I feel like this blog is an optical illusion where, if I stare long enough, I'll see John Campbell.
Except I'm still not seeing it.
XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
31–40 of 95 posts
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#32I think XKCD is sophomoric, but this is largely just of godawful quality. The blonde girl calls megan’s boyfriend and convinces him to make some delicious nachos. However, he doesn’t know that the blonde girl’s real motive was to kill megan’s wifi signal with the microwave he uses because they were playing a first person shooter video game against each other over the internet, and the blonde girl wanted to kill her.…
Would you prefer something more like http://xkcdexplained.tumblr.com/post/226305334/the-box-on-th... ?
In that particular case, you missed the joke, so no.
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#33He also apparently thinks Munroe is a reverse misogynist. There's got to be a proper word for that...
There is also some internal debate about if he is in fact an anti-semite or perhaps just insensitive to cultural issues in general: http://xkcdexplained.tumblr.com/post/227070875/a-man-wearing... http://xkcdexplained.tumblr.com/post/226266899/the-trick-her...
I do wonder what leaps in logic get you from a stick figure's black hat to "Hasidic Jew’s black hat".
Not only did those two posts forget the funny, they might actually create trouble for the xkcd (politically correct activist + google search + no understanding of humor or satire = pain in the ass). Stupider things have happened.
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#34[deleted]
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is also some internal debate about if he is in fact an anti-semite or perhaps just insensitive to cultural issues in general: http://xkcdexplained.tumblr.com/post/227070875/a-man-wearing... http://xkcdexplained.tumblr.com/post/226266899/the-trick-her...
I do wonder what leaps in logic get you from a stick figure's black hat to "Hasidic Jew’s black hat". Not only did those two posts forget the funny, they might actually create trouble for the xkcd (politically correct activist + google search + no understanding of humor or satire = pain in the ass). Stupider things have happened.
Okay, so you could ignore the obvious resemblance to the Hasidic Jew Hat (http://bit.ly/29cFxJ), I suppose. But then what about "Brown Thighs? = Eww." What is wrong with brown thighs?
At some point I have to question if they guy is doing it subtly on purpose or just completely oblivious, and neither is good.
P.S. We didn't "forget the funny." We went searching for it, and these descriptions are what we came up with.
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you prefer something more like http://xkcdexplained.tumblr.com/post/226305334/the-box-on-th... ?
Not really. I hope I'm not being overly critical, but "a weary customer" is pretty purple prose, and "intelligent enough to be aware of its affect" -- "affect?" C'mon. "Effect." If this were some other kind of writing, like a forum post or a blog entry, no problem, stuff like that wouldn't faze me. But I think you have to clear a high bar in quality if you're writing some sarcastic & condescending criticism of someth…
Not deliberately purple, I suspect: substituting "weary" for "wary" is a pretty common mistake.
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#37I think XKCD is sophomoric, but this is largely just of godawful quality. The blonde girl calls megan’s boyfriend and convinces him to make some delicious nachos. However, he doesn’t know that the blonde girl’s real motive was to kill megan’s wifi signal with the microwave he uses because they were playing a first person shooter video game against each other over the internet, and the blonde girl wanted to kill her.…
The explanations of the jokes are funny because they're not funny. You see, you'd normally expect explanations of jokes to be funny. But these explanations are not funny. That's what makes the whole thing funny.
thanks Alex. it's really not that hard guys.
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do wonder what leaps in logic get you from a stick figure's black hat to "Hasidic Jew’s black hat". Not only did those two posts forget the funny, they might actually create trouble for the xkcd (politically correct activist + google search + no understanding of humor or satire = pain in the ass). Stupider things have happened.
Okay, so you could ignore the obvious resemblance to the Hasidic Jew Hat ( http://bit.ly/29cFxJ ), I suppose. But then what about "Brown Thighs? = Eww." What is wrong with brown thighs? At some point I have to question if they guy is doing it subtly on purpose or just completely oblivious, and neither is good. P.S. We didn't "forget the funny." We went searching for it, and these descriptions are what we came up with…
My interpretation of that joke was scatological. Though, I don't know if that says more about me than Randall.
Re: XKCD Explained, One Strip at a Time
#39_Infinitesimal Jest: Towards A Intertextual Metanarrative Of Subtextual Resonances Between XKCD and XKCD-Explained_
* It can and has been claimed by that the humor in XKCD is superficial, driven more by the dog-whistle power of recogition of cultural signs and signifiers than by a "true" or "significant" humor. Of course, an equally valid critical response questions the notion of "truth" and observes that the free play of signs and signifiers unmoored from a confining narrative core is a potent artistic force driving the work.
* A persistent debate between critical factions regarding XKCD is the question of whether those who claim XKCD is superficial don't understand the scientific and cultural references in the work, which debate is addressed by a direct recitation of those references in XKCD Explained.
* A common critical observation about XKCD that may not be obvious to the lay reader who does not closely track the comic is that it might be repetitive, which is to say that when the comics are stripped to their narrative kernel, many of the comics are essentially the same.
* Another common observation that may not be obvious to the lay reader is that it might be derivative, with comics repurposing the narrative and conceptual core of other, non-XKCD webcomics. This of course is an invalid critique, as XKCD exists intertextually with all other webcomics and is in fact enjoined to make use of and amplify the key ideas of those other comics.
* A more easily observable concern with XKCD is the relationship between the comic and gender, and in particular with sex, that concern being itself the observation of a subtext that implies that all references to sex are titillating to its audience, within which audience broad cultural norms have precluded actual experience with the reproductive act, and often contact with the opposite sex.
* Which of course drives us to the key concern with XKCD AND XKCD Sucks, which is that the authors of both works, being themselves bound to the norms of the media of English text, believe men are superior to women. Note the phallic symbolism of the letters "X" and "K", and the subordinate positions of the vaginal characters "C" and "D", the last of which represents (semiotically) the supressed but controlling desire of the male writer to maintain a pregnant state in the female reader.