Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Comic 801: FUCK YOU, RANDALL

mc shut the fuck up
[alt text: Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.]

I bet Randy was all sitting pretty on his little shrine to Carl and the rest of the loyal commentariat here at "We Aren't Exceptionally Fond Of The Webcomic XKCD." I imagine he said to himself (because he has no friends, and the silence has driven him to talking to himself), "That beautiful, sexy fiend Carl 'Randall Munroe' Wheeler has finally given up! Now I will produce the worst possible comic right after his final post, and he can't do anything about it!"

Well guess what, motherfucker? I AM NOT LETTING YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS ONE.

Now, I don't want to be unfair to Randy. Maybe he has a terrible fever which is warping his brain and will leave him with permanent damage. Perhaps Megan has finally started poisoning his coffee. I don't know what's going on in his personal life, and I don't want to just assume that psychosis hasn't started setting in yet. We don't have all the information.

But those are the only valid excuses for this comic.

My first reaction to this one went something like "uh, what the fuck?" I kept reading it, over and over again, trying to figure out what the hell he thinks might be funny about this one. I've come to a couple conclusions actually! There are multiple points where Randy thinks he's being funny, and the aggregate forms a sort of extra-terrible joke.

First, this is another attempt to tell a joke by suggesting that something funny happened, without actually showing us that funny thing. "Bolt cutters, Wolf Blitzer's boathouse, vodka, black hat guy. DO THE MATH, PEOPLE!!!" This is, of course, the paragon of laziness, but it works well for the Pavlovian fuckwits that worship Randy.

Second, he attempts to derive humor from the HILARIOUSLY INAPPROPRIATE play on "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like nails." Get it? He replaced "hammer" and "nails" with different objects! GET IT??? IT WAS FUNNY.

Third, the punchline in no way follows the setup. Randy was here going for a hilarious nonsequitur, because all humor is unexpected and blah blah blah fuck you. It ended up with the shit you see now: two unconnected scenes. In one, a man is complaining about Java. In the other, a man is talking about how he stole Wolf Blitzer's boat.

Fourth, of course, we have references. Randy's author insertion character complains about Java, which many nerds will automatically laugh at. Black hat guy references Wolf Blitzer, of whom many nerds will have heard. The latter reference is of the "LOL THAT'S SO RANDOM" variety. The former is of the "OMG I ALSO HATE JAVA" variety.

The result, as you can plainly see, is just fucking stupid.

Was there really a time when Randy could write jokes with clever subversions? It seems so remote and distant now, like maybe my mind just made it all up. Is this really what Randy has become?

----

I said in the last comment thread that I could probably continue the blog here if the desire was there. I don't want to push the blog past its expiration date, though, so I'm content to let it be--but if you lot want the blog to continue under the far more talented and corpulent hand of yours truly, you need only say so, and I might pay attention.

I'd say it's been a pleasure but we all know that's a lie. I hate every last one of you and interacting with you is a godawful nightmare. It's bad enough reading XKCD all the time to bring you wretched monsters some cheap laughs. Reading your comments every day was very nearly intolerable. Since the blog is no more, I don't mind revealing that the only reason I continued to post here is as a punishment from the gods.

Fuck you all. You have no redeeming qualities. Good night.

140 comments:

  1. Seems to me you're just fucking with us; "Oooh, I made a new blog because I'm emo and I need attention", so we all ship ourselves over to your new blog, re-jigger our feeds and create new interweb personae to bait you with. Now you're all like "Hahaha, Bitches! I'm still posting here! AND YOU MIGHT NOT EVEN KNOW!", which frankly, is just rude.

    Seems to me this could have been a perfectly valid post on your new site - something to keep the regulars from feeling like they'd been abandoned, vaguely in-line with the MO of the site and yet SCATHINGLY ACCURATE, ALL AT THE SAME TIEM!!12!one.

    Let's be honest, you're still hanging around here like a bad smell because, now that you have a big-boy's blog that's all wordpress and shit, you're suffering from PERFORMANCE ANXIETY like a little bitch.

    Well, Just SUCK IT UP, abandon this shit-heap of a monument to your self-inflicted vitriolic rage and start a new shiny blog that's all about rainbows and faggy webcomics that probably no-one reads (I mean, come on! Penny Arcade? who the fuck reads that?).

    Or something.

    Thank you for your time.
    -M

    ReplyDelete
  2. I enjoyed the furious thoughts on this blog, so if you, oh generous and sagacious Rob, would take over, that would please me and make up for the all the terrible comics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's good that typing isn't like talking, otherwise all that food would get in the way of your bile instead of the other way around.

    You fat fuck, you better keep writing this thing. Xkcd hatred has no expiration date.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rob, take the reigns. Fulfill thy destiny.

    ReplyDelete
  5. xkcdsucks is dead! Long live xkcdsucks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. at the first row of posts (and quite a few spread out elsewhere) in the forums all agree with this blog

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  7. The war with xkcd is over. The war with xkcd has begun.

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  8. Randall @ SuperKutzOctober 5, 2010 at 6:27 AM

    Will someone please sodomize Randall and his bowlcut with a splintery police baton?

    What a fucking asshat, he can't even be marginally funny.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Please continue this blog. 801 shows that there are possibly new ways that xkcd can suck.

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  10. I wanna post things too ROB LET'S START A GLORIOUS NEW ERA

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  11. "What a fucking asshat, he can't even be marginally funny."
    He's actually vaguely amusing in real life, though you'd never realise it by reading the comic.

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  12. What's depressing is that this is the style of humour of the old xkcd, but with less esoteric references (at least insofar that people who shouldn't get the joke will at least recognise that Java and guy whose name I've already forgotten are recognised by nerds, rather than the old ones where you wouldn't notice a joke if you didn't get it).

    It's all horrible.

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  13. I'm more than willing to guest post, Rob, if I find a comic particularly offensive. Let's keep this blog alive!

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  14. I did get some use out of this comic. I work in software engineering, and we have a guy here who will do exactly this - he tries to write everything in the one programming language he knows, regardless of whether it makes sense for the task. I printed the first two panels and stuck them up on his cube wall.

    Just the first two, though. That last panel is just a complete train wreck. Nobody needs to see that.

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  15. I will say this, skimmng this comic lightly the first time I mis-read the punchline as "...Wolf Blitzer's bathhouse", which does make the comic somewhat funnier.

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  16. While Carl is merely ugly, Rob has no life and is also fatter than a whale, which means he has more to be angry about and thus his angry rants against Randall "Cockbag" Munroe are in fact angrier.

    I approve of this turn of events.

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  17. Rob why do you fuck goats so much

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  18. I learned everything I need to know about Rob on 9/11.

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  19. "he tries to write everything in the one programming language he knows, regardless of whether it makes sense for the task."

    is it excel.

    oh god

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  20. I'm so very happy to see that this blog will never die. Carry the torch, Rob.

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  21. Go Rob! [...to the buffet]

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  22. If this blog has an expiry date, this is definitely not it. This blog maintains the balance of the internet, without it... there is just Randall and his followers.

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  23. Rob, your punishment is not over.

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  24. It's a shame Randall doesn't even know Java was built for single-purpose-hardware and in fact, more "small" computers – like washers oder set-top-boxes – run Java than there are PCs. Also, a JVM can be a lot smaller than a single C library.

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  25. You seem like a worthless sack of carbon.

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  26. OH GOD YES


    Please continue this blog, Rob! I'm begging you.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I dunno, I am/was pretty close to stop reading this blog as anger/disappointment over xkcd's quality just finally turned into indifference.

    How interesting can something get that is a rant against something you don't care about anymore?

    But yeah I guess in that case I'm just not anymore part of the audience that should be allowed to vote whether this blog should be continued or not.

    ReplyDelete
  28. UndercoverCuddlefishOctober 5, 2010 at 2:05 PM

    there shall be no hercules to free you from your eternal torment rob

    also i hope randall can keep making comics like this one because this is the sort of bullshit that is easy to completely hate and mock despising randall munroe gives my life purpose

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  29. Would you guys stop it with the stupid fucking "lol randall is ugly stupid and has no life" jokes? Honest to God, you're worse than the XKCD comics themselves. You complain about Randall overusing material, but in reviews like these, and several comments, this kind of joke is told to death. Grow up, for God's sake.

    On the comic itself: It wasn't very good. Despite the reviewer's third grade insults, the core of it was true.

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  30. Although I agree with the core message of this review, what I disagree with is the childish insults the reviewer used. Enough Randall is a loner/is ugly jokes people. They're as old and outdated as the jokes XKCD use.

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  31. UndercoverCuddlefishOctober 5, 2010 at 4:22 PM

    @anon3:34

    you are right we should just avoid stating relevant and pertinent information because it might hurt poor randys feelings cut that guy some slack am i right

    i think you missed the part where this blog is more about entertainment than responsible journalism and also the entire quote beneath the blog title in the header

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  32. @Anon 4:22

    How are overused/childish jokes about Randall, a guy most of you (obviously including me) haven't met relevant and pertinent information?

    From what I can tell, this blog is supposed to be about giving harsh criticism for a comic. Which is fine-criticism is good. But when it comes to the criticism being speckled with idiotic, unfunny jokes, I don't find it entertaining in the slightest.

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  33. Also, I'm not saying we should treat Randy like a baby. He's a man-he can handle criticism, I would think.

    But as I said, this wasn't very good criticism. The main point of the review was, but with the "lol randy iz stoopid/haz no lief" jokes it ruined it for me.

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  34. actually that was the punchline of the introductory paragraph, and you could argue that it was the point of the paragraph where I imply that the only legitimate reason to write a comic so bad is that something is adversely affecting your brain function (like a high fever or poison in your coffee). but I guess if you only read those two you could say it was the point of the entire review?

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  35. I disagree, forgettable anon cuddlefish. I believe it amplifies the humor immeasurably to have the reviewer constantly taking cheap shots at Randall out of the side of his mouth throughout the entire review.

    I am a simple man with simple pleasures.

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  36. ITT Rob projects his flaws on an innocent webcomic writer.

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  37. UndercoverCuddlefishOctober 5, 2010 at 6:07 PM

    i side with ves on this one obviously

    the critiques are way more entertaining to read when everything is blown out of proportion and randall is treated as an object of unmitigated hatred instead of a real person

    the obvious bias and "unwarranted nastiness" is what makes xkcdsucks xkcdsucks and not some boring criticism site that i will never read

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  38. Do it Rob! For great justice.

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  39. I don't care if you hate me. But I would very much like to see this blog continue.

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  40. I am going with "functionally illiterate" for the cuddlefish on the basis that they expect fair treatment from a blog titled "xkcdsucks". Or maybe they are actually missing the part of their brains that makes connections? I mean, Randall does spell out his jokes very much -- perhaps he is creating an endemic. Or worse, CODDLING an endemic population.

    Yeah, who are we kidding? Missing social cues? Feel the need to tell someone [via an anonymous blog post] that they are incorrect? Just don't seem to "Get" their peers' behaviours, while insisting their raison d'etre is still as valid as it was years before?

    This is the audience to which Randall "love-is-great-when-I-get-it" Monroe panders. Randall is not creating the problem, he is merely profiting from it.

    Also, keep up the good work, Rob! Your secret identity is safe with me so long as you don't go Carl on us and demand your own blog -- we won't follow you there [not for lack of failing to see where you've gone, naturally, because it is impossible to miss that sort of elephant leaving the room. If you know what I mean].

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  41. Ugh, #802 disappointed me. I went straight to MMO Isle expecting a tiny "FFXI HD Beta Phase 5" because Final Fantasy XIV is pretty damn disappointing.

    The amount in which FF14 pisses me off is like a tenth of the amount in which Randall pisses me off, which says a lot. It's also saying a lot considering I loved FF11 and I actually paid money for 14 and not for xkcd.

    I just really hate Randall.

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  42. Paul Krugman gets his own island, but xkcdsucks doesn't?! This is an outrage. An outrage I say!

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  43. Guess who needs some money....

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  44. hey look at the fans on the forums immediately going in to suck randall's dick for doing something he's already done.

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  45. @Arthur: Oh, I took it as Krugman sleeping with the fishes, but ok.

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  46. I won't lie. I giggled a little when I saw Kanye's Isle of Sadness. That's easily the best part of the map.

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  47. once again, randall proves he only really tries at posters. also this isn't even a new low, he's re-done this poster before.

    he missed an opportunity to add the imperialist desert nation of XKCD, with colonies by everywhere else

    anyone else tried to make out the jerkblog words?

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  48. He actually did include xkcd. It's tiny.

    I like the poster, and things have changed so it is quite difference. But I think the first one was better.

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  49. Listen guys, you seem like wise fellows and I need some advice. I'm getting desperate. I'm on the verge of my 28th birthday and still a virgin. Should I continue holding out for the possibility of finding somebody willing to put up with me, or should I just forego sentimentality and get myself a prostitute?

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  50. Holy shit as soon as carl says "fuck this shit xkcd is boring and unfunny" randall starts ejaculating out these horrible comics.

    I mean the new one's a poster and IT's FAIRLY FAMILIAR MIGHT I ADD

    What got me is how randall pretends he's done some kind of work to generate this- it looks like somone with dihorea farted over some blue poster board and then arbitrarily assigned the names of popular websites to the largest islands

    LOLMEMESNETCULTRE- too bad this poster will be all out of date in five years like the previous one when the references are forgotten.

    I mean holy shit this is like the king of nerd pandering

    "hey guys I RECOGNISE you spend time on these sites! pay me for a permenent momento that I acknowledge your basement-dwelling lifestyle!"

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  51. If xkcd was just this sort of thing- none of the comics, which are usually terrible- than I'd be all over it. Good to see more pictoblog material, but unfortunately this means we'll get another month of shitty comics afterwards to make up for it.

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  52. there are some nice touches in the new money poster comic thing. the lifeboats going from digg to reddit cracked me up. i didn't notice the phallic shape of 4chan so much until i saw it zoomed out as part of the rest of the map.
    most of all, it's actually quite interesting because it's a cool contrast to his previous map. it shows the vastness of facebook's growth, among other things. sometimes i forget that it's not 10 or 20 years ago, back when the internet was a place for the geeks to go, and it's fairly frightening to see the result of the new widespread use of the internet that facebook's growth represents.

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  53. oh no NORMAL people are using my INTERNET next time they'll be playing VIDEO GAMES and I'll have NOTHING to make myself different form them! The horror! The horror!

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  54. It's intriguing that many posters here emulate Carl's style of writing, which is to say, FUCKING ALL CAPS RANDALL and lack of punctuation am I right

    I appreciate and enjoy the style but it's kind of annoying when EVERYONE emulates it right? Right.

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  55. 4:11 Rob's not emulating anyone this is actually how he talks in real life.

    It's-it's kinda grating sometimes.

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  56. I like how XKCD's only place on the internet is nestled between "Troll Bay" and "The Sea of Memes". This confirms that Randall DOES know what he is doing here.

    Otherwise, someone obviously needs some money to pay November's rent.

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  57. keep it going!!! I need something to read that destroys xkcd all the time, otherwise i feel like i'm the only one!

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  58. That's not even xkcd, that's #xkcd, the IRC channel, next to the other IRC islands.

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  59. Keep it up, Rob! Your presence adds WEIGHT to this blog (hahaha get it lol lol)!

    Captcha: adrag. PLASTIC PEOPLEEEEEEE, OOOOOOH now you're such adrag!!

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  60. You're not very good at posting Rob...
    You shouldn't try to artificially keep this blog alive.

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  61. the complaints on this blog can be caterogerised into two broad groups

    "You guys aren't crticsing xkcd fairly how can we take you seriously with all this trumped up false rage and petty insults"

    and

    "you guys are being too serious, the posts are boring, and I miss the trumped up rage and petty insults of the old days"

    If I was Randall monroe this would be packaged into a venn diagram and sold as friday's comic.
    Also because as I, randall monroe, I miss sex (and by extension, megan)I'll make a comment in the alt text about this diagram would be banned from seseme street

    because katy perry has some fyne titties amirite?

    And the ven diagram would look like boobs

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  62. Does anyone think that 801 referencing the "Golden Hammer" (an "over-reliance on a familiar tool") may have been Randall acknowledging his own over-reliance on particular comedic formulas? (i.e. for this comic, nerd reference + non sequitor) Or am I giving him too much credit?

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  63. "Or am I giving him too much credit?"

    Always a safe bet with him.

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  64. "I like how XKCD's only place on the internet is nestled between "Troll Bay" and "The Sea of Memes". This confirms that Randall DOES know what he is doing here."

    also next to wikipedia talk pages/edit wars and reddit

    damn you capn for ruining this

    ReplyDelete
  65. Charles Augustus FortescueOctober 6, 2010 at 7:48 AM

    The new big map poster is missing a compass. The first incarnation of this idea had north/south representing technical knowledge, and east/west representing internet obsession, or some such, giving each territory a logical place on the map. This new incarnation lacks a similar overarching concept that would tie it all together. Nevertheless, it's quite a good map, and I found the Farmville fact mildly interesting.

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  66. Self-awareness of xkcd's silliness and meme obsession would likely result in the actual end-of-the-xkcdsucks-as-we-know-it.

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  67. How accurate is this thing really? Particularly with regard to foreign language sites. There are a bunch of Chinese sites, but many countries/languages don't have any representation. He's got wizaz.pl fokt.nl and bokt.nl; Poland and the Netherlands are ranked #23 and #31 for internet users. Surely there are forums that are popular with the 99 million Japanese (#3) users of the internet, 75 million Brazilians (#5), and 68 million Mexicans (#6). I do realize some of the social networking sites he shows that aren't so popular here are popular in other countries (e.g., Orkut/Brazil), but still; where are the foreign blogs and forums?

    I remember a news story from a few years back about a Chinese site becoming the #1 blog on the internet (I believe it was taking over that position from Boing-Boing). There aren't any Chinese blogs shown.

    It mostly seems to be showing sites Randall is familiar with, rather than the whole internet, especially when it gets down to the smaller ones. There must be hundreds of sites not shown that receive as much activity as the Wikipedia talk pages.

    I'm fine with him including #xkcd for vanity purposes, but does it really get half as much traffic as Wikipedia Talk? Or as much traffic as Huffington post, as its size would suggest?

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  68. "It mostly seems to be showing sites Randall is familiar with"

    "It mostly seems to be showing sites Randall's fans are familiar with"

    "It mostly seems to be showing sites Randall's paying customers" are familiar with"

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  69. @3:58 WTF are you talking about normal people have been playing video games for over a decade now that's why they all suck like shit now. It's all fucking Halo and Mass Effect without any Thief and Ultima and trust me this dumbing down is happening to the internet too because fucktards are more profitable and WE WILL HAVE NOWHERE TO GO.

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  70. M for Moron anon poster #1 doesn't seem to realize that Carl and Rob are two different people.

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  71. @ Anon 4:11

    It's intriguing that many posters here emulate Carl's style of writing, which is to say, FUCKING ALL CAPS RANDALL and lack of punctuation am I right

    I was under the impression that Carl got that style from Ryan North and Dinosaur Comics.

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  72. 10:05 I'm pretty sure that was the point. Sometimes people who aren't autistic say things that they do not literally believe to be true. This is known as "humor".

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  73. Just writing to say that, as much as I disagree with many of the reviews here, I would be sorry to see them stop.

    I think Rob has a good perspective and I'd love to see him carry the torch.

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  74. yes he has a lot of, ahem, depth

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  75. I can't wait to read your review of 802. I like how he put Taringa! in the "Euro gulf" even though it's Argentine and the irony of Randall calling any community snobbish Sure Last.fm are Flickr filled with snobs but people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

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  76. RANDALL: Hai, guys, remember that one cool thing I did? I did it again.
    FANS: AWESOME, LOL, RANDALL GET (YOUR DICK) OUT OF MY ASS!!

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  77. This is like the one thing that a series of charts might actually be interesting for. ffs Randall.

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  78. Oh jesus christ ANOTHER map of the internet?

    Is it just me, or did I see this predicted somewhere before?

    Somebody either here or on xkcdexplained suggested that randall was repeating so many ideas that he might as well do the map of the internet again.

    ReplyDelete
  79. rob i really dont think you can do better than xkcd explained

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  80. ozymandias -- friend of friends

    hehe

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  81. Rob keep it up. Fuck anon 4:31. xkcd explained isn't bitter enough.

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  82. if I wanted to be restrained and subtle I would gladly hand the torch to xkcd explained. I am neither.

    ReplyDelete
  83. "Sea of Zero [blog] Posts"
    Oh ho ho, Randall! Still hanging onto your backwards internet stereotypes! You're so silly!

    ReplyDelete
  84. Rob, I hope you do continue this blog. I only found it a few months ago, and I've gotten to like it, and I'd rather not see it end. Besides, the internet has need of a site that makes fun of xkcd.

    ReplyDelete
  85. @Chaos: There are in fact several, though this is the first that was dedicated to such:

    xkcdexplained.com
    explainxkcd.com
    isxkcdshittytoday.com

    There was once even an xkcdsucks.com that had a bunch of shittier comics making fun of xkcd, it is no more.

    Fun fact: you will NEVER learn about the increasing resent vitriol to this comic via wikipedia

    ReplyDelete
  86. @Capn:

    I made one more:

    http://xkcdsuxredux.wordpress.com/

    It only has a post on 802 but in the event that Rob doesn't post about an xkcd comic you can, if you want, read my rants about them.

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  87. I can only hope that this means Randy is running out of money, and this is his last desperate attempt to sell some posters before he decides he can no longer support himself drawing these, ehem, "comics".

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  88. Rob:

    Please, do continue posting. I at the very least enjoy your posts. At the very least, make a post regarding the most recent map of the Internet. I think that, if anything, is a great way to go.

    ReplyDelete
  89. The blog is ending? Great... Now I'm going to have to visit funnyjunk or some shit like that...

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  90. Rob, I love you. Never change.

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  91. I liked the 802 post on xkcdsux reducks

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  92. The xkcdsux reducks post is quite good. He should write it here on the ol' orange and tan.

    Rob! You fat lazy retard, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V!! Use your dialing wand!

    ReplyDelete
  93. there's other who sucks too like www.fullbc.in

    ReplyDelete
  94. Oh, that didn't take long. At the top, where his update schedule usually is: "Full view here, poster preorder here."

    At least he linked to someone who did it better for once.

    ReplyDelete
  95. @Capn

    Well, if this xkcdsucks blog is continuing, I don't want to interfere with it. I've always enjoyed the posts here. If you really did like my 802 post though, all my posts will be at the same place: xkcdsuxredux.wordpress.com

    I'm planning on posting about 803, whatever it may be.

    ReplyDelete
  96. anon: I am way too uninspired to write an 802 post, but I'd be happy to run yours as a guest post if you want.

    aloria and I are still in negotiations as to who gets to wear Carl's skull as a crown as we sit atop our bone thrones of bones, but I think we'll be continuing as queen and king of hatred for some time longer.

    ReplyDelete
  97. I think we can all agree that webcomics.me sucks because, well, it uses a .me TLD. Come on, Carl, could you really not think up something that hasn't been used as a .com? Maybe you should hang this up before it gets too far off the ground.

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  98. What. The. Hell. 803?

    What the hell is this shit?

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  99. @Rob

    I'll probably keep writing on my own blog, but you can repost any content of mine that you want in the future, with no restrictions, if you ever want one of my posts. I guess I'd only ask if you could be nice enough to link to my blog above the post so people know where it comes from. :)

    Other than that, feel free to use anything I've posted or post in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  100. 803: Search on YouTube for "People like us: pilots" for the most hilarious take ever on that particular explanation of lift.

    This comic could've been relatively okay if the "very wrong" one wasn't such a total non-sequitur.

    Also, it's yet another comic that feels like he wrote it after reading Wikipedia. And another one that aims at a GOOMHR reaction, because correcting their teachers is something that the XKCD-reading demographic is likely to have done (I know I did).

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  101. Ernesto: what do you have against the great and beautiful country of Montenegro?

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  102. Is the punchline for 803 meant to be the "very wrong" box? If so, it was incredibly lame.

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  103. Sven: "This comic could've been relatively okay if the "very wrong" one wasn't such a total non-sequitur."

    This.

    "[...], because correcting their teachers is something that the XKCD-reading demographic is likely to have done (I know I did)."

    Also this. I'm running on socratic irony to this day.

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  104. xkcd sucks redux is really good.

    xkcd #803 is...

    ...Is Randall even trying to make his comics coherent anymore? I was so confused as to what was going on in the first panel because the intro text and the teacher's text looked like they were both part of the graph. Then you get the awkward "Santa Claus is your parents." At first I thought it was some attempt at some weird joke that I did not get, but then I realized it was simply a "Santa Claus is not real" joke. What? Really? How do people act this guy like he is the paragon intellectual comedy when his humour can be processed by a pre-school jock?

    Also, for a pedantic, obsessive-compulsive freak, Randall sure does love disgustingly asymmetrical comics. (Then again, I have an OCD so maybe that is why I find his comics like this so damn hideous.)

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  105. How do people act like this guy is*

    Damn that came out ugly.

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  106. paragon of*

    Wow, that was terrible.

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  107. Did you know you can just leave the URL field empty?

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  108. But then how would I learn about such lovely social networking sites, Evln? STOP TRYING TO REPRESS ME!

    Also, it makes him look like more of a Regular. Even though you post more, you LOOK at first glance like "one of 'dem cuddlefish"

    ReplyDelete
  109. ITT: Repression per proxy.

    "Also, it makes him look like more of a Regular."

    Idk, maybe if they would link to their website or profile or something. Even though your point is valid, these links effectively are spam.

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  110. Spam? Do you see the crap Carl links to? This site is 20% spam, 20% trolls, 40% unjustified and poorly formatted anger, and 10% critique. Naturally Rob is the remaining 10% of this site. By mass.

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  111. Oh, sorry, I suppose that is "linked to" now. RIP.

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  112. "This site is 20% spam, 20% trolls, 40% unjustified and poorly formatted anger, and 10% critique. Naturally Rob is the remaining 10% of this site."

    Did I say anything contrary to that?

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  113. BTW you forgot to mention that actually 60% of this site is about taking offence how ugly and/or fat some people are.

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  114. Timofei: What I have against it is that it is the direct cause for the following Wikipedia charlie-fuck:

    "The dot-ME top level domain replaced the dot-YU (Yugoslavia) domain previously used by Serbia and Montenegro. In addition to declaring .me independent of .yu."

    You think I'm joking, but I'm not.

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  115. @Evln: I know. I don't really know why I do that. I guess I wasn't sure what to put when I first posted (sometime ago; I've posted under various names because I cannot think of what to stick with), so I put in a random website (I believe it was a blog post about this guy I knew who was accused of something with his own students), but then it sort of became like a couch gag of sorts. It's also something mildly amusing for me to do each time I post.

    I think I might stick with http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/ to try and help get it back as the most viewed ytmnd before the site becomes even deader.

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  116. I really liked this comic. Its a comic. I really don't care about any of your points--humour wasn't made to be analysed.

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  117. "I've posted under various names because I cannot think of what to stick with"

    See, that's why you really are still a cuddlefish. Of what use is your name if we can't recognize you the next time you don't like your current one any more.

    Anon 3:11: Cool story bro.

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  118. Hey, 3.11! When is a curtain not a curtain? When it's your face!

    It's funny because it's a joke.

    (Like your face.)

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  119. Evln: I believe we can both agree the site is 90% believing Randy to be a corporate whore. I don't even have anything against XKCD anymore, it's mostly the image he's projecting.

    When you try to order the new poster, the default is the "Poster Pack" for $5 extra which includes the older map of the internet as well as the newer one. So if you want JUST the new map, you have to recognize that this isn't what you're buying and switch it. Sort of like his "Radiohead style" thing.

    Anonymouse: This site is blowing my mind.

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  120. New comic is annoying. I would be interested in learning about the actual reason an airplane's wing works. However, classrooms have a finite amount of time. They cannot handle every long digression suggested by a student. Teachers cannot derail the entire lecture just because one student is ahead of the class. So to say that it's wrong for the teacher to recognize the true complexity of the picture, but also pragmatically realize that she can't simply ignore every other student in favor of some inquisitive guy, is tremendously egotistical. "Pander to me, educational system! Fuck everyone who doesn't immediately grasp everything!"

    And, of course, the alt-text is worse. "Parents should inculcate inquisitiveness and alertness in their children" is more or less fine; "Parents should coach their children so they can trip up their teachers and reveal the inadequacies of the school system" is just dickery.

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  121. Evln:

    I guess I never really wanted to be recognized by you people. :P

    And I never was a cuddlefish, really. I only know of xkcd because I kept seeing it in people's forum signatures plus I liked that "Someone is wrong on the Internet" one, so I decided to see what the big deal was. After seeing the "professions by purity" one, the horrid art*, and the earlier strips which actually showed potential, I decided the comic needed to join my list of "SHIT THAT IS EXTREMELY POPULAR YET COMPLETELY TERRIBLE; I DO NOT HATE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE POPULAR NOR BECAUSE THEY ARE AWFUL, BUT RATHER BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH AND I CANNOT AVOID THEM NO MATTER WHERE I GO SO IT'S NOT LIKE I'M GOING OUT OF MY WAY TO HATE THEM SO DON'T SAY 'WELL JUST DON'T WATCH/READ THEM IF YOU DON'T LIKE THEM'". It is accompanied by post-cancellation Family Guy and Jersey Shore.

    *Fun Fact: The 2 art details that really pissed me off and inspired me to see if I was alone in disliking the strip were the ugly ass chairs and the fact that, at first, I thought the usual brunette stick figure was a hip guy with long hair. (You see, I thought the strip had a recurring cast: Baldie, Long-haired Guy, Blonde, and some people with hats.) Needless to say, I was confused when some awkward nerd romance was going on between Baldie and Long-haired Guy.

    Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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  122. "[...] believing Randy to be a corporate whore. I don't even have anything against XKCD anymore, it's mostly the image he's projecting."

    I've enough against XKCD without that. Like, shitty illustrated throwaway memes and references. I.e. 80% of all recent XKCD "comics".

    "And I never was a cuddlefish, really."

    You, by definition, are one as soon as you post here as anon. (See in the Frequently Asked Awesome Questions to the left.)

    "[...], at first, I thought the usual brunette stick figure was a hip guy with long hair."

    An interesting take.

    "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

    I would think so!


    Anyone else got the impression I'm writing so much I could as well take over the blog?

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  123. You really can't escape xkcd no matter how hard you try. Even if I never visited the site, a good example is the other day on a forum I go to where someone posted a thread about why no one takes time travelers seriously. It was a picture of someone telling people in the 1950s about people putting up their breakfasts on Twitter and Facebook and having others comment on it.

    And then someone posted that fucking "You're about to have an idea for a time machine!" comic.

    I responded by posting the edited version "You're about to have an idea for the funniest comic ever, Randall!"

    I was glad to see that people found the edited version to be much funnier than Randall's.

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  124. .... You guys do know what the word "corporate" means, right?

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  125. Corporate: Belonging to Corporations. "Randall is a Corporate Whore [[the whore who has sold himself to Corporate America]]". I don't even know how that phrase got started, but the meaning of "Red" does not at all affect the phrase "Red Herring", does it?

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  126. The stark color of the proverbial red herring makes it stand out, attracting attention.

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  127. Actually "red herring" is a mishearing* of "read herring", which refers to Dolcemi's 1667 play "Il Torado", or, more specifically, the 1860 translation into English thereof by John Buke. While it isn't really a detective story - they didn't have detective story in the 1660s, remember - there is some rudimentary attempt at misleading the characters/audience as to the true identity of - well, that would be spoiling it, wouldn't it? But one of the (hideously obvious to a modern viewer, if a shocking twist to the Victorians) fake clues is a herring with the name "BEN" scraped into the scales.

    *in much the same way as 'a nadder' became 'an adder'

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  128. Well, I was stretching further than I needed to anyways -- the word Corporate in "Corporate whore" retains the meaning "belonging to the Corporation [hyperbolically]". Fun fact though.

    Captcha: Redip. I hate people that do that.

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  129. A red herring is a kipper cooked in a certain way that makes it turn red. Some dude once made a metaphor about such a kipper being used to train hunting dogs by dangling it behind a horse and (get this) people started to assume that was a real practice! Seriously, it wasn't really. The people were dumb.

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  130. Mmm. Of course. I agree, this one sucked. Why make it personal?

    While we're making it personal:


    /"\
    |\./|
    | |
    | |
    |>~<|
    | |
    /'\| |/'\..
    /~\| | | | \
    | =[@]= | | \
    | | | | | \
    | ~ ~ ~ ~ |` )
    | /
    \ /
    \ /
    \ _____ /
    |--//''`\--|
    | (( +==)) |
    |--\_|_//--|

    Cheers,
    Sam

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  131. ... sorry, that was meant to be a middle finger. Just to clarify...

    -Sam

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  132. wtf is this shit? All I see is a bunch of fucktards who are pissed because they can't understand xkcd. So, instead of admitting they don't know something, they throw a trollfest like this, and hate on an awesome thing. Fail.

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  133. wtf is this shit? All I see is a fucktard who is pissed because he can't understand xkcd sucks. So, instead of admitting he doesn't know something, he throws a tantrum like this, and hates on an awesome thing. Fail.

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