[Comic title: MTV Generation; alt text: If you identified with the kids from The Breakfast Club when it came out, you're now much closer to the age of Principal Vernon.]
Oh look, it's white hat guy! Hello white hat guy! Does anyone remember white hat guy? He first appeared in this comic, and has since appeared in three others. His character has no consistency whatsoever! Even less so than black hat guy or beret man.
So apparently in this one, White Hat Guy is a crotchety old person. Or it seems that way. Randy is once again pointing out to us that time continues to pass even during the years you spend zoned out on the internet. Yes, the MTV generation is in their forties, blah blah, people get old. The conclusion of the comic doesn't seem to make much more sense than White Hat's initial premise.
"No, it's this NEW generation of kids who are spastic idiots!" Randy cries. So I guess Randall is really the crotchety old man here. This joke is tired and overused, and randall's delivery, as usual, lacks any and all creativity.
Ooh! But look at the use of perspective in the first panel! The tweenster is faded out, so you can distinguish him from a hovering midget! Or maybe they're in the future and that's a hologram, I don't know.
Also, I'd like to point out that the alt text is yet another chance for Randy to point out how dated movies and shows he liked when he was a kid are. He does this again and again and again. Face it Randy, you're getting old.
I didn't see this as another of Randall's "I'm an ancient twentysomething, OMG can you believe I'm not a child anymore" strips. He wasn't in the MTV generation and nothing in here really references anything in his childhood.
ReplyDeleteMostly the comic is about Randall believing something about our culture that is just wrong. Nobody calls today's teenagers the MTV generation. People born after the 70s are all too young for the description and everyone knows it. I have no clue where Randall could possibly have heard anyone call today's youth the MTV generation, and I'm kind of afraid that he didn't actually hear it anywhere.
I think this is just a retarded strawman, not rooted in reality, that was only constructed to set up an awful joke. This is one of the worst XKCD's ever.
the alt text made it seem more like a "omg i'm old" joke than the comic itself did, I thought
ReplyDeleteRandall's only like, what, 26-27? Breakfast Club's from 1985. Even with alt text I don't see it as an "I'm old" strip. His point is basically "you guys in your 40s are old now". It's weird. At face value it's less stupid than him feeling old, but the fact that he feels the need to tell people who were teenagers in 1985 that they're no longer teenagers is perhaps the dumbest compulsion he's ever had. Not only do they know they're adults, they adjusted to the fact over a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteThis review needs more jokes about milk.
ReplyDeleteMy milk needs more jokes about xkcd.
ReplyDeleteIs the background-guy's vest beeping in the first panel?
ReplyDeleteSOME GIZMO
ReplyDeleteThe moral of this comic is that if you have a cell phone, you're a shitty person.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody actually CALL the Millennium Generation the "MTV" Generation anymore?
ReplyDeleteReally, the entire subject matter is bunk. The best way to improve this comic is to just delete it and move on. Actually, in spirit of this, I'm going to prevent we didn't have the most recent update.
"Does anybody actually CALL the Millennium Generation the "MTV" Generation anymore?"
ReplyDeleteno.
I'm 20 and i've never heard of the MTV generation... was this an american thing?
ReplyDelete@ 12:57
ReplyDeleteIt's a countries with MTV thing I guess.
But really I'm a 23 year old American and have heard the phrase maybe once or twice in my life. If it was ever common, it hasn't been in a long time.
By the way, one you guys go visit the XKCD forums and report back with what they're saying. I do it myself, but I don't feel like it.
i agree with you all 100 %
ReplyDeleteAnon 1:29, ask and you shall recieve.
ReplyDeleteAbout half of the people on this thread are arguing that MTV never showed music videos (yawn). And several other people are like 'ZOMG, who's White Hat Guy?'. This one was quick to suggest that it's an alternate persona of Black Hat Guy, partly because 'Black Hat Guy is teh awsum; lol!' - and partly because sad fools try to create continuity and characterisation in xkcd when clearly there is none.
Then a few people were like 'ZOMG, we feel old because of The Breakfast Club being like 25 years ago; man!'
Luckily we had Fernie's post, so the thread wasn't a complete fail.
This is just... what?
Then on page 3 we have a five-layer quote pyramid. Nice.
I don't see how you managed to get ' "No, it's this NEW generation of kids who are spastic idiots!" Randy cries.'
ReplyDeleteHe was just saying Mr. White Hat Guy hasn't got a problem with the MTV Generation, but with their kids. Or am I taking it to literally? Am I supposed to try and find the super-secret hidden meaning in every sentence?
I went out to the local chess society today and every single member was a jew. A kike. A sheeny.
ReplyDeleteHere Rabbi Cohen was matching wits with Mayor Levi; there Manager Goldstein performed a gambit on Alderman Meyer; everywhere the Jew darkened the air with his desert tongue and harsh Hebraic syllables, discussing and plotting the darkest crimes of mice and men over the checkered sets.
It was a repulsive festering mass of Judaity and I could hardly race myself to get out. Lest they attempt to charge me by the minute for my very presence there, an Aryan presence that stuck up like a sore thumb among the hook-nosed Hebes and their designs.
May I never come into their presence again. For it is not deigned of man to dig too deep into the secrets of the world, or discover the putrefying, creeping truths that underlie reality.
cool story bro
ReplyDeleteThe only time I've ever heard the term "MTV generation" is in that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa goes "we're the MTV generation, we feel neither highs nor lows" and Homer goes "what's it like" and she responds with "meh."
ReplyDeleteI can't remember which episode it was, but it was a pretty funny moment so it must have been during The Simpsons' Good Period.
@Anon732: At about 11:20. I actually miss episodes like this.
ReplyDeleteCaptcha: cater. Caters gonna cate.
I remember the "MTV generation", it was a pretty dumb label considering the majority of that generation neither had cable nor watched MTV... A scapegoat by any other name would scape as goatly.
ReplyDeletebut not the best scapegoatkcd.
ReplyDeleteAnon 6:36, clearly this comic is about terrorism.
ReplyDeleteAnon 6:43, Megan has always been Randall's way to voice the opinions he doesn't want to believe in, but secretly does. She's always the one who's "right", which probably reflects on his actual relationships.
And rob, I'm mostly saying this is an age comic because of the alt text, but I guess it's not really since it's not his age group at all. It's sortof like he's making the observation that time passes.
But what about airline food!?
EPIC FAIL
ReplyDeleteI enjoy (mostly) reading XKCD, but he really needs to change the tagline to "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and oh fuck am I ever getting old."
ReplyDelete