80 Weirdly Specific WikiHow Images Nobody Asked For But Everyone Needs To See

WikiHow is a how-to website that teaches people how to do practically anything. And we really do mean anything.

You’ll find genuinely useful guides on things like fixing a drain right next to tutorials on how to clap, how to laugh, or even how to stomp on a Capri Sun. Whatever strange question pops into your head, there’s a good chance WikiHow has an article for it somewhere.

WikiHow was created by entrepreneur Jack Herrick in 2005, who had previously worked on another how-to website called eHow. While running it, he became interested in Wikipedia and wondered whether the same collaborative model could work for practical advice.

As he later explained, his idea was basically to do for how-to guides what Wikipedia had done for encyclopedias.

Herrick launched WikiHow on January 15, which happened to be Wikipedia’s fourth birthday. He used some of Wikipedia’s open-source software to build it and allowed users to write and edit guides themselves.

At first, very few people noticed. Herrick told WIRED that only around 2,000 people visited during the first month, and he would personally message people who made edits to encourage them to keep contributing.

Slowly, though, the website started growing. By 2009, WikiHow was receiving more than 20 million visitors each month. That number reached 100 million by 2016.

One big part of its appeal was simply how much information people could find there. Instead of sticking to a few popular subjects, contributors could create a guide for almost any question someone might have.

That meant WikiHow could get very specific. Alongside guides for everyday tasks, you could find instructions for problems that only a tiny number of people might ever face.

Herrick told WIRED that the goal was to give people a “practical education.” He pointed out that most people will probably never need to know how to control a frightened camel, but someone somewhere genuinely might.

The way articles were created also changed as the website became bigger. Volunteers could still write and edit pages, while paid editors and experts became involved too.

WikiHow began having professionals check articles about subjects such as medicine and finance, where getting the information right can be especially important.

The pictures came later. WikiHow originally used Creative Commons images from places like Flickr and Wikimedia.

According to WIRED, CEO Elizabeth Douglas explained that those pictures were often too generic to properly show someone what to do. The company eventually started hiring photographers to create images specifically for its tutorials.

Then, in 2011, WikiHow began using illustrators as well. That made it easier to show things that would be awkward or downright impossible to photograph.

It’s one thing to snap a photo of someone fixing a sink. But if you want to show how to handle an uncomfortable conversation with your partner, things get a little trickier. A drawing can capture that kind of moment much more easily.

All of that helped WikiHow grow from a tiny side project into a huge library. The basic idea has stayed pretty simple throughout its history: if someone wants to learn how to do something, there should be a guide that can help them.

And with topics ranging from completely ordinary everyday tasks to questions most of us would never think to ask, it’s easy to see how the website ended up covering such an enormous corner of the internet.