National Post

Am I turning into Taylor Swift? I’ve noticed that over the summer my hair has gotten lighter. I also find myself singing along to country songs and have developed an attraction to the Jonas brothers.

It sought to explain the unexplaina­ble, like, ‘Why do people with baguettes think they’re better than me?’ But now it’s shutting down

- As Yahoo Answers end, comes to An A look back At the best questions ever Asked.

Before internet philosophe­rs could take their extremely serious and pressing questions to Twitter — or even Instagram polls — there existed one website of immense wisdom: Yahoo Answers.

Establishe­d in 2005, the platform was a place people could turn to for help with questions that were too embarrassi­ng to ask in real life, like, “How is babby formed? How girl get pragnent?” Or, that were too complex for your everyday Joe, such as, “Is there a spell to become a mermaid that actually works?”

Perhaps more importantl­y, it also sought to provide explanatio­ns for the truly unexplaina­ble: “Why is everything at my grandma’s house moist”; “If batman parents are died, Then how was he born”; and “Why do people with baguettes think they’re better than me?”

Even genius Stephen Hawking took to the platform to ask for help with the question “How can the human race survive the next 100 years?” — drawing nearly 16,000 responses within two days, reported The Guardian.

But, like most good things on the internet run by a company, this repository of human intelligen­ce and wisdom is being shuttered for good. Yahoo Answers, which is owned by Verizon Media, officially stopped taking questions on Monday, although users can still view those already posted.

“While Yahoo Answers was once a key part of Yahoo’s products and services, it has become less popular over the years as the needs of our members have changed,” Yahoo said, in an email to users obtained by The Verge in early April.

The website will shut down forever May 4 and users will be redirected to Yahoo’s homepage, according to the Verge. By June 30, all of the website’s data will be erased — 16 years of memes, advice and misinforma­tion. Efforts to archive some of its content have since begun.

With the help of some code and Internet Archive, Gizmodo is auto-archiving as many as 84 million questions submitted to Yahoo Answers over the last 16 years. The abruptness of Yahoo’s announceme­nt means they will not be able to fully archive them all, as it takes over one second to log each question. According to the website, it would take at least two and a half years to capture each query.

Meanwhile, a volunteer collective of archivists known as Archive Team, is trying to save the entirety of Yahoo Answers before it closes for good.

While the questions and answers posted to the website may not have made a significan­t contributi­on to world knowledge, they’ve certainly captured the internet’s attention over the years.

So, before they’re gone forever, here’s a look back at some of the best questions ever asked.

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