The website wikiHow has been around for a long time, but the jury remains out as to whether it’s all just a cunning piss-take or whether it’s actually fair dinkum.
Help me decide.
I first encountered wikiHow when I was researching how to build a fish pond. I ended up reading advice on How to Get Rid of an Unwanted Friend.
Ha! Like I need help with that! Curiously, it didn’t involve a shovel…
My next visit to the wiki was for a similarly banal reason (How to Wear a Bikini With Confidence) but ended with a series of disturbing cartoons which illustrate How to Release a Penis Caught in a Zipper.
Piqued yet pensive, I took a deep-dive and emerged shaken, vowing never to go back. I do not need advice on How to Shave a Cat or How to Pack Pants because, you know, my pants are already packed.
Just sayin’.
Anyhoo, I went back because WikiHow is like cocaine. I soon learned about categories. For example, the how’s for sex-related stuff outnumber self-piercing tutorials but only just.
Thanks to the wiki, I now know How to Get a 13 Year Old Boy to Kiss Me. It’s all about keeping my lips kissable apparently.
Yes I made that one up, but you bet it’s coming!
And boobs.
WikiHow is obsessed with making boobs bigger, smaller, perkier. If that fails, there’s a wiki for how to deal with boobs that are too big, too small, not perky enough, or even non-existent!
Mmm… boobs…
Some of it is a bit dodgy: How to Flirt with a Teacher: The Smoothest Pick-up Lines includes 45 things you’d never ever say to a teacher, such as: “I see why you’re teaching math… your curves are exponential!”
Yeah nah.
How to Increase Your Stripper Income comes down to ‘honing your craft‘ but also buying ‘top-of-the-line stripper shoes‘.
My wife has 187 pairs of shoes, but no god-damned quality stripper shoes! Woman, we’re going shopping!
And don’t forget How to Get Rid of Demons.
Burning sage while reciting Psalm 23 and banging a pot apparently works, but I prefer Method 2 because charging crystals by moonlight and sprinkling salt around the room makes absolute fucking sense.
Eventually, though, you get a bit jaded and cynical and start pranking the wiki with stupid searches. Like, what if somebody needs a bloody good spanking!?
Oh yes, there’s a wikiHow for that!
How to wipe your own bum?
That segued to weirdly comprehensive advice on pooping at work, pooping outdoors, pooping more, pooping less, analyzing my poop, and How to Hold in Your Poop in Embrasssing Situations.
I mean, holy shit!
It just doesn’t stop. There are thousands of how’s– 245,767 to be exact — all of them screaming, prattling their opinions, crowing their expertise, clamouring to be heard.
Look at me, listen to ME!
No.
The only advice I want is How to Make Up My Own Mind, but strangely there no wikiHow for that…