![comics which serve as no purpose but to let the world know that something has happened googleplus](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/googleplus.png)
[Comic title: "Google+"; alt text: "On one hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch. On the other hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch!"]
Hey, did you hear that Google just launched a social networking thing? Randy did. Apparently he's excited!
FIRST
ReplyDeleteAnd I too, xkcd sucks, hate it when people post things late and don't put effort in.
ReplyDeleteOr as you would say:
'hate i do'
yes orkut is awesome
ReplyDeletewait what
maybe when this is my job i will care if you think i need to try harder
ReplyDeleteWhat the fuck is wrong with xkcd 919.
ReplyDeleteIt's like randy had a seizure and just thought of every internetty-word he could think of.
Eh, it's better than a forced joke about lulzsec, but then again lulzsec is still somewhat topical. Maybe in a couple of weeks the great glorious mind of Randall Munroe will pinch out a steamer worthy of consideration on the subject.
Hey Ves, what's up bro?
ReplyDeleteHey, xkcd no longer links to the forums. What's the deal with that?
ReplyDelete919: My suspicions confirmed? ALTF is Randall?
ReplyDelete"I guess that's all I really wanted."
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is that supposed to mean?? The writing just gets worse and worse.
9:37; Seeing as the comments are closed for Randy's recent blog-post, perhaps he's trying to prevent his fans from commenting on the fora too?
ReplyDeleteThat, or, he removed the "Forums" link so people would freak out and click on the Blog to see what's going on, and read about his life. But, I doubt it.
Anonymous @ 9:45: That's a point that's been made elsewhere by non-comic commentators. Google+ is like Facebook without being Facebook, and that's an advantage. You can go onto Google+ and wipe your social networking slate clean without having to deal with friend requests from every single person you have ever met in life.
ReplyDeleteYou can argue that it's not really funny, but it's a coherent point that people have been making quite a bit over the last few days.
I hadn't heard about Google- actually.
ReplyDeleteBut as soon as someone brought it up in my workplace's Yammer, 3 or so people immediately linked to xkcd :(
Also 919 is utterly awful.
So, just to let you brohams know, only dudes have taints.
ReplyDeleteOn Facebook, most of my status updates are just me insulting my friendslist to see if anyone will defriend me. For some reason, no one ever does.
ReplyDeleteThey just hide you, Chaos. I know, because that's what I do with annoying facebook "friends".
ReplyDeleteWow, this site's still around, how about that!
ReplyDeleteIt was good to be reminded that it stopped being good about a year or so into its existence. Oh well.
shut up randall
ReplyDeleteSo, who wants to make fun of Randy's fiancee's (Ha! Like I believe that!) breast cancer?
ReplyDeletewait, so this is like a website for people who aren't smart enough to get the comic to come together and make themselves feel better by childishly insulting it?
ReplyDeletemkay
Well, that's what happens when you induce lactation by unnatural means
ReplyDeleteIt's like the forums never even existed. How... ORWELLIAN.
ReplyDelete@1:51: Exactly right. There is no way that people could understand xkcd and just not find it funny.
ReplyDeleteLet's take another example: Randall has a lactation fetish but his basement chattel has breast cancer. That is hilarious and the only reason you might not laugh is that you aren't smart enough to get the connection.
I wish I had a basement chattel. Maybe I should write a nerd-pandering webcomic.
ReplyDeleteDoes...does Randall object to the word "panties"? Does he think it's some sort of obnoxious neologism like all the other words in that sentence? Because if he does, it's not. And if he doesn't, why did he include it?
ReplyDelete@6:15: Randall objects to the word "panties" in the sentence, "This chemo makes me really tired so there's no way I'm letting you into my panties."
ReplyDelete@Anon 10:44: So Randall is not just making references to technology, he's making references to contemporary commentary that will be forgotten in a matter of weeks. That's what's so bad about #918 - the comic itself is incoherent. There's nothing in it to indicate what exactly Stickman "really wanted" nor how long he has done so. "Facebook but not Facebook" is too vague. More specific advantages, such as the one you and various writers have mentioned, are inapplicable as Stickman doesn't know about them yet. Hell, he's not even sure that whatever he's talking about IS what he wanted.
ReplyDeleteIt's times like this I just feel like sitting back and cracking a cold one and just letting the inevitable flamewar over Randall's fiancee begin.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in other news:
Randall Munroe is a Hack, exhibit #919:
- In panel 1, Megan's stick figure is sitting in a chair with no back. And yet in panels 2, 3, and 4, the back mysteriously appears. How... orwellian.
- what the fuck is Stickrandall doing in panel 4? Is he crossing his arms? Is he choking himself? It's times like these you can point to Randall's art being objectively terrible because it's failing in its fundamental task of showing us what the fuck is happening.
I actually liked the hand gesture in the last panel. I don't know what it is, exactly, but it shows just how enthusiastic the guy is.
ReplyDeleteNice catch with the chair, though. I ended up editing my review to include a mention of that (as if we really needed any more evidence that this is the second worst xkcd of all time).
Randall's refusal to acknowledge mistakes and dislike of criticism reminds me of this guy who used to post on the forum I go to. He was a moderator (or maybe an admin) and the other admins liked to occasionally screw with the interface (but usually not in an obnoxious way). People would often joke about how the moderators got their positions pretty arbitrarily and didn't take their jobs seriously and he was always quick to point out that he did constructive stuff. When people would make self-deprecating jokes he would always make comments about how good he was at stuff. Not even fake boasting in a joking manner, just plainly stating stuff he was good at. Whenever anyone would make a joke about him (which wasn't often) he was always quick to point out that their joke wasn't accurate. Whenever someone made a comment implying that he did something wrong (which, again, wasn't often) he would try to change the subject to things he had done right. He never really blew up in anyone's face about it, but he was always just a little too quick to defend himself. It was a subtle thing but you got the feeling that he had deep-seated self-esteem issues.
ReplyDelete@8:37: It's hard to find anyone in the "somewhat but not really very smart" category who is not like that. As people get smarter there is this peak where they're clever enough to realising their shortcomings but not good enough to overcome them. After that, people become genuinely brilliant and let their work speak for itself.
ReplyDelete"In #919 we see pathetic loser Randy trying to get to Megan's nipples again by whining a bunch of vaguely sexual nonsense at her, which predictably drives her crazy until she's screaming for it to stop. This has been happening in real life, and Randy still doesn't accept that it's a rejection."
ReplyDeleteThere, that's your xkcdsucks-style review for tomorrow. Pad it out with a few more expressions how xkcd is shit and it's hit a new low etc.
I... I really don't get 919. Someone, please explain.
ReplyDelete"I’ve also spent a lot of these eight months immersed in cancer science, and I want to be free to talk (and draw comics) about stuff I’m learning..."
ReplyDeleteI really hope Randy is gonna start making cancer jokes. Can't go wrong with cancer jokes!
Anon@6:14 & Anon@10:05
ReplyDeleteIt's a list of words that a large number of people purportedly find obnoxious. Many of them are neologisms, but not all of them are. Moist is infamous as a "gross" word (there's a possibly apocryphal story about a college student threatening a sexual harassment suit against her professor for saying moist in a non-sexual context because "moist is a demeaning word to women and he should have known that".
That said, WTF is going on with this comic??? Randall forgot the joke. I could see him going for GOOMH; this comic would be great forum bait for everybody to discuss the words that they find obnoxious. Excellent forum fooder, but wait, the forums are gone. Randall is just trolling.
There once was a comic, Munroe,
ReplyDeleteWhose thoughts were of mammary flow.
As a heathen, God's answer
Was to give his girl cancer -
Now the milk ducts have nowhere to go.
TWAWN? You should edit your limerick so that it says TWATS.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute, if the forums are gone, does that mean we won?
ReplyDeleteWe can finally put all the confetti I bought to good use?
HOORAY!!
Oh, wait, xkcd itself still sucks. 1 down, 1 to go.
What do you guys think of bugcomic.com?
ReplyDeleteThere once was a comic, Munroe,
ReplyDeleteWhose thoughts were of titty cointreau.
As a heathen, God's answer?
'twas to give his girl cancer!
Salvage chemo(*) makes nipple flambeau.
(*) This sort of chemo is used after recurrence of a malignant tumour. It is Yahweh's way of saying, "I told you to stop using the milk pump the first time."
The forums still exist; it's just the link that's gone. In fact, this comic was likely inspired by a 31-page forum thread on the subject of "what words do you hate the most?" That's right, Randall researched the words his fans hate, and made a comic that did nothing but spam those words back to them.
ReplyDeleteWhat a hack.
11:28 fuck you
ReplyDeleteI am 101% sure I'll get trolled for this, but despite this being the internets I think it's not ok to be talking such shit about Randy's fiance. If anything make fun of her for being with Randall, because that is certainly something she brought upon herself.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a handful of bug comics. They're usually not funny.
ReplyDelete@ 12:19, you seem to be unfamiliar with how trolling works. Obviously people making fun of her are doing so to troll, they don't actually believe it. You're just confirming the expectation that xkcd fans will take umbrage at such action, which is exactly what they were looking to achieve in the first place.
ReplyDeleteTL;DR - you just guaranteed that cuddlefish will now do exactly what you hope to prevent! Great job bro.
"Are these forums being disowned by Randall? Are we that much of a disappointment?"
ReplyDelete"The sheeple can no longer provide adequate entertainment for him."
919: it's 856. Again. Basically.
ReplyDeleteYou guys wanna know why I hate XKCD? Why specifically?
ReplyDeleteI had a friend once, who upon hearing me complain that XKCD wasn't actually that good a comic, told me straight up that I just didn't have the right background to understand it. This person was my FRIEND and he told me that it just was too stupid at math to get this stick figure comic.
That was a while back, and it was what caused me to look up this blog.
And now, with the advent of 919, I'm just going to feel permanently justified. God DAMMIT it's just a string of words. It's somehow WORSE than the one that's a picture of a vagina for no reason. The entire joke is "Words people find yucky are yucky".
He's a hack, he's an idiot, and he deserves to have blogs made about how much his comic sucks.
@Ves
ReplyDeleteI've been had!
-anon 12:19
@12:19 Like homosexuality, cancer is often brought about by lifestyle choices.
ReplyDeleteI hate xkcd because it was my second favorite webcomic once (after achewood) and now it really sucks.
ReplyDeletei'd just like for us to take a second to appreciate the hard working limerick anons of this blog. limerick anons, we salute you.
ReplyDeleteGoodbye Janet Doe
ReplyDeleteThough I never knew you at all
You had the grace to wear your wig
While those around you scrawled
They scrawled into MSPaint
And they whispered into your brain
They set you on the milk pump
And they made you change your name
chorus:
And it seems to me that you're Randall's wife
A mistake but not a sin
Having no real man to cling to
When the C set in
And I would have liked to have bought you
But I was just outbid
Your bosom burned out long before
Your potential to be milked for sympathy by a failing comic who desperately needs a new creative angle and to look like more than a big kid with no real responsibilities ever did
Stick figure female geek was tough
The toughest role you ever played
Randall created a superstar
And pain was the price you paid
Even when you died
Oh the trolls still hounded you
All the hate blogs had to say
Was that Megan was found lactating
[repeat chorus]
Goodbye Janet Doe
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to wear your wig
While those around you scrawled
From the young man browsing xkcdsucks
Who sees you as something more than sexual
More than just our Megan Munroe
[repeat chorus]
We've got a talented bunch here.
ReplyDeleteThis review was the equivalent of http://xkcd.com/859/
ReplyDeletePained and intense, man
ReplyDeleteThey were inquiring
They were kurious oranj
They rode over peasants like you, they rode over peasants like you
And their horses loved them too, and their horses loved them too
They Were kurious oranj
They built the world as we know it, all the systems you traverse
Rode slipshod over all dumbshits
They were kurious oranj
They freed the Blacks too
They built church in one day, man,
Amish
They were kurious oranj
Their clothes were cool
Paved way for atom bomb--didn't know
They made the Jews go to school
They made Hitler laugh in pain
They sent missionary girls to Arab states, and the sun-baked men did drool
They were kurious oranj
They made Hitler laugh in pain
They turned Napoleon over and didn't know
They invented birth control
They were invulnerable to cool
They were kurious oranj
They were beyond Ooobenblief
They were primo efficient to a man
They were Stuyvestant smoking
They were the Reformation spring
And everybody in the world turned Reformation blue
They were invulnerable to cool
And everybody in the world
And they were inquiring
They were positively deranged and they were kurious oranj
They were kurious oranj
I remember the year I went to camp, I heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks.
ReplyDeleteRandy sighed again as he dispensed another pile of tissues. His work and routine were done. A few for the mess, a few for the tears and one or two in the vain hope that he'd finally made himself lactate and finally replaced his darling Megan with himself. He'd grown impatient. He had bed sores on his back, but hadn't actually been in bed for days, lying back in his recliner chair in lieu of a bed. Heh. After the comic he had a misconception to add to the Wikipedia article. Before closing his browser, he took another fond look at the window he had open. Megan's Google+ profile. Her parents will never know what he'd done. All those years that he'd been too afraid to approach her, opting instead to stare at her breasts with his x-ray vision. His beloved forumites were right; he was a superhero, and simply needed to discover his powers. It finally made sense, and the memories of him staring at Megan's cleavage and painfully imagining what was beneath were conveniently replaced. With the seamlessness of a typo or graphical continuity correction, on those occasions he, Lord Randall, deemed it worth his while attending to then refusing to acknowledge a mistake pointed out... he now only remembered the bare chest and his capabilities.
ReplyDeleteOnce he learned of her cancer, and after concluding that like all significant events in his life, he was the prime causal factor, he decided to put his science research skills to good use. The Wikipedia page was not promising, providing quite a bleak chance of survival over the next decade. He found no comfort in math, hadn't read anything about self-reference and so was not yet able to take refuge there. Romance, he finally determined, was where he would go. Surely Megan would ditch this disgusting 'Mike' guy, her fiancee according to the flawed, unscientific "mainstream" reality. She would come home to the home she never knew and quietly revise her definition of "happiness". Randall felt himself swell with pride, excitement and the smell of cheese as he recalled the time Mike oh so desperately needed help with his car and Randall, Lord of Science, found the correct Wikipedia article within the hour and saved the day with his solution.
He let a solution of his own linger as he revelled in his stench, so disgusting to the unenlightened - such a damned turn-on to Megan, and other brains. In his dreams, Godel was enamoured by the smell in spite of it being on the list of fetishes which, as a Math hipster, he was forced to forgo. A man after his own heart. The threeway between himself, Rob and Zombie Godel was only a matter of time. All he needed was "a comic that didn't suck" - slowly, but surely, he was developing and would someday please Rob, making his bosoms wobble in approval like the women of Jersey Shore, his creative flagship. His thoughts turned again to Mike and Megan.
Even if Megan were only willing to see the two of them have a Wikipedia fight (his duel of choice - both starting at a Random page and seeing who can first reach some prespecified page in the least number of "moves")... any day now he and Megan would be baring her festering, cancerous nipples at TGIF. Randall was eternally grateful to his forum for inspiring his conclusion of facts and analysis. He, Randall, had harnessed nature itself to fast-track his beloved's progress. According to his writings, proven in veracity by the confirmations of his loyal fans, the eventual acceptance of the "nice guy" and the shunning of the "assholes with real jobs that bathe" happens around middle age.
Cancer had brought them closer together far more quickly, and soon every fantasy he had chronicled in stick figure form would be lived out. After a few minutes of thought, he'd decided on his course of action. He would remove the link to the forum, rewarding all who bookmarked and alienating those not cool enough to do so. "I bookmark pages because sometimes it is not convenient to use the hyperlinks which exist on other pages GOOMHR". There was a thread on his forum listing the most annoying words people tend to say, and he had constructed a sentence comprised of these words. He'd even drawn Sandra - Megan's younger sister, still in high school but oh so precocious in her valiant rejection of mainstream culture - siding with the man every true nerd projects themselves onto. Hot. They'll love her when Megan is gone.
ReplyDeleteRandall reflected on his reflections once more. As the sole person besides Ayn Rand who understood Atlas Shrugged in his class at school, he alone knew how much of a burden meta-cognition was. He needed to determine how those pseudoscientific psychologists managed to read his thoughts and discover that he even had meta-cognition - with this ability, his GOOMH powers could only grow, and he would sell enough posters to move up to supermarket brand macaroni and cheese. At any rate, this comic would be late because the combination of his stream of consciousness, Wikipedia and internet sites which haven't disabled right click to prevent plagarism seemed to have taken the long route to supporting his creative genius. High on the immediate agenda was figuring how the techniques that these psychologists employed. After opening Chrome and while waiting for his home page to load, he passed the time by cracking his knuckles and whispering to himself "You've done it again, Randy!" As he nursed his bruised nipple, he pondered once more on the need for a post-Megan contingency plan. He recalled reading something about men lactating in Prisoner of War camps, opened a new tab searching "wikipedia prisoner of war delicious milk", then switched back to the Psychology article. Nothing yet on the mind control they'd employed.
Randall smirked. He'd dealt with this problem before. He wasn't aware of a serialised homeopathy publication, needed a strawman and was too afraid to seek one out. Those magazines are typically outside, where people are. He had a legion of devoted fans, devoted to he has he were to Megan (and soon Sandra), who would alter Wikipedia - and thus reality itself - if he wrote the right thing in his comic. All he needed was the perfect wording, which usually came quite quickly and without any deliberate thought. As he had changed the nature of homeopathy, he would soon bring the mind-reading powers of the dastardly Psychologist within his reach. Through the mysterious header stating "In Popular Culture", he'd since found he could directly interface with the universe and change reality at a whim.
That was his contingency. To be more precise, it was one of many. By finally breaking his silence on Megan's cancer, he hoped to make her case notable enough that she'd be within the scope of his powers. Mindreading and internet duelling 'Mike' were two other paths. If all else failed, he would starve himself as he did during the Swine Flu epidemic until his already sub-optimal testosterone levels were brought to negligible levels by his liver metabolising it for sustenance. He had many plans, but only one thing was certain.
He. WOULD. Taste. Delicious. Milk.
Science.
It WORKS, bitches!
Megan this, Megan that, ...
ReplyDeleteDo guys realize that way back in #420, Megan up and married someone else? Can't ANYONE get over her???
@12:29: Randall can't - he's too arrogant; Rob can't - he's too fat; we can't - we're just mirrors.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it's interesting to note that the "Megan"-to-non-"Megan" word ratio, or megignancy, of your post is over 1/7, making you more unable to get over her than anyone in this thread. Not even reading 12:02's fanfic in full and then searching for "Is lactation in men a myth?" would beat the megignancy of your post.
A buxom defeatist called Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteHad a once-in-a-lifetime epiphany:
If she plucked a string vest
Fitted close to her chest
She'd exude contrapunctal polyphony!
captcha: doweekee: get reverted; doweekee again: get reverted; doweekee again: 3RR; b&.
Male lactation is not a myth and is easily induced via a simple hormone cocktail. In this day and age there's no excuse for a father to not assist the mother in breastfeeding his child, frankly.
ReplyDeleteBack when women were women and children weren't FBI chair-warmers, there was a quaint kids' cartoon called The Family Ness. While anyone growing up in Britain in the 1980s will recall it fondly, they may not all remember the extended version of the closing tune, also available on vinyl. Youtube provides this as video 27oxkSYFFbg - consider it a lament on the suffering of animals (inc. humans) trapped in (poss. metaphorical) zoos and celebration of the contrasting carefree life of the free Nessie.
ReplyDeleteTo resurrect this wonderful and underrated example of early '80s merchandising, I thought I might tweak the lyrics slightly in celebration of everyone's least favourite comic.
---
People trip and fall and hurt their balls
And tread in poo.
Walk into walls, poke fun at Gauls
And blame it on the Jew.
Men who stand on wooden legs
The chainsaw is unfurled
Yes, there's an awful lot of humour
In the world.
chorus:
You can knock him,
You can mock him,
You can take out all the graphs.
But you'll never find that Randall makes you laugh.
You may see some genitalia,
Or a nerdy social gaffe.
But you'll never find that Randall makes you laugh.
While Groening writes,
McFarlane bites,
Scott Adams sells a few.
Trey Parker drinks and Matt Stone blinks -
2.3 million view.
Satirists look you in the eye
And see you as a stew.
At feeding time they'd make
A hearty meal of you.
chorus:
You can knock him,
You can mock him,
You can take out all the graphs.
But you'll never find that Randall makes you laugh.
You may dress up as a furry,
Try to mount a crippled calf.
But you'll never find that Randall makes you laugh.
Politician-kings
And office-things
Stay out of view.
Rich financiers don't bat an eye
'cos they're not laughing too.
Tramps in the street
Can't make ends meet
Their dreams will not come true.
'cos there's not a lot to laugh at
Made by you.
reprise
The Final Prophet Of god said:
ReplyDelete".....While anyone growing up in Britain in the 1980s will recall it fondly,....."
Rather presumptuous of you. I'm still waiting for Cunty Ness to make an appearence.
altf: there's been a lot of creativity in this thread. None of it involved using the word "cunt". You might want to think about that next time you post.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite interesting what passes for 'creativity' 'round here.
ReplyDeleteI used the word 'Cunty', not 'cunt'
Besides, 'Cunty Ness' is rather clever, though probably not very creative.
ReplyDeleteThat is a pretty good description of me.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed!
ReplyDeleteInnit?
If all the world's wonders were pearls, you know what you'd be, ALTF?
ReplyDeleteYes
ReplyDeleteUSA 3 - 0 Colombia
ReplyDeleteAt 70 minutes
re: 919 no, ALTF's name happens to be Megan. Also, she's got long straight black hair and is really fond of people who studied physics and do webcomics. If anyone on Randall's forums is his true friend they ought to help him out by pointing that out.
ReplyDeleteWhat about true friends on the forums who are female? Do they have to abide?
ReplyDeleteMy name is actually unpronounceable in English. And people who studied physics and/or compose webcomics are cunts!
USA 3 - 0 Colombia
Final!
Also, Megan's "noes" are really "yeses" crying to get out past social convention. Randall's whole life is like a big Victorian novel.
ReplyDeleteHis whole life, to date, reads more like a 20th Century stream of consciousness narrative mode novel rather than a Victorian work.
ReplyDeleteInnit?
The scariest part about the story from Anon 12:01 and 12:02?
ReplyDeleteIt's basically canon.
Dear new abridged compendium of forced lactation methods @ 2:05 AM:
ReplyDeleteFar be it for me to correct an unlettered moron's spelling, but 'contrapuntal' is the real word.
And your metrical cadence is fucked too!
You have a 10:11:6:6:11 syllabic cadence. The first line needs one more syllable!
I suggest:
"A buxomy defeatist called Tiffany"
Then again, what the fuck do I know.
look out for my sperm
ReplyDelete@1:49: Die Kunst der Fuge well highlights the etymology and I'm not about to drop letters like some American Neanderthal. But what does Bach know?
ReplyDeleteAs for your ability to count syllables (well done!), please consider "Had" and "She'd" starting the second and fifth lines respectively as anacruses.
Now, tell us, what the fuck do you know? Amuse us with something creative and give us the opportunity to change our opinions of you.
A true poet will not strictly cleave to a consistent syllable count if deviating from it improves the rhythm. Not all languages even think in terms of syllables. 2:05 is a genius who clearly knows exactly what he's doing.
ReplyDeleteThere once was a comic, Munroe,
ReplyDeleteWhose thoughts were of mammary flow.
Being Heathen, God's answer
Was to give his girl cancer -
Now the milk ducts have nowhere to go.
Re: 918 — It's been a LONG time since I agreed with an XKCD comic. A Facebook that's not actually Facebook FTW.
ReplyDeleteRe: 919 — What? What? Ewww… what?!?!?
Captcha: alitte — a very small latté.
The problem with 918 is that it's just repeating what everyone already thought about Google+.
ReplyDeletethat's not the problem with it, its precisely what's good about it
ReplyDeleteThis comic was pretty ok, if insubstantial. Succinct, topical and sparing with the dialogue.
ReplyDeleteI guess that's why nobody really cares or wants to talk about it.