meme or wiki - which would you believe?

[Alpo]

There is a meme about Rick Moranis. Actually that meme has its own thread.

 

Rick's wife died so he quit acting to take care of his kids. That's what the meme says.

 

"I've made a lot of money in the entertainment industry. I don't have to work anymore. I'm going to be a stay-at-home dad and take care of my kids. Movies - I quit!"

 

That's the way the meme read to me. But memes quite often are not correct, so I looked him up. And according to wiki that's sort of what happened. But not exactly. Says he still has his hand in. Does voice work. Has made a couple of movies. Goes to conventions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Moranis

Now understand, I'm simply using him as an example. Not picking on him in any way.

But when you have these two internet things, both of them talking about something or someone, and they don't exactly agree - which one would you tend to believe more?

[Chantry]

I don't trust either.  Wikipedia is somewhat more reliable when it comes to non-political stuff, but biased when it comes to politics and politics related people and things.

 

To put it a different way, I would not cite wikipedia for anything important like a legal brief.

[Brock]

I looked at both. Voice acting is not much more than a day job that can be done while the kids are in school.  Making albums? I dont know. But he ceraintly did noy hsave the pace that was there earlier. By 2009-11 kids would have been out of high school and doing young adult things.

[Cypress Sun]

I'd be more inclined to (somewhat) believe Wiki that some Meme. Rick Moranis is worth $10,000,000. He really doesn't need to work and could easily live off safe investments. As it is, Mr. Moranis can afford to "quit" work to tend to his children, I'm guessing that 99.90% of single fathers can't afford to do the same.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

But... It's on the internet, it MUST be true! 

As far as I'm concerned, memes are a humorous visual story. They're made by somebody either to get a laugh or to try to make their political point of view known. They have NO credibility as a source of information. 

Wiki is better, but a Chantry mentioned biased when politics are involved. 

How about Fake Book? If I see something that might be of interest there, I immediately google it to see if it shows up anywhere other than there. Most times it doesn't. 

Anything I want to know about, I'll google it and see what comes up, and look at multiple sources. Of course if it's a "news" article, most "sources" will just have the exact same story. "News" people don't seem to do their own stories anymore, they just copy and paste what somebody else published.

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

Aesop would have loved you, @Alpo

 

[John Kloehr]

Memes are often flat-out untrue. They present an idea or an emotion more than facts. Wiki is often  biased but the references are generally factual (even if from similarly biased sources). When there is bias, investigation those sources is still often a good starting point. Another thing to check for a wiki page is the talk branch where editors discuss changes. Sometimes a wiki page even gets locked to prevent "stupid" edits.

 

As an example see this article:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_control

 

And the associated talk page:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gun_control

 

There is also a section for page history, this gives a view of all edits to the article.

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

2 hours ago, Chantry said:

I don't trust either.  Wikipedia is somewhat more reliable when it comes to non-political stuff, but biased when it comes to politics and politics related people and things.

 

To put it a different way, I would not cite wikipedia for anything important like a legal brief.

 

2 hours ago, Chantry said:

I don't trust either.  Wikipedia is somewhat more reliable when it comes to non-political stuff, but biased when it comes to politics and politics related people and things.

 

To put it a different way, I would not cite wikipedia for anything important like a legal brief.

I agree 100%.  I get better info right here in the Saloon.....mostly.

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

He is now getting back to acting,a Spaceballs movie next year and more ,Honey I shrunk the kids.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Some memes are just bad jokes with illustrations.

 

Some memes make fun of society and social conventions.

 

Some memes are meant to teach. 

 

The post mentioned in the OP of this thread has an exaggerated core of truth.  Exaggerated to teach social values. 

 

Mostly they are harmless.  Does it really matter that the gentleman in that meme not instantly stop all work forever as implied,  but eased out of public life, and apparently did stop all work for a couple of years?

 

The point of the meme is that he put family ahead of career. 

 

 

[watab kid]

my reading of wiki did not contradict the original post info in my mind , and WHY DO WE CARE ?