“Say my name, say my name, wear it out.” – Drake, What’s My Name?
“Encyclopedia” has always been one of Baratunde Thurston’s favorite words. “When I was a kid, people meeting me would complain that my name was ‘too hard.’ And I would respond, ‘If you can say ‘encyclopedia,’ you can say ‘Baratunde.’”
Thurston, the author, comedian, and devoted advocate of the serial comma, says in new annotations on his Wikipedia page that his first name is from Nigeria, though he is not. “I am not Nigerian, nor are my parents Nigerian. But they were black – black Americans who were very political and down for civil rights and black power. They embedded their politics in my name.”
Before inventing his own position at The Onion and writing the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black, Thurston was a frustrated stand-up comedian. “I was dating a musician…and she was constantly cranking out EPs and albums. All comedians had were the jokes we told out loud to the frail and unreliable minds of the audience.”
Thurston broke into publishing in 2002 as a maker of zines. Now that he’s a meme, he enjoys sneaking photos whenever fans read his work in public.
> Baratunde Thurston used Genius to annotate his Wiki. Click here to check it out.
