Comic 876: Randall Tries To Reference Liberal Arts Concepts (And Fails)

[The two thousand and fourth gamer ever to live sent me this, a guest review for 876. -Ed.]

Hi, Gamer_2k4 here. Normally I'm content to simply comment on bad xkcds, but I felt that this one deserved its own post. Since it's clear that this comic is simply just a failed attempt to write a setup to a bad punchline, let's start by examining the "joke" and go from there.

First of all, it's clear that Randall doesn't understand the Allegory of the Cave, or, if he does, he assumes that we don't. Plato's Cave is about how true reality is unwelcome at first, but once you understand it, you see how foolish your earlier delusions were. It's NOT about the nature of existence and the mind's relationship to the outside world. The notion of a "search and rescue" team is redundant, since that's the whole point of the allegory (bringing people into the light).

On that note, the alt-text is downright retarded. The issue was never getting the people out of the cave. That's a foregone conclusion. Even if you tranquilize them, experiencing the light is still going to be unpleasant once they wake up. Any removal from the cave is going to be unwelcome, and tranquilizers won't change that.

And look! I haven't even gotten to the rest of the comic! It's taken two full paragraphs to properly trash the idiotic idea that Randall tried to form a trainwreck of a comic around. The major point of failure is the operator herself. Her dialogue is unnaturally constructed purely to move the comic along. There's no way she could discern the guy's incoherent babbling that quickly, and the fact that she does proves that the setup is poorly thought out and just awful in general.

Then there's the caller. In just four short panels, he goes from not being able to see or comprehend the outside world (a feat strangely at odds with his ability to call and communicate with other people) to simply being unsure that it represents a reality and not a simulation. This seems odd for someone who's self-aware to the point that not only does he recognize he's a brain, but he also knows that even that is simply an organ in a larger body.

There is not a single redeeming quality in this comic. The characters, the dialogue, the supposed punchline, and the alt-text are all downright awful. I get the feeling that Randall, in a rare trip to a "soft science" like philosophy, got a half-formed idea for a "joke" but just couldn't pull a comic together around it. You know, for all the flak he gives the liberal arts, Randall sure tries to use and reference them a lot. Perhaps if he bothered to study them, his comic wouldn't be such a constant pile of garbage.

Comic 875: Self-Awareness Is Not His Strong Point

[Satanic hell-bird "Ravenzomg" has sent me this review. Maybe it's good. -Ed.]

Title: 2009 Called./// Tooltip: 2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams.

Hello everyone, this is Ravenzomg of Ravenzomg fame.

Now this comic is made by Randall Munroe which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I actually read it, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that I was in fact still in this reality, and not in some Randall Munroe fanfic fantasy again, I looked around to make sure that no one would be upset by my raucous laughter. Satisfied that I was indeed in isolation, I let my laughter erupt like a volcanic explosion, threatening the shoddy construction jobs of my bookcases, bookshelves, and bookholes. So awesome was this comic, I decided I simply had to print it out and put it on a shirt this instant! And so, after recovering from the laughter, I did just that with the assistance of an iron (which I call "Randall") and my printer (which is called "Randall") and a white shirt (which I call "Randall").


I proceeded to dare the sunlight (after recovering from the second round of laughter originating from a glimpse of the comic, now on the shirt), understanding that I had to share this joy with more people than the internet could reach. So walking outside, I ran into a girl with glasses on, and our eyes happened to meet. The woman (for she certainly was not just a girl) looked at my shirt and knew from the stick-figures on my shirt that I, like the stick-figures, must be a witty, intelligent romantic who knows how to 'Have a good time' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be her soul-mate and/or give them money for something they called "septuple integration". I told them no, because they didn't have near enough acne, and frankly someone with an XKCD shirt shouldn't settle for the first thing that comes forward.

I arrived at the comic book store, and instantly darted straight for the D&D section (The trading card geeks are such drags!) purposely standing away from those divine books of wisdom so that my stick-figures would show. While I was browsing through used dice (they were all D12s), I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants standing there. The geek told me that XKCD was the greatest and how I was, by association of my shirt, also the greatest (but less so than Randall, I corrected), and I was told that the geek wanted to "stick" my "figure". I was offered a swig of mountain dew, and I shuffled with the geek waddling alongside out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you XKCD.

Pros: Features witty retorts and cultural references barely seen in today's modern age.
Cons: My shirt will no longer be timely as of Wednesday the 23rd, as it will be supplanted by another diamond of hilarity.
Randall Munroe is too hilarious -- my shirt may cause someone to suffocate with laughter.
My shirt makes me sexually attractive to all humans -- too many options.

In conclusion, pretty sure we were all waiting for this. Mmmm yeah....

-Ravenzomg!

Comics 873 and 874: A Journey Into The Past

873. As is Randy's wont, he was enjoying some of the fine art of "video games" one fine evening, "fragging" the various "avatars" of his opponents. He did not feel that he was particularly good at it, but his opponents kept calling him a "nub" whenever he killed them, which he assumed was a good thing. But the mind of a genius can never turn off, and neither can the mind of Randall Munroe. As someone using the built-in voice chat protocol logged in and sounded disturbingly feminine, he had a breakdown.

Any one of these people could be a woman, and I've been KILLING them. And--oh God--what if one of them was MEGAN???????

Thinking about the possibility that he might be doing violence to women sapped all joy from the game. But of course, the popular internet blog "xkcd is frequently less than ideal and we would like it to be better" often calls him out for his white knighting. Of course! If you were forced to remember that people are human, and have real stories and quirks, you would hate playing FPS games! Mindless violence is terrible! Especially against women!!! I'M SORRY, MEGAN!!!!!!

874. I admit I have a seething disdain for people who obsess over "life hacks" like this. Far too many people I've known focus on these things. I used to hang out with people who name-dropped things like "inbox zero" and talked about how they managed their productivity all the time, and it was utterly loathsome.

So on some level I can get behind the sentiment here--these people are terrible and need to be mocked. But, as with most of Randall's satires, it doesn't mock, it merely presents something he thinks is ridiculous. "What if those productivity people just fuck around all day? LOLOLOLOL"

Not funny, Randy. I realize you're incapable of developing characters or offering insightful commentary, but could you at least make an effort?

EDIT: Oh yeah, here is a fellow who is posting webcites of new XKCDs as they come up, so we can preserve his errors forever: http://xkcdwebcited.blogspot.com/

Comic 872: Grimm's Calculus

[Comic title: Fairy Tales; alt text: Goldilocks' discovery of Newton's method for approximation required surprisingly few changes.]

As you all know, Randy is particularly fond of correcting errors in his comics without so much as a comment noting his previous error. This extends to adding a "Zing!" to the end of alt texts which are widely seen as being unnecessarily elitist, though not, apparently, to adding Hey Jude to his shitty chart comics about Hey Jude.

I've always roundly mocked Randy for this tendency before, because it's funny, and other webcomics people who occasionally upload errors usually acknowledge them somewhere, even if it's just on their Twitter streams. But I've never felt that it was really that significant before. It's just a minor, stupid thing.

Then came today's comic.

The image above is a copy of the original comic. Reproduced below is the corrected version.



What the fuck, Randy? I mean, I know you don't bother proofreading, but do you not even fucking look at your comics before uploading them? Just a fleeting glance should have told you something was hideously wrong here. But you don't even have time to do that?

But notice that the blocking of the text is different. It almost looks like this was a deliberate stylistic decision--it's hard to imagine how he could make an error of something so colossally stupid. See how the "Dammit" moves, for instance. Was this deliberate?

Not much to say about the comic itself. No doubt in response to assertions that Megan of the Bountiful Milk is always used as an insert to be the voice of truth and perfection, here she is doing something which is moderately unreasonable, but in a way that is delightfully quirky (and, no doubt, utterly arousing to one such as Randy, Math Enthusiast).

This comic might have had merit if the joke weren't merely Randy taking random words from fairy tales and replacing them with random terms from mathematics, and then providing a narrative for why this is happening. Wasn't there a time when there was intelligence to your jokes, Randy? Not just LOLRANDOM juxtapositions that have no reason to be juxtaposed?

Comic 871: Strong Anti-Social Tendencies

[Comic title: Charity; alt text: "I usually respond to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem. But I've been realizing lately that there's an easier way to handle these situations, and it involves zero internet arguments."]

In the previous post, I touched on the fact that Randall appears to have some deep psychological hangups with regard to altruism and his own cynicism. Indeed, much of the idiocy of yesterday's comic, as today's comic (specifically the alt text) proves, came mostly from the fact that Randy is unwilling to accept that people are altruistic. Or even remotely well-meaning. As he says in today's alt text, he tries to think of a way that, when someone does something good, they aren't actually being good. This is severely disordered behavior. Randall is actively looking for ways to think less of people around him. And people accuse me of being too harsh when I say that he is a disingenuous asshole who tries to make people not-him look bad in order to make himself appear smarter.

Randy's disordered interpersonal interactions aside, I'm not seeing a joke here. The format is basically Randy justifying his misanthropy.

Panel 1 has Generic Guy #1 saying "I'm going to buy a ten dollar game, and then donate ten dollars to charity!" This is completely normal behavior for a human who likes entertainment but also likes charitable causes.

Panel 2 has Megan Of The Milky Nipples, Who Can Do No Wrong, making a false dichotomy: "if you really cared, you'd just donate all your money to charity. It is impossible to simultaneously care about a cause and want to play video games, so state your true loyalties, you dishonest fiend."

Panel 3 has Generic Guy #1 telling Generic Guy #2 that he's just buying two video games. He has made his choice: that choice is video games. He has followed the dictates of Megan Of The Milky Nipples (who, incidentally, is completely naked in this comic) and found himself lacking, but at least now he can play two games!

This isn't funny. If it weren't for the alt text, it would be one of those comics one quickly dismisses as boring and ultimately forgettable. But with the alt text, it takes on these really ugly notes of cynical misanthropy. I don't have much else to say but: you need help, Randy. You don't have to live this way.