Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Meet Annie Rauwerda, the U-M student behind Depths of Wikipedia

Why I can’t (and won’t) shut up about season 2 of ‘Bridgerton’

MAYBE YOU’VE SCROLLED through 
your timeline on your favorite social 
media app and come across a post about 
odd Canadian traditions, animal-shaped 
breads or ancient Sumerian jokes — but 
did you know that the creator of these 
posts could’ve been in your discussion 
section?
In April 2020, then-LSA sophomore 
Annie Rauwerda was in the same place as 
many Wolverines: stuck at home, bored 
and chronically online. From the corner 
of Ann Street and Glen Avenue, Rauw-
erda started her “quarantine project” and 
posted for the first time on her new Insta-
gram account @depthsofwikipedia. Flash 
forward to now, and that same account 
has upwards of 800,000 followers split 
across Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. 
Since that first post, the essentials of the 
account have remained the same: Rau-
werda curates snippets from the crowd-
sourced Wikipedia — whether they’re 
silly, weird, outrageous or all of the above 
— and shares them with the world.
Rauwerda’s post about recursive islands 
and lakes includes the phrases “islands in 

lakes on islands in lakes” and “lakes on 
islands in lakes on islands.” There’s also 
Diego the tortoise, whose Wikipedia page 
boasts that “Diego has been said to have 
‘had so much sex he saved his species.’” 
My personal favorite is her spotlight on 
Hanlon’s razor, the old adage stating 
“never attribute to malice that which is 
adequately explained by stupidity.” I think 
about that one a lot. 
Her success has been think-pieced into 
the next dimension: The New York Times 
calls it an “entry point to internet culture,” 
Mashable praises Depths of Wikipedia for 
its bizarre trivia lessons and Vice describes 
its significance among Gen Z with fancy 
words like “post-irony” and “meta-irony.” 
Rauwerda sells merchandise too (with 
the proceeds going to Wikipedia), hosts a 
Depths of Wikipedia Discord channel and 
regularly interacts with her ever-growing 
community of Wiki-lovers.
But none of that is what we’re here for. 
It’s finally time to address one glaring 
truth: Rauwerda is a U-M Neuroscience 
major, one whose celebrity seems largely 
unknown among the student body. The 
Michigan Daily is adding to Rauwerda’s 
long roster of interviews to glean a sense 
of what it’s like to get your degree in Ann 
Arbor while navigating much bigger 

things. The interview has been edited for 
clarity and context.
The Michigan Daily: How do you 
explain Depths of Wikipedia to someone 
who hasn’t heard of it?
Annie Rauwerda: If I just need to say 
something quick, I would probably just 
call it a meme page. I don’t think it’s real-
ly memes, though — I’m not adding text 
to images. So if people ask for an actual 
explanation, I say it’s Wikipedia screen-
shots I find funny or interesting. Some-
times I feel like people that are older don’t 
get it — they don’t seem to understand the 
whole gimmick account concept.
TMD: You must get a lot of direct mes-
sages and suggestions for what to post. 
How do you sort through them all? 
AR: I get a lot of DMs lately. It used to 
be very manageable; I used to either post 
every Wikipedia page that someone sub-
mitted, or give a very thoughtful response 
on why I wasn’t going to. But now I don’t. 
I make an effort to read at least every mes-
sage, but sometimes I can’t even do that. 
When I post a lot of stories and I start get-
ting story responses, then it gets to be a 
lot. It’s so nice because all these people are 
usually sending really sweet and thought-
ful things. I definitely try to acknowledge 
them, maybe like the message, but unfor-

tunately, I just don’t have enough time 
and diligence to send something heartfelt 
back to everyone. The majority of DMs are 
probably people saying, “Oh, you should 
definitely post about this,” and you would 
not believe how many repeats there are. At 
this point, I’ve posted something like 700 
different things, and so many of the things 
people submit are things that I’ve already 
posted. But then other times people will 
send things that are really interesting, and 
sometimes I’ll be like “Oh, I gotta save that 
for later.”
TMD: You’re very accessible and 
approachable despite having almost a mil-
lion followers. I see a lot of accounts that 
are similar in popularity, but they don’t 
have regular communication with their 
followers like you do. How do you keep up 
with that? 
AR: The 800,000 of them have so 
much to tell me that would improve the 
account, and also give me ideas for writ-
ing. I’ll kind of subtly try to get inspira-
tion and ask questions like, “what’s a fun 
website you’ve seen lately” or something. 
I’m a part-time student right now taking 
nine credits, so that helps too. I think of 
Depths of Wikipedia as my social life in 
some ways. When I go on Instagram live, 
that’s just me being like, “Oh, haha! I’ll go 

talk to this piece of glass that feels like my 
friends.” I think it’s very fun. Also, people 
are so nice to me; I know some people on 
the internet have really toxic experiences, 
but I think probably only one in 10,000 
interactions I have aren’t positive. 
TMD: In a lot of your interviews, you 
mention editing for Wikipedia. Can you 
explain how that works? If I wanted to 
edit for Wikipedia, how would I do it?
AR: Overall, the process is very easy. 
First, you would make an account, and 
then press the little pencil icon on an 
article. There are some pages for more 
controversial issues, like the 2022 Rus-
sian invasion of Ukraine or abortion, that 
are often vandalized. For those pages, 
you would have to have an account for a 
certain amount of time and have made a 
certain number of good edits before you’re 
allowed to edit them. I think that a lot of 
new editors will go in feeling unsure of 
what to edit, because that’s what I felt at 
first; I fixed one typo at a time and felt like 
there was nothing else to do. 
In reality, though, there’s so many 
pages that are just kind of “meh.” Right 
now, a lot of obscure pages are just really 
poorly written or have outdated sources, 

WHEN THE FIRST season of 
“Bridgerton” came out, I refused to 
watch it. To me, it seemed like another 
romantic period drama that would try 
and fail to live up to “Pride and Preju-
dice.” After the initial hype died down, 
I forgot about it. Until, of course, the 
second season was released. The first 
things I saw were the stills — and my 
jaw dropped. 
For the first time, I was seeing true 
South Asian representation in a period 
piece. I saw images of Kate (Simone 
Ashley, “Sex Education”) and Edwina 
Sharma (Charithra Chandran, “Alex 
Rider”) decked out in some of the most 
beautiful outfits I had ever seen. The 
colors complimented them wonder-
fully, and the jewelry was a subtle 
yet meaningful nod to the characters’ 
Indian heritage. Seeing Edwina Shar-
ma wearing her jhumka (classic bell-
shaped earrings) was enough to propel 
me to hit play on the series.
In case you haven’t succumbed to 
the whirlwind hype that is the second 
season of “Bridgerton,” here’s a basic 
rundown: Viscount Anthony Bridger-
ton (Jonathan Bailey, “Broadchurch”), 
eldest of the eight Bridgerton siblings 
and heir to the estate, has decided he 
will finally settle down and marry. 
Adamant on keeping love out of his 
marriage and simply seeking a suitable 
bride, Anthony sets his sights on the 
diamond of the season: Miss Edwina 

Sharma, who has arrived from India 
with her older sister Kate and mother, 
Mary (Shelley Conn, “Good Omens”). 
Kate proves to be a formidable obsta-
cle in Anthony’s courtship of her sis-
ter, but it soon becomes clear that the 
Kate and Anthony have a closer bond 
than either of them could have imag-

ined.
The “enemies to lovers” trope is 
no doubt perfectly executed, and it’s 
something that viewers (including 
myself) have been absolutely eating 
up. But it wasn’t the story that made 
this season so great to me. It was the 
representation. I know the phrase 
“representation is important” has 
been thrown around often recently, 

but I can’t stress how true it is. Think 
about the South Asian representation 
in most shows and movies. How are 
we characterized? Weird. Nerdy. Awk-
ward. Ugly. While most of us can agree 
that we’ve happily left the “Baljeet” 
and “Ravi” stereotypes behind, it 
hasn’t necessarily gotten much bet-

ter. Shows like “Never Have I Ever” 
and “The Sex Lives of College Girls” 
have South Asian girls at the forefront 
yet somehow still manage to play into 
those damaging stereotypes. Exhibit 
A: Bela’s comment in “The Sex Lives of 
College Girls” about how she used to be 
an “Indian loser with sweaty armpits, 
cystic acne and glasses,” but medically 
fixing all of that made her “normal.” 

I’m sorry, does “normalcy” not include 
the Indian part? And don’t even get me 
started on the general unlikeability of 
Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, “Turn-
ing Red”) in “Never Have I Ever.”
“Bridgerton” blazed a new path 
for good South Asian representation. 
The Sharmas are Indian through and 
through, but that’s not all they are. 
Their ethnicity is an asset, not a liabil-
ity. Their culture was embraced in the 
most graceful way possible. The first 
words out of Kate Sharma’s mouth in 
the entire season are “Oh baap re,” a 
Hindi phrase roughly translated to 
“oh my god.” It only gets better from 
there.
As a South Indian myself, I have 
always referred to my mom and dad 
as “Amma” and “Appa” — something 
I used to feel uncomfortable doing 
in elementary school growing up 
with peers who used the more famil-
iar English terms. So it goes without 
saying that I couldn’t help but smile 
when Kate referred to her parents as 
“Amma” and “Appa.” When I watched 
Kate apply oil to her younger sister’s 
hair, I know I don’t just speak for 
myself when I say that I thought about 
my own mother and grandmother lov-
ingly doing the same for me. Every 
time Edwina affectionately calls Kate 
“Didi” (‘elder sister’ in Hindi) or Kate 
calls Edwina “Bon” (‘sister’ in Benga-
li), viewers are reminded of who these 
characters are at their core and where 
their love for each other comes from. 
It was certainly the little things, 
like the instrumental version of the 

Bollywood song “Kabhi Khushi Kab-
hie Gham” playing in the background 
of the Sharmas’ pre-wedding haldi 
ceremony that made me and my room-
mates smile ear to ear. Looking back 
now, however, I can pinpoint with 
much more accuracy the deeper rea-
son I enjoyed the representation in 
“Bridgerton.” In not addressing the 
stereotypes that have previously sur-
rounded Indian characters in media, 
Shonda Rhimes actually did address 
them. Kate and Edwina’s beauty was 
never seen as surprising. Their culture 
was never odd or exotic. Their Indian 
accents were realistic and charming. 
Neither of them were beautiful “for an 
Indian girl” — a phrase I have heard 
far too many times. They were simply 
beautiful and deserving of the same 
passionate love that everyone else 
was. When Anthony called Kate by her 
full, ethnic name, my heart absolutely 
melted. In calling her “Kathani Shar-
ma,” Anthony acknowledged who Kate 
was, and showed her that he loved 
every part of her. 
Did “Bridgerton” make me miss 
my Amma’s oil head massages? Yes. 
Did it have me contemplating how to 
wear jhumka with every outfit? Also 
yes. But as I sit here writing this piece 
while listening to the instrumental 
“Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham,” I real-
ize that it did so much more for me and 
for every South Asian girl that was left 
breathless after this season. It showed 
me that people like me have a place 
everywhere, that everyone deserves a 
“Kanthony” type of love.

 LAINE BROTHERTON
Digital Culture Beat Editor

SWARA RAMASWAMY
Daily Arts Writer

Student Filmmakers: Cassidy Caulkins, Victoria Huang and Monica Iyer

The Daily Arts film beat offers insightful 
analysis of films of all genres. Nevertheless, 
there has been a lack of attention given to 
the many talented and passionate filmmak-
ers who surround us here, at the University 
of Michigan. I started this series to high-
light their work, their unique visions of film 
and the obstacles they face as student film-
makers.
“LET’S IMPROV.”
“YOU just start talking and I’ll type.”
This is what LSA seniors Cassidy 
Caulkins and Monica Iyer do when the 
words aren’t flowing. Sometimes a real 
exchange between them will generate 
better dialogue than thinking about it 
could. Even the dialogue that the screen-
writing pair don’t find through speaking 
is often tested this way, each taking the 
role of a character and seeing if the lines 
they’ve written work. They write togeth-
er, sometimes taking turns to type, in cof-
fee shops around the U-M campus or in 
one of their bedrooms in the apartment 
they share with six roommates.
In an interview with The Michigan 
Daily, Caulkins described their writing 
process of meeting for several-hour ses-
sions to draft and edit their scripts.
“There has been a time or two when it 
might be a later night and it might involve 
some wine,” she said. “Not every time, but 
that is a part of the process.”
Since summer 2021, Caulkins and Iyer 
have collaborated to write a pilot for 
a sitcom titled “More Than a Degree” 
and a short film, “Disparate.” They have 
joined forces with other students to take 
their words to the screen, among them 
“Disparate”’s 
co-producer 
and 
Ross 
senior Victoria Huang, who was also pres-
ent for the interview.
Of the three, only Caulkins is a film 
major. Involved in theatre costume design 
in high school, she tried to transition to 
costuming for film upon reaching college, 
but was faced with the disappointment 

that most student film productions don’t 
focus much on costumes. She has since 
become more open to other parts of film 
production, “opening my perspective on 
what I would enjoy” — but costuming will 
always be considered in her own projects. 
“You can tell a lot about a character by 
(what they wear),” she said.
Iyer is a biopsychology major, but she 
took up acting in college and joined writ-
ing forces with Caulkins to take the advice 
to write her own material. Her excitement 
over their projects is infectious. She keeps 
a running list of funny things that happen 
in her and Caulkins’s apartment for use 
in future “More Than a Degree” episodes 
and, with post-college plans that veer 
away from the film world, regularly men-
tions how sad it is that this might be the 
last time they work together.
And then there is Huang, who is study-
ing business with a global media studies 
minor and appears to be the organized 
one. She has found her place in the arts 
as a coordinator, not filming or acting, 
but bringing people together where their 
visions can become something real. She 
worked as head of costuming at her high 
school theatre company and as a produc-
tion assistant for Musket, the University’s 
student acting organization, her sopho-
more year, where Iyer was also an actor. 
She is the first to admit that her business 
classes lack the creativity she craves, 
which she has tried to find in these film 
productions.
From disparate backgrounds, the three 
have found each other from chance friend-
ships founded on this shared need for a 
creative outlet and love of film, despite 
the different forms it takes for each. All 
seniors with vastly different paths ahead 
of them, their time as a filmmaking trio is 
short — a momentary merging of inspira-
tion and creativity.
Their year of working together began 
at the end of the summer when Caulkins 
and Iyer wrote the pilot for “More Than 
a Degree,” inspired by their own house: 
five friends live together, close-knit but 
not without their differences, and drama 

and hilarity ensue. Iyer compares it to 
“New Girl,” but rather than centering on 
a quirky and awkward 31-year-old, it aims 
to capture “that transition from college 
to post-graduate life.” They asked Huang 
to join them as producer and began cast-
ing and crew calls in September for the 
pilot episode about a birthday party gone 
wrong, which quickly overtook their 
semesters with long days of shooting 
nearly every weekend through November. 
Their goal to finish the episode by Feb-
ruary has not been realized. At the time 
of the interview, it was nearly April and 
Huang had just received the rough cut 
from their editor.
As they entered their final semester of 
college, Caulkins and Iyer’s regular meet-
ings to discuss their pilot morphed into 
meetings about the possibility of a new 
project: one final film together before 
graduation. With little time, the planning 
of this film, now “Disparate,” was shaped 
by its limitations: What story could they 
tell effectively in 10 minutes, with a small 
cast and which they could feasibly com-
plete in a single semester? The script for 
the story of two high school friends enter-
ing college and discovering they are no 
longer compatible was still going through 
final revisions at the time of the interview, 
even as they planned to start shooting the 
following weekend. Huang joined them 
again as co-producer, Caulkins is direct-
ing and Iyer is co-producing and acting as 
one of the main two roles.
The group’s stories typically reach for 
relatability with their audience and are 
often influenced, if not inspired by per-
sonal experiences.
Of “Disparate,” Caulkins said, “I 
couldn’t say (the experience is) univer-
sal,” but by the end of high school, many 
friends “realize they’re going in separate 
directions.”
Their director of photography, LSA 
sophomore Adela Papiez, as well as many 
people who auditioned, told them they 
experienced this, which encouraged them 
to believe they were creating something 
that could touch many viewers.

Besides Caulkins, Iyer, Huang and 
Papiez, their crew includes sound opera-
tor (“slash anything else we need,” Iyer 
laughed) and LSA senior Jacob Gutting, 
actor and SMTD junior Olivia Sinnott 
and Caulkins’s mother, who is playing the 
“adult” the film requires. It is more dif-
ficult to find people for the crew, accord-
ing to Huang, so they kept their numbers 
small and worked with members of the 
crew from “More Than a Degree.” Iyer 
believes the number of student produc-
tions happening this semester is partly 
responsible for the lack of available people 
interested in joining a film crew — they 
are already part of different films. Find-
ing people for the cast was easier. Huang 

emailed their casting call to various Uni-
versity listservs, including that of the 
Film, Television and Media department.
Casting was easier in some ways, as 
many people auditioned. On the other 
hand, while the crew had already bonded 
from their previous production, the actors 
posed the difficulty of choosing a stranger 
with whom they could work well. Accord-
ing to Caulkins, they learned when cast-
ing their TV pilot how important it is for 
actors to be able to take direction well.

“They could deliver exactly what we 
were looking for within the first couple 
lines we gave them,” she said, but then 
wouldn’t do anything different with the 
performance, which lead to material they 
didn’t want to use.
During auditions for “Disparate,” they 
asked actors to change their performance 
in some way, even if it wasn’t in a way they 
planned to ask for during production, 
“just to see that they can exercise that 
muscle and are willing to try something 
new,” said Caulkins. Besides this ability, 
they looked, of course, to see which actors 
reflected the characters in a believable 
way and brought the necessary emotion 
to their auditions.

They chose Sinnott to star opposite Iyer 
in part because of her ability to hold the 
“duality” of the character she played, who 
is meant to be “bubbly and nonchalant” at 
first, but becomes more emotional toward 
the end of the film. They held auditions 
for both leading roles, despite knowing 
Iyer would be cast in one of them, before 
ultimately deciding she had to be a spe-
cific character.

Design by Grace Aretakis

Design by Tamara Turner

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

 ERIN EVANS
Daily Arts Writer

 Wednesday, April 20, 2022 — 5

