In this lesson we learn how to use the Linux wildcard. The wildcard allows you to automate what would otherwise be tedious tasks. The wildcard is the * character. For example, a command with *.txt would affect all files ending in .txt. Similarly, *.* would affect all files. You could also imagine dog*.txt would affect all files that start with “dog” and end with .txt. The video gives many examples of using the wildcard to simplify things.