Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Vanishing Mr. Hat

We all remember Mr. Hat. He represents all that is good about xkcd - he's slightly evil, though usually in a harmless way; he's very, very sarcastic, and he can always be counted on for good fun. Many of the best strips feature him. He is apparently based on a character from a different comic, for we learn in the alt text of his first appearance that "It's no secret that the hat guy is closely based on Aram, from Men in Hats." Check out this strip for an example.

ANYWAY THE POINT is not about where the character comes from, it's about where he went because I've noticed that recently all he's done is get involved in some stupid fight with a female version of himself and that's about it. No more maniacal plots. I think this explains a lot about why xkcd has been sucking so hard the past few months.

But of course, my bold assertions are nothing without empirical evidence, so here we go: I decided to divide the series into 50 comic chunks, and measure what percentage of strips per chunk have him in it. Note that while Mr. Hat is well defined by his hat (see detail at left), not all men in hats are Mr. Hat. He has a very distinct personality. I have noted if there is a possible dispute about his identity.

Note also that except once while it was stolen, Mr. Hat always wears his hat. If he's not wearing it, it's not Mr. Hat. He's enough of a continuing character that I believe this is fair.

Now...to the numbers!!


Chunk 1 - Comics 1-50
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 2 (I'm not counting 45)
Mr. Hat Density Index: 4%

Chunk 2 - Comics 51-100
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 5 (77 seems like just a guy wearing a hat)
Mr. Hat Density Index: 10%

Chunk 3 - Comics 101-150
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 5
Mr. Hat Density Index: 10%

Chunk 4 - Comics 151-200
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 6
Mr. Hat Density Index: 12%

Chunk 5 - Comics 201-250
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 3
Mr. Hat Density Index: 6%

Chunk 6 - Comics 251-300
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 3 (291 doesn't count - he doesn't talk and it's CLEARLY a different hat)
Mr. Hat Density Index: 6%

Chunk 7 - Comics 301-350
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 3
Mr. Hat Density Index: 6%

Chunk 8 - Comics 351-400
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 6
Mr. Hat Density Index: 12%

Chunk 9 - Comics 401-429 (present - not a full chunk yet)
Mr. Hat Comics (number): 2
Mr. Hat Density Index: 7%

Hey let's look at that in CHART FORM-
So from this it looks like, yes, there was a dip in Mr. Hat's appearances. But maybe it's on the rise again? After all, there's a pretty obvious peak there at the end.

Or is there? This is about the time that the Female Version of Mr. Hat steals his hat and they get in a crazy battle of Spy vs. Spy-esque revenge plots. These, I maintain, are not truly the essence of Mr. Hat - he is best when he gives quick, pithy one liners, not when he displays emotion. Anyway, you can decide that for yourself. If you would like, here's what the chart looks like not counting those four comics -

Of course all this raises the question - is his disappearance a cause of xkcd's recent sucktasticness, or a symptom? I'll let you decide that one as well.

12 comments:

  1. Okay I'm sorry but I'm like clicking all your links, so I'm sort of pilfering through your old posts again.

    But anyway, I just noticed that the alt-text for http://xkcd.com/29/ explains the joke as well.

    WHAT THE HELL RANDALL ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT US TO BE STUPID

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  2. It is nice for me to reread old posts, so don't worry about it. Agreed about the alt-text on comic 29. I tend to give him some leeway on those really early ones, but incidentally, as long as we're talking about that alt-text, go read Men In Hats and see just how closely Mr. Hat is based on Aram, who is incidentally a wonderful character. Here is an example: woo men in hats

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  3. Dammit Carl you have hooked me onto yet another webcomic. Haha, my captcha is "bigin." Biginning of the end for me!

    ... Okay it is more amusing at three in the morning with an essay awaiting my typage.

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  4. Amanda, Randall's old alt-texts weren't funny, nor were they meant to be. They explained the joke, but he ditched them once he had enough of a geek audience that he didn't feel the need to stab the living shit out of every punchline for the questionable benefit of those who wouldn't like xkcd anyway.

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  5. Unless you really hated the Secretary of the Internet arc, I think you may wish to revise your data. Also, although the Spy vs. Spy arc has lots of crap, the main ones (she takes his hat, he takes his hat back) are still good.

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  6. I did really hate that arc! Hated it hugely. I wrote a long post about it, you should check it out.

    I would update my data but I don't care as much anymore. We do see Mr. Hat more than when I wrote this (I wrote it just as Journal was happening) but often he's a watered down lame version, so it's still a problem.

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  7. At least Journal 1 was still hat-esque.

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  8. Carl, that's not what the phrase "begs the question" usually means. Usually it refers to the informal logical fallacy of assuming the exact thing you're trying to prove within an argument. What I think you should have said is "raises the question." Also, thanks for the blog, I'm glad people are noticing the recent shittiness of xkcd.

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  9. you are right. I will correct it.

    But it's hardly "recent" shittiness anymore - this post is more than a year old. DAMN.

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  10. Begging the question is such an interesting phrase.

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  11. WTF??!?!!? WHY DO YOU MAKE GRAPHS AND CHARTS AND AVERAGES AND PERCENTS FOR A FUCKING WEBCOMIC? GET A LIFE!

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  12. i am using SCIENCE. it is just what i do. For what it's worth, I made this graph first back when I was a huge xkcd fan.

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