate should not diminish its entertainment value. We all enjoy that feeling of being caught up in someone else’s drama, however much the orator embellishes his story.

Do we need accuracy in some settings? Yes of course there are many situations where fact checking is essential. But when it comes to those fire-side stories? Let’s have them tall and well stirred, thank you.

(As for Tower Bridge being insured as a ship? Yes I’ve checked it and it appears to be true).

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3 Responses to “Wikipedia and the end of the tall travel story”

  1. I am a big fan of the storyteller listening to my Dad around the campfire for 30 years on various camping trips. I sometimes correct some of his stories, but others are better left in the way he remembers it even if not completely true.

    July 1, 2010 at 10:14 pm Reply
  2. Long live tall stories they’re great as you say for after dinner fun.

    What’s worrying is their ability to become ‘fact’ because of the web. What with our busy schedules, lazy journalism and diminishing resources to check facts, tall stories can get spread far and wide and eventually someone thinks they’re a fact.

    Can Dan Brown please stand up. Andrew Wakefield with MMR ‘research’ please close the door behind you.

    July 2, 2010 at 8:30 am Reply
  3. Thanks Ted and Rainbowsurfer. Both excellent points. There is a danger that lazy journalists can find stuff online (yes, on Wikipedia too) that is just wrong, and not bother to fact check. Telling a fireside story as Ted describes can be a wonderful thing. It’s not the storyteller’s fault that someone might take that story and pass it off as the truth. Laziness as you point out is the danger here.

    July 2, 2010 at 6:57 pm Reply

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