1017. Randy thinks that imagining something he thinks is cool is an extreme sport! He also wants us to think that he imagines something he thinks is cool while he's waiting for something. This is pretty sad.
1018. lolrandumb is not funny, Randy.
1019. Whenever Randy gets political he always does it in a really dumb way, and he gives everyone with left-leaning politics a bad name. This one has the traditional old Randy smugness--"it's totally dumb to buy advertising that everyone who views a site will see when you can just hire people to shill for you on a section of the website that most people don't read unless they want to argue with people"--where he thinks he's smarter than, you know, people who actually know what they're talking about, by drawing a completely unrealistic comparison between two things that are completely unrelated.
See, the point of political advertising on websites (or most advertising, really) is not to win people over to your side. It's about name and brand recognition. Whereas the point of hiring someone to shill for you on the internet is to sway opinions about something people are already aware of. The comment sections of news articles aren't particularly good for this since discussion doesn't actually happen there. You want to go to active forums and things, build rapport, enter a community, and subvert from within. This was my plan with joining the xkcd sucks community, for instance. In a few weeks I'll write a post about how much I love xkcd and instantly all the haters will revert to drooling fanboys, and Randy and I will high-five while he slips me a ten dollar bill for a job well done.
Totally worth it.
It seems likely that Randy may be instead (additionally?) suggesting that many or most political comments online are in fact astroturf comments as described in the comic. This has always been one of the dumbest features of online communities--the accusations that people who disagree with them are just shills--and I'd say I'm disappointed in Randy for encouraging such behavior but let's be honest. It's impossible for me to be any more disappointed in Randy than I have been for the last, oh, thirty-four years.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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I'd say it sounds like you were paid to say that, but the joke is too obvious so I'll try to get away with mentioning how obvious the joke would be as if that were somehow better.
ReplyDeleteRob, are you gay? I kinda fancy meeting up for a dominant fuck with someone literate but passive.
ReplyDeleteRob hurts people
Delete:(
Randall's just shilling for formats in which the most recent comments are at the top of the list.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Ron Paul for president!
ron paul rEVOLution 2012 buy gold end the fed
ReplyDeleteHas anyone done any research into a correlation between Asperger syndrome and Libertarianism?
ReplyDelete(I know the former isn't technically meaningful any more but neither is the latter by senior year amirite?)
Before some knuckle dragging shithead cuddlefish comes along and points out what Dadaism means and therefore 1018 is hilarious Randy is the greatest thing to grace webcomics: The Dadaist articstic movement was defined by an abstract and avant-garde approach to creative mediums, including written word. As in, there is a creative force behind it and not, as noted in today's post, LOL SO RANDDUMB.
ReplyDeleteOf course, assuming you could interpret WHY ARE MY BONES SO SMALL ECKS DEE as Dadaist, that still begs the question of where the fuck is the punchline, and why is Randy still pandering to faux-nerd ghouls who claim to know what Dadaism is because they listened to some Skinny Puppy once.
Oh and Rob is a fat fuck, yadda yadda yadda.
Are you really that bad at understanding comics? xkcd isn't exactly complicated.
Deleteknuckle dragging shithead cuddlefish ^
DeleteNo, it does not beg the question. lrn2englsh
Delete10:51/10:47. I love this guy. Being right about this is a major point of honour for him. I'm so tempted to contest his conception of what constitutes creative force and performance, and query what evidence he has from this little fictional vignette that the fictional cop's performance isn't part of a considered aesthetic (his claim that it's because there would be no punchline is pretty unconvincing), but why bother? He's not as interested in discussion as he is in being crowned correct. He probably has an undergraduate introductory course in art history to justify or something.
DeleteI'm referring to him indirectly because I think it might rile him a little bit, but I'm also writing this in an attempt to stem further trolling attempts. Because I love you, 10:51/10:47. I want you for myself.
I find that it's a thoughtful analysis of dadaism. As stated, dadaism focuses on an abstract, avant-garde approach to creative mediums. Since a webcomic is a creative medium (xkcd often focusing on commentary about pop culture and other media). So really, this isn't about cops. It's about dadaism and how there's often no single meaning which can be assumed that most participants understand. The meaning taken is often very different between observers.
DeleteIf we're truly going to hold this up to a lens of dadaist judgment, then here's what i think: dadaism is often used to poke fun at super serious people and goad them into making fools of themselves by taking things too literally. So really, the punchline is your butthurt "i don't get it" which you try to disguise as serious criticism of the strip.
Or, perhaps everybody's reading way way too much into it. Just read and enjoy if you want, or find something you actually do enjoy.
"It's impossible for me to be any more disappointed in Randy than I have been for the last, oh, thirty-four years."
ReplyDeleteCould this be Rob revealing his true age?
rob is randall's father
DeleteI thought he was his mother, but same principle.
DeleteRob is Randy's younger brother, always in the shade
DeleteViews of the Wikipedia article on Dada grew more than 16 times over the day that 1018 was published.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine that having to look up what the comic was referring to made it any funnier. I know that it didn't for me.
I knew what it was referring to, but gleefully ran to Wikipedia to help me decide how exactly to accuse Randall of getting it wrong.
DeleteI looked up Dada after 1018 because even though I knew Randall HAD to be misinterpreting it, a faded memory from an Art History class I slept through didn't seem like enough evidence for my sense of smug superiority. Fortunately, thirty seconds of Wikipedia research did the trick.
DeleteYeah. I looked it up too. I knew what it was, but it's one of those things you read or hear about pretty rarely unless you're an art history student (which I'm not), and I didn't want to get all critical of Randy until I confirmed that it was his understanding of it that was wrong, and not mine.
DeleteThe weird thing is, I think he picked it because it was obscure. Surrealism is much more widely known (it seems that way to me anyway) than Dada, and it's actually much more appropriate because it isn't tied to the anti-war movement, to which his comic was totally unconnected. I think he chose Dada because most of his readership wouldn't know anything about it, and that makes him feel clever. It only backfired because he didn't know much about it himself.
I swim in the fountain. I have necklaces of goldfish.
ReplyDeleteThis is Rob posting under an anonymous because it's more interesting to make the more idiotic among the readers of xkcdsucks wonder whether this is real, than to post using my actual account and have all the cuddlefish lurkers spam "we knew it all along."
ReplyDeleteI meant what I said about really loving xkcd. I am the greatest genius who ever lived, and therefore the greatest troll. Disregard my last paragraph in the blog post... the first clue that that's a red herring is that my blog post is longer than usual - I actually worked on this entry instead of spewing the first sentence that came to mind about four comics on one post.
You are all fools for believing me. xkcd is a paragon of satire and wit, making Randall's brainchild the superior of Achewood and Dinosaur Comics combined. GOOMH, Randall, you towering milky literary colossus, you god among men, you father of my baby.
Rob, seriously, not cool.
Deleteno i am not
DeleteA real troll wouldn't have to point out to everyone the fact that he's trolling, you big fake.
Deletehe's totally not a fake! all the obvious inaccuracies--the proper use of capitals, the listing of Dinosaur Comics and Achewood as my favorite comics when I don't read Achewood and Dinosaur Comics is enjoyable but far from my favorite comic ever, the punctuation (my ellipses are generally '. . .' or '. . . .' if it's at the end of a sentence and my dashes are always '--' with no space on either side), etc--are there to make people more likely to not believe it's actually me, but it definitely is.
DeleteYou're totally lying, because I wrote it! Mwahaha!
DeleteMission accomplished.
DeleteAll hail the man-god Randall, who is at the end infallible in every regard!
ReplyDeleteAll haiYOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SLEEP TONIGHT
Deletechris houlihan's room
ReplyDeleteSo, this Orion comic is pretty funny, but goddamn if it doesn't suffer from post-punchline dialogue.
ReplyDeleteLook, I fixed it: http://oi41.tinypic.com/2agu9li.jpg
DeleteSeriously. Nobody mentioned that the inverse formula in 1017 is COMPLETELY wrong?!
ReplyDeleteMainly because it is completely correct.
DeleteOh no wait. It should be cube root, not square root.
DeleteTHE HORROR
Didn't Randy do a comic once about penis jokes being dumb/overused/immature?
ReplyDeletesince randall is all three of those things, how is that not consistent ?
DeleteWasn't that 6:18's point? People on the Internet are needlessly adversarial. I think everyone can agree that Randy is dumb, overused and immature.
DeleteThe imaginary girlfriend Randall gave cancer to as part of his internal battle with his lactophilia HAS CANCER. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, 6:18.
ReplyDeleteClearly the ancients who laid out the constellations were just as prudish as contemporary Americans and had to avoid acknowledging the embarrassing fact of Orion's weenie. It's well known that the Greeks viewed the naked male form with horror and loathing. Thank god Randy is brave enough to speak the truth; true maturity demands that we deal with the harsh and unpleasant reality of Orion's peepee (although we shouldn't go so far as to use any but the most childish of slang terms to talk about it). The lie of the sword must be defeated.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion%27s_Sword
Clearly the ancienYOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SLEEP TONIGHT
Deletexkcd is the webcomic of choice for the sophisticated lover of "that's what she said" and "your mom" jokes
ReplyDeleteyou mean like your mom ?
DeleteThe latest comic had potential, but Randy fucked up the execution. Here's a fixed version, a taste of what could have been: http://tinyurl.com/lbbgza
ReplyDelete"Preview of TinyURL.com/lbbgza
DeleteThis TinyURL redirects to:
http://goatse.info/hello.jpg"
You... Really?
It DOES make quite a decent goatkcd though.
DeleteAh, sweet memories of a simpler time. When xkcd didn't exist, and the comics our friends were spamming us with were nothing worse than User Friendly and Sluggy Freelance.
DeleteMaybe I'm weird, but the thing that bugged me the most about yesterday's comic is the text on the second panel. Have I become truly that biased, or is Randall completely incapable of forming sentences that are not horribly ugly?
ReplyDeleteAnd the guy in panel two has three arms.
That's a dong, not an arm.
DeleteWhat... again with the superfluous limbs? I think this is indicative of something. xkcd is not a comic, but an art project of unfathomable size. Randy is creating a comic which is polarizing in its poor writing and poor jokes, in its nerdy pandering, until xkcd has entered all of the public conscious... and then... it CHANGES. It grows, unnaturally, skin splitting and horrible new limbs emerging, faces shifting and melting, the stench of miasma filling the air. xkcd becomes a collection of sketches of increasingly terrifying, mind-boggling eldritch abominations, quickly evolving from Randy's current hack art style to savant-like art which would've been beautiful had it not been so horrifying, and which we pray in vain had not been so super-realistic. In the end, the half of Earth's population on xkcdsucks' side blow their brains out in the tub, and Randy is elected World President by the remaining half, and retires to his island paradise with fifteen Megan clones and a lifetime supply of breast milk to create his Magnum Opus, a 15,000-page graphic novel epic about Etymology Man.
DeleteI call troll on every single one of you. XKCD rules.
ReplyDeleteNo
DeleteYes
DeleteAm i the only one thinking his advertising number in 1019 is way to low? Would i cost nothing more than $1.5 million to get an ad on EVERY story for more than half a year? Randall, you suck.
ReplyDeleteThat's internet advertising, so I don't think it's too low. Internet advertising is fairly low impact vs television and radio so it is cheap to compensate.
ReplyDeleteI know this echoes on deaf ears, but this blog post was pretty disappointing. I can't say "[i]t's impossible for me to be any more disappointed in" Rob cause I don't read the blog regularly. The review of 1018 for example says nothing. I can't tell if you liked (and are just afraid to say it because it wasn't actually a masterpiece but you can't point out any specific bad parts either maybe because you didn't quite understand the strip [I recommend using Google next time]) or didn't like the comic.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but honestly, I don't expect Rob to review every comic in-depth. He'd go bah-zerk.
Deleteor maybe i just couldn't be bothered to write more than five words about it?
DeleteYeah Rob the less angry invective you write the less you understand the strip.
DeleteAnyone who really understood xkcd would demonstrate more seething hatred.
Why do you even have a blog devoted to bashing xkcd if you can't be bothered to do so in more than 5 words?
DeleteYeah Rob do you realise how much space you're wasting? Someone else could have used this blog but you fritter it away on pithy 5-word critiques of a silly and harmless comic.
DeleteWhy do you hate Mother Earth?
Come on, in this post Rob wrote the first legitimately amusing thing he's written for at least a year, possibly multiple years. I don't know, I'm not going to go back and read over each individual post to make sure. You're just biased against Rob so you automatically don't like anything he writes.
DeletelolranDUMB!!! Hahaha! Get it guys? Because it's like lolrandom, a word I made up, but I put the word dumb at the end instead of -dom. HAHAHA!!! Do you get it? If you don't get it, ask me, because I can explain it for you.
ReplyDeleteThat's been around for years now.
DeleteI get i...wait...no, now I'm not sure if....wait a minute, I think I...no, no....yes?....no. I guess I'm going to have to ask you to explain it.
ReplyDeleteGive me a minute first though, right now I'm reading Wikipedia to find out what dada is. It must be pretty obscure since we never went over it in any of my physics classes.
No comments on 1021 yet?
ReplyDeleteI think I like it. It looks and reads like an early (sub-200) xkcd, it's not a joke I've seen before and it's amusing enough.
I wonder if Randall dug it up from 2007 and only just got around to scanning it.
I thought 1021 was pretty alright too, though I've seen the joke done better as a photo of a "bum for sale" sign next to a homeless guy who fell asleep in front of his hat.
ReplyDeleteThe alt-text was terrible too, but most comics with alt-text do them terribly. Most comics shouldn't do it, and they probably just want to because they think they can do it as well as Dinosaur Comics. They can't.
Interestingly, at the xkcd forum the first few comments about this comic said they didn't like it.
why do you have to pick the comic apart? i read it, i laughed, i moved on. that's what you're supposed to do with jokes. this whole blog is kind of freaking me out it's so negative. i think i'm going to go outside.
ReplyDeletethank you for validating our existence
Deletei feel like even if i didn't like xkcd, i would still hate you.
Deletethat's great! hold on to that hatred, it's what we're here for
DeleteAnd i would still love you. Thanks for everything, Rob. :)
DeleteMoff's Law
DeleteI normally shit over even the strips people here like, but yeah, 1021 is all right. The pencil is warmer too. I wonder if it's some old sketch he found.
ReplyDeleteThe alt text meant nothing to me and I didn't even care.
Well played, Randy, well played.
At first I thought this blog was some sort of crude attempt at satire. Now I realize it's just some guy trying to draw out angry reactions.
ReplyDeleteYou seem like the kind of guy who tries to justify his meaningless existence by attacking a very nice webcomic. For example, your criticism of number 1019 was completely unwarranted--in no way is Randall implying that he knows more about campaigning than the politicians himself. He is simply pointing out how easily the average american news-reader can be swayed by what appears to be "peer consensus" on the Internet. Your distortion of the idea in 1018 was pretty unwarranted too. I personally think it's an interesting, but not great, idea to pass time. In no way has anyone suggested that going through history is an "extreme sport."
XKCD might not be the best webcomic, or even particularly good. I don't understand, though, why you find it necessary to validate your existence by shitting over every small detail in every little comic. It seems to me more like your fans are caught up in a faux-anti-faux-nerd culture and have been utterly consumed by hatred for a webcomic they haven't actually bothered to think about at all; you're barfing opinions and hate directly into their bodies.
A perfect example of this was this comment: "Am i the only one thinking his advertising number in 1019 is way to low? Would i cost nothing more than $1.5 million to get an ad on EVERY story for more than half a year? Randall, you suck." What the actual fuck? You go from the premise that it would cost more than 1.5 million for a certain number of ads to the conclusion that XKCD sucks. The train of thought I'm seeing here is *Our God Rob says XKCD is bad* --> *A Meaningless, Irrelevant Part of the comic may be incorrect* --> *XKCD is a terrible comic*. Not implying that you're trying to be a faux-anti-faux-nerd, but you seem to have led dozens of people to this point.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this video just about sums up you and your website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0msQb5SiPSI
you are dumber than you look if you think anyone gives a fuck what I have to say here
DeleteCouple more examples of this, in that case:
Delete"I don't believe Randall even has a girlfriendFeb 22, 2012 06:21 AM
The imaginary girlfriend Randall gave cancer to as part of his internal battle with his lactophilia HAS CANCER. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, 6:18." This sounds to me like a guy trying to get in on the anti-faux-nerd culture you've created here.
"Anyone who really understood xkcd would demonstrate more seething hatred." Again, seems like a stubborn guy who can't accept that there might be more than one point of view on something. He's been utterly consumed by the hatred in this unforgiving mob of people.
This probably started as a very reasonable attempt to show why many people's worship of XKCD is unjustified. And I agree with you that this "faux-nerd" culture is getting to be pretty sad. But it seems as though your own readers "are too caught up in the [faux-anti-]faux-nerd culture that xkcd [sucks] is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible [terrible seems too extreme for both xkcd and your blog but ohwell]."
interestingly enough i just wrote about the exact type of stupid that you are demonstrating right now the other day! currently you're on the 'not getting the point' stage. let me know if you ever figure it out!
DeleteI care what you have to say, Rob. You are Bosie, I am Wilde, and the buccal action accompanying your delicate enunciation really makes the difference when I transgress your mouth with my cock.
DeleteFaux off, 09:10.
DeleteCan you at least respond to any of the points brought up here?
ReplyDeletewell yeah i mean i COULD
Deletebut why would i want to? what's my motivation?
Maybe I'm the first person here to say it but I find motivation really boring. I have started doing hundreds of things of various lengths and probably finished a dozen throughout my life, not including schoolwork.
DeleteI find it hard to start doing something without immediately engaging a mindset of, "Here's a task that some guy has assigned me to make money and/or consolidate power. What sense of duty is he creating to enable this?" And that's how my whole doing experience goes. Effort makes no point well which can't be better made with reference to idleness. It takes me nowhere without giving me the uncomfortable sense that someone thinks this is where I am supposed to need to be in order to see something false or escape something true. Endeavor idealises; it romanticises; it preaches. It falls asleep and it dreams. It is a selfish journey away from the truth.
The world already has enough that is beautiful and that is abhorrent - and passivity is far more challenging to confront. Input has always seemed like the easy way out.
Good point, you got me there :P
ReplyDeleteI guess different people have different opinions and you're entitled to yours. Looking through your blog here it seems like you have many valid (and many invalid) points. And all arguing on the internet does is make people more firmly rooted in their own beliefs (though I do have to agree that I and many other XKCD fans have a lot of bias towards the comic, making it harder for us to recognize a bad comic--I try to be open-minded though and recognize when a comic is sometimes just not funny).
opinions are like assholes:
ReplyDeletewhat i'm saying is, rob is an opinion
chris houlihan's room
ReplyDeleteAnon@9:10, you keep angrily quoting my posts. Do you have a thing for me?
ReplyDeleteWait, do people still thing this site has a POINT?
ReplyDeleteI was fairly certain the point of this site was to keep Rob away from the goddamn food for a couple minutes a day.
Delete:(((((
DeleteMy name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, okay?
ReplyDeleteI know for a fact that 1021 isn't funny, so can someone explain to me what is *is*? I get the feeling that Randall thinks it's funny and I might too if I was really young (it's on par with the sort of jokes I made up in elementary school), but I still didn't hate it and I don't know why. Maybe it's because he actually drew something?
ReplyDeleteReasons not to hate it:
Delete- Recurring character operating to form, fiendishly but harmlessly manipulating others;
- Manipulating gulls, even;
- As you say, "actually drew something";
- Reasonably paced build-up to a complete final scene;
- No hipster smart-assery;
- No PPD;
- No pandering;
- Not expected - some people may have seen a similar joke but clearly not everyone has;
- Planned rather than random absurdity;
- Finally, although I'm sure someone will have a seizure because I suggest it, this does have a (probably unintentional) interpretation as anti-bourgeois dada, the free birds tempted to make themselves into a product.
It's not ha-ha funny, but it's a sweet set-up neatly presented. Maybe your "elementary school" jokes were as funny and as well executed - present them to this critical audience if you wish.
Great post. Thick. Solid. Tight. Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new posts. Wanna see how freakin’ huge, solid, thick and tight your posts can get. Thanks for the motivation.
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPfxMIhEUrQ
Delete5:23 is my favourite post so far. I enjoy the tone it managed to capture. I feel like I want to spoil its value by continuously imitating it.
ReplyDeletejesus doesn't want me for a sunbeam
ReplyDelete1022...on the one hand, I laughed. On the other hand, I'm probably going to see it referenced so many times it stops being funny, which is really a pity.
ReplyDeleteSo.
DeleteIt has come to this.
1022 is fine. Two comics I haven't disliked in a row. Randy going for some sort of record here? On the other hand maybe he's just scanning old material or this is just a temporary fluke, possibly caused by the cancer spreading to his brain. Can cancer spread through breast milk?
ReplyDeleteApproved of 1021, don't approve of 1022. It didn't amuse me, it just makes me conscious that I must never, ever, use that phrase for fear of the xkcd zombies coming out of the woodwork.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a mixed metaphor at all. Zombies love to hide in woodwork. You should know that
So.
DeleteIt has come to this.
honi so it qui mal y pense.
DeleteWouldn't it have been better without the text at the bottem? I didn't really need to be told using a vague dramatic statment for an everyday occurances is humour.
ReplyDeleteno, it wouldn't. what the fuck is wrong with you?
DeleteI humbly submit a truly awful and predictable alternative.
ReplyDelete1022: Who in the world would be "not sure what to say" when told they'd run out of cat food?
ReplyDeleteyour mom
Delete6:31, I'm afraid I have a penis so you'll have to enlighten me - what do women do when the house is out of food?
DeleteAlthough I'd change the locks when this one left the house. That looks like dry cat food.
Sooner or later you won't be able to rely on your mum to feed you anymore.
DeleteAnon 11:27 -- 1
DeleteAnon 6:56 -- 0
11:27, you're like some guy watching Jeopardy shouting I GET IT NOW THEY HAVE TO ANSWER IN THE FORM OF A QUESTION. And 11:31, you're a dirty retard enabler.
DeleteI am srsly ticked off by the use of protip re: making conversation by someone who thinks social conduct is meaningless. I am probably reading too much into something just there for the cuddlefishies to fawn over, but what's an anon to do with Rob stuck somewhere between the fridge and the freezer.
ReplyDelete