About

Giving Wikipedia 3 Dollars refers to jokes made about donating to the fundraiser for Wikipedia. When Wikipedia holds fundraisers, they traditionally say that if everyone reading of it donated three dollars, they could afford to "keep Wikipedia thriving for years." The meme usually makes donating a wholesome action and praises those doing it, similar to the People Who Thank the Bus Driver meme.

Origin

In December of 2018, Wikipedia began its seasonal fundraising drive. During the month, Reddit users began making memes about the drive. One of the earliest ones was posted December 1st on /r/dankmemes by bigboynumbers,^[1] who used an image of Voiceoverpete, gaining over 160 points (shown below, left). However, the trend did not start becoming more popular until December 12th. That day, Redditor Fishy4444 posted a meme that gained over 3,600 points (shown below, right).

Spread

Over the following several days, Redditors memed about Wikipedia's fundraiser. Popular posts include a post by BlueSkyPeriwinkleEye critical Amazon that gained over 48,000 points (shown below, left). Another by BleedingEdge61104 gained over 58,000 likes (shown below, right), though the user later admitted it was not their original work.^[2] The trend was inquired about on /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[3]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References