Line #71 YMMV/Xkcd


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2	* AluminumChristmasTrees: [[https://xkcd.com/2503/ The "memo spike" cursed connector,]] which connects multiple cables together by jamming a conductive memo spike through all of them. The thought of connecting devices this way sounds ridiculous and is played for a joke, but [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_tap vampire taps]] are a thing in real life and really do work by piercing the desired cable, which allows them to add new devices into a wired connection without unplugging existing cables.
3	* 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?
4	* {{Anvilicious}}: Several strips qualify, but the [[https://xkcd.com/radiation/ Radiation Dose Chart]] is particularly effective in combating irrational opposition to nuclear power, such as pointing out that coal power plants give off more than ''three times'' as much radiation as nuclear power plants and yet somehow no one cares about that. (And to further put it in perspective, even eating a banana exposes you to more ionizing radiation.)
5	* TheCatchPhraseCatchesOn: The term "nerd sniping", from [[https://xkcd.com/356/ the comic of the same name]], has become widely used among self-professed nerds to refer to getting unexpectedly caught up in an interesting problem. Notably, Creator/TomScott uses it when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d99_h30swtM discussing moiré effect lights and how he got an email about them]].
6	* CrossesTheLineTwice:
7	** [[http://xkcd.com/879/ #879]]. A passing fellow finds a magic lamp and rubs it. The lamp... uh, ''enjoyed this''.
8	** [[http://xkcd.com/1128/ #1128]]. Series/{{Wishbone}} does ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey''.
9	** [[http://www.xkcd.com/396/ #396]]. Film/TheRing gets uploaded online as punishment for Rickrolling.
10	** Most strips featuring the black hat guy are funny because of how cruel he is, but [[https://xkcd.com/954/ #954 (Chin-Up Bar)]] is a standout example.
11	* CreatorWorship: Many of the more rabid fans believe Randall has the ability to [[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=GOOMHR read minds]] and they often try to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xkcd#Inspired_activities emulate the wacky antics]] depicted in the comic. (Of course, that's usually because it sounds like fun, not because the master has spoken.)
12	* DracoInLeatherPants: While most people love Black Hat Guy ''because'' he's such an asshole, there are some who try to excuse and/or justify what he does.
13	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Black Hat Guy is probably the most popular character in the strip.
14	* EvilIsCool: Black Hat Guy has a lot of fans thinking his actions are cool, despite being a dangerous sociopath who would have gotten several life sentences and/or the death penalty in RealLife.
15	* GatewaySeries: xkcd has gotten a lot of people into webcomics in general.
16	* GeniusBonus: All over the place. Munroe got a degree in physics and worked at NASA.
17	** Even in biology more and more, although those tend to be more sober minded ones about cancer.
18	** The AltText of the strip "Flatland" describes Cueball going into Flatland and being seen as a lesbian orgy overseen by a priest. In the book ''Literature/{{Flatland}}'', lines are women and circles are priests.
19	* HarsherInHindsight:
20	** [[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.
21	** [[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 to do exactly this.
22	** [[https://xkcd.com/1520/ Strip 1520]], "Degree-Off", has a biologist boast that the heroes of her field have slain one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse — namely, Pestilence, referring to the massive decline in death rate from diseases in the United States from 1900 to 2000. In the wake of the [[UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic coronavirus pandemic]], however, as well as increasing death rates from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it comes across as less of a BadassBoast and more as {{hubris}}.
23	** [[http://xkcd.com/1948/ Strip 1948]]: The 15th email (which is apparently a political party trying to rally support despite having lost the election) is less funny after the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the election results.
24	* HilariousInHindsight:
25	** 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.]] Since then, ''xkcd'' has unapologetically switched to being almost entirely about nerd humor; topics have since became even more obscure and incomprehensible to anyone without a degree in the relevant field or assistance from explainxkcd. The AltText on the last of these -- "Science joke. You should probably just move along." -- is particularly ironic in retrospect.
26	** "[[http://www.xkcd.com/396/ The Ring]]" has Cueball upload the film's cursed tape onto a video-sharing website. Four years after the strip's publication, the plot of ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_3D Sadako 3D]]'' involves a cursed video in the vein of the original tape being posted online.
27	** In the AltText of [[http://xkcd.com/524/ #524]], the "Yo Dawg" meme eventually ''did'' become mainstream.
28	** [[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, since the Leviathans came first.]]
29	** It was a reference to an old {{Gamebook}}, but "[[Film/PacificRim a mysterious door]] [[http://xkcd.com/1040/ at the bottom of the Mariana Trench]]" beyond which lurks something apparently terrible.
30	** [[http://xkcd.com/861/ Wisdom Teeth]], published in 2011, has Cueball flatten a large portion of a ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' world and sort it into layers while in a painkiller-induced haze. Three years later, the game introduced the option to generate superflat worlds consisting of a few perfectly-sorted layers of blocks.
31	** ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' has a sequence where brief bios of the enemies you kill are recited to you, which is surprisingly similar to [[http://xkcd.com/873/ this strip]]. ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' also referenced it with the unique Morningstar sniper rifle as a side quest reward, which will berate the Vault Hunter in the voice of a grumpy old woman whenever they kill someone with it.
32	** [[http://xkcd.com/132/ Comic 132]], published in 2006, has Cueball not know about Music/{{Metallica}} because the band was never featured in ''VideoGame/GuitarHero''. Not only was a Metallica song included in the series for the first time in the third installment, which released the following year, but 2009 saw the release of a Metallica-themed ''Guitar Hero'' game.
33	** [[http://xkcd.com/311/ #311 "Action Movies"]]: ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' more or less meets the criteria Cueball sets out for the perfect action movie: it's a two-hour car chase with explosions and gunfights and very little (spoken) exposition. That its storytelling does not suffer for it is a bonus.
34	** 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 0.1337).
35	** [[https://xkcd.com/590/ Comic 590]]'s alt text has Randall confess he likes the font Papyrus and doesn't care if it's overused. Six years later, ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has a character named Papyrus, whose dialogue is written in said font, causing it to gain a surge in popularity.
36	** [[http://xkcd.com/413/ #413: New Pet]] predicted the BB-8 robot six years before ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' brings it into pop culture.
37	** [[http://xkcd.com/1342/ Comic 1342]] now packs a bit of a punch to many due to the election of President Trump.
38	** The [[https://xkcd.com/1122/ Comic 1122 (Electoral President)]] mouseover text seems rather appropriate to the election ''after'' the one the comic was written for, given Trump's infamous use of Twitter and that his opponent was definitely not a ''[[NoManOfWomanBorn guy]]'' who'd been mentioned on the platform.
39	** The punchline of [[https://xkcd.com/375/ "Pod Bay Doors"]] has [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey HAL 9000]] take on [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} [=GLaDOS=]]] as a replacement for Dave. ''VideoGame/LegoDimensions'' has a scene where the two [=AIs=] have a conversation that annoys [=GLaDOS=] for several reasons, including HAL continuing to call her "Dave" after she introduces herself.
40	** A minor example with "[[http://xkcd.com/2550/ Webb]]", after the telescope launch was delayed from December 22 to December 25.
41	** [[https://xkcd.com/2130/ #2130 "Industry Nicknames"]] takes the practice of referring to industries as "Big X" after the product they produce (e.g. "Big Tobacco", "Big Pharma") and shows which potential nickname would be the silliest; its answer is "Big Egg". Four years later, Cory Doctorow (who Randall Munroe is a big fan of) would unironically use the term "Big Egg" in [[https://doctorow.medium.com/excuseflation-5de795103105 a blog post]].
42	* MemeticBadass: Everyone involved in ''Firefly'', most notably Creator/SummerGlau.
43	* MemeticMutation:
44	** There's ''always'' a relevant xkcd comic. [[labelnote:Explanation]]As of writing, there are over 2700 xkcd comics, and that number only continues to rise. Given Munroe's tendency to write about a wide variety of topics, plus each page of the comic containing an easily-Googlable transcript and resources like explainxkcd, not only is there usually a relevant xkcd, it's almost always simple to find any given xkcd.[[/labelnote]]
45	** From discussions of the comic on the xkcd forums:
46	*** "Get out of my head, Randall!" for strips that hit close to home or echo the poster's recent ideas, sometimes abbreviated to "[=GOoMHR=]!!"
47	*** A filter [[FunWithAutocensors automatically replaces]] "LOL" with "[[WebAnimation/DrTran This cheese is burning me!]]", so the posters started writing "The cheese is lukewarm today" if they weren't impressed with strip, or "My cheese was really burned today" for good ones.
48	*** "I had a [close relative/friend] who died because of [subject of today]. Not funny, not cool, not a good comic."
49	** The [[http://xkcd.com/249/ rollercoaster chess]] strip inspired people to take similar photos.
50	** "It's better than Vista", partly thanks to [[http://xkcdsw.com/ Making xkcd Slightly Worse]].
51	*** Also, "[[GeekyTurnOn I've never been so turned on in my life]]", "Meme Density", etc.
52	** [[http://xkcd.com/1031/ This]] is turning any wiki (including TV Tropes) into a realm of leopards.
53	** You will not go to space today. [[labelnote:Explanation]]Originates from [[http://xkcd.com/1133/ Up Goer Five]], which explains how the Saturn V rocket works in LaymansTerms; the phrase is included at the end as part of a statement about how the engines shouldn't point towards space if you want to go to space. The inherent silliness of the phrase led to it immediately taking off as a meme, and Randall would later repeatedly reference it in space-related questions on the blog ''Blog/WhatIf''.[[/labelnote]]
54	** "Sudo make me a sandwich."
55	** Tommy Wiseau is DB Cooper
56	** [[https://xkcd.com/1357/ 1357, aka the "Free Speech" comic]], to the point of [[DiscreditedMeme reaching infamy from sheer overuse]] and being seen in some circles as a thought-terminating cliche.
57	** [[https://xkcd.com/2071/ 2071, Indirect Detection]], a strip about seeing a friend's woefully contextless social media posts, has become incredibly popular on sites such as Tumblr and Reddit due to being a pretty perfect summary of the average experience of users on those sites.
58	** "[[https://xkcd.com/2501/ It's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows]] ''(insert obscure topic)''" [[labelnote:Explanation]]"Average Familiarity" is widely used to poke fun about knowledge of a given subject being more obscure to the general population than a community thinks it is, and is often edited to change what subculture and obscure knowledge is being referenced.[[/labelnote]]
59	* ParanoiaFuel:
60	** [[http://xkcd.com/792/ A scheme]] for harvesting scores of stolen online identities through people tendencies to reuse passwords.
61	** ''{{WebSite/Snopes}}'', the debunkers [[http://xkcd.com/250/ and creators]] of UrbanLegends. (AltText: "The Series/MythBusters are even more sinister.")
62	** [[http://xkcd.com/931/ Lanes.]] Treating cancer leaves a 40% chance that it will recur somewhere else in the body. "So you spend the next five or ten years trying not to worry that every ache and pain is the answer to the question 'Do I make it?'"
63	** An InUniverse example: [[http://xkcd.com/913/ Core]]: "I freak out about fifteen minutes into reading about the Earth's core when I suddenly realize it's ''right under me''."
64	** [[http://xkcd.com/1530/ Keyboard Mash.]] The punchline would leave you wonder this anytime you get to a chat session: Who is really behind the other keyboard?
65	** [[http://www.xkcd.com/1719/ Superzoom]]
66	* ShockingMoments:
67	** [[http://xkcd.com/1110/ Click and Drag]] indeed.
68	** [[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]].
69	*** 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.
70	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The [[https://xkcd.com/550/ Density]] comic references popular memes from the period the comic was posted. (early 2009)
71	* 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.
72	* TheWoobie: The [[http://xkcd.com/695/ Spirit Mars rover]], trying to do a good enough job to be brought home. [[http://xkcd.com/1504/ Opportunity meanwhile]] evolved into NonhumanUndead and WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.

Context YMMV / Xkcd