History YMMV / Xkcd

** [[https://www.xkcd.com/1263/ Strip 1263]] is about how computers are showing capabilities in many things that humans thought they'd always be the best at. Megan hammers in the point by designing a Python script generating reassuring parables about things computers will never be able to do. In 2013, this was a fanciful notion, but ten years later, the AI ChatGPT showed the ability's do exactly this.

** [[https://xkcd.com/375/ Comic 375 (Pod Bay Doors)]] after [[spoiler:VideoGame/LegoDimensions actually had a scene where [=GLaDOS=] and HAL 9000 have a conversation. They don't get along as well as they do in the comic, though.]]

* TheCatchPhraseCatchesOn: The term "nerd sniping", from [[https://xkcd.com/356/ the comic of the same name]], has become widely used among self-professed nerds in general to refer to getting unexpectedly caught up in an interesting problem. Unlike in the comic, this isn't ''necessarily'' a malicious attack, but can sometimes happen completely at random if the nerd happens to stumble across the problem in the wild.

* AcceptableTargets: String theorists, [[HardOnSoftScience liberal arts majors]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Objectivism}} Objectivists]], typographers, and {{conspiracy theorist}}s.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: A few (some say most) of the romance-based comics. Sometimes subverted.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven:
** [[https://xkcd.com/1110/ 1110: Click and Drag]] is, simply put, a single webcomic frame with the dimensions of 165888 x 65536 pixels and the populated size (disregarding fillers) of around one gigapixel. You explore it by, duh, clicking and dragging.
** [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1190:_Time 1190: Time]], a graphic story updated once per hour over the course of four months. (The author's site only contained the latest image, but numerous fan-made browsers were created.)
** [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1446:_Landing 1446: Landing]], a shorter variant of the former, updated every five minutes over 12 hours during the Rosetta landing, in real time.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: [[http://xkcd.com/374/ Read the alttext.]] Also check [[http://xkcd.com/432/ here]] and [[http://xkcd.com/322/ here]] Could it be that the Black Hat Guy is not an uncaring heartless monster, but rather someone who is unsure how to give and receive love and is frustrated with the world? Is he a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, a full-on JerkAss who just knows how to PetTheDog when he feels like it, or an insecure guy with a HiddenHeartOfGold?

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** [[http://xkcd.com/527/ Strip 527]] jokes about how Steve Jobs was losing weight. This was made before it was known he had cancer, let alone before he died.
** [[http://xkcd.com/1948/ Strip 1948]]: The 15th email is less funny after the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the election results.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Most readers assumed the astronomer in the "Stargazing" comics was Megan, due to the identical appearance, but WordOfGod is that they're a completely separate, ''male'' character.

** [[https://xkcd.com/590/ Comic 590]], ever since ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' was released.

* ScheduleSlip: When no comic hit the site on Friday, 4/1/06, this was written on the front page:
-->The xkcd April 1st [2016] comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
-->Status update: Please stand by.
-->Status update: This is fine. Everything is fine.
-->Status update: Everything is on fire.
-->Status update: Searching for calendar systems in which Saturday is April 1st.
-->''(The next day...)''
-->The Friday xkcd comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties [Editor's note: Everything is on fire] and has been delayed until Sunday night.

* HarsherInHindsight: [[https://www.xkcd.com/1948/ Comic #1948]], in a collection of made-up and increasingly desperate political fundraising emails, had one from a candidate who had already lost the election[[note]]"They say we can't win—that we're "underdogs" with "no money" who "lost the election last week." But they don't…"[[/note]], possibly a reference to a then-recent Senate candidate who lost by a wide margin and couldn't afford to pay for a recount. Now that [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump this sort of denial has actually resulted in death]], it is less funny.

** [[http://xkcd.com/520/ #520]] is this for [[Franchise/MassEffect Mass Effect]] fans, as [[MechanicalAbomination the Reapers]] are basically what happens when the cephalopod and robot revolutions [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs happen at the same time.]] [[spoiler: Or rather, one after the other.]]

** [[http://xkcd.com/520/ #520]], for [[Franchise/MassEffect Mass Effect]] fans.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: A few (some say most) of the romance-based comics. Sometimes subverted. [[http://xkcd.com/513/ Like in Strip 513.]]

* HolyShitQuotient:
** [[http://xkcd.com/1110/ Click and Drag]] indeed.
** [[Webcomic/XkcdTime Comic 1190, "Time"]]: Each frame is the size of a full comic, and rather than posting them all at once, the page updates every hour with a new frame. This went on continuously between March 25, 2013 and July 26th, 2013. Due to being over '''three-thousand frames long''', some have considered it a separate [[RecursiveReality webcomic within a webcomic]].
*** The story itself: From two people building a sandcastle on a beach, to going on a quest in knowledge of how the rivers and sea work, to the InfoDump revealing that the story is set AfterTheEnd, likely thousands of years in the future, to the impending [[ApocalypseHow Class Zero Apocalypse]] resulting in TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt for main characters. Holy Shit indeed.

* HypeBacklash: The reasons the [[http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com xkcdsucks]] [[http://xkcd-sucks.blogspot.com/ blogs]] exist.

** The [[https://www.xkcd.com/323/ Ballmer peak]] apparently [[http://www.medicaldaily.com/beer-creativity-problem-solver-comes-scale-measure-when-youre-your-creative-peak-315154 actually exists in real life]] (though it's actually at 0.075 rather than 0.13).

** [[http://imgur.com/7fkbR This strip]] is perhaps the fastest example of the trope happening. (Just days after the strip was put online, no less than ''twelve'' tornadoes touched down around the Dallas metropolitan area, causing quite a bit of damage.)
** [[http://xkcd.com/401/ Strip 401's]] comment on cancer may count.

** [[http://xkcd.com/453/ 453]]'s alt text: "I'd like to see more damage assessments for hurricanes hitting New York and flooding Manhattan -- something like the 1938 Long Island Express, but aimed a bit more to the west. It's just a matter of time." Enter Hurricane Sandy.
** What, no love for [[http://xkcd.com/875/ 875]]'s alt-text?
--->2017 called, but I couldn't understand what they were saying over all the screams.

* MagnificentBastard: Black Hat Guy, most noticeably during the “Journal” and “Secretary” arcs.

** [[https://xkcd.com/1357/ 1357, aka the "Free Speech" comic]], to the point of [[InternetBackdraft reaching infamy from sheer overuse and being seen in some circles as a thought-terminating cliche.]]

** Some of the earliest xkcd strips actually had ''warnings'' or ''explanations for the lay person'' on jokes made about obscure topics like [[http://xkcd.com/12/ elementary probability theory]], [[http://xkcd.com/18/ periodic table abbreviations]], or [[http://xkcd.com/21/ basic astronomy.]] The AltText on the last of these -- "Science joke. You should probably just move along." -- is particularly ironic in retrospect.

** It was a reference to an old ChooseYourOwnAdventure book, but "[[Film/PacificRim a mysterious door]] [[http://xkcd.com/1040/ at the bottom of the Mariana Trench]]" beyond which lurks something apparently terrible.