XKCD: It's more than a comic

It seems that Xkcd these days is very polarizing: you either love it or hate it with a passion. Personally, I'm the former, but I don't often discuss Xkcd because of the potential Flame War.

(And no, I'm not saying only Mr. Lostman is at fault here.)

edited 26th Jul '09 10:02:10 PM by CentralAvenue

@Mr. Lostman:

I cannot take seriously some of the arguments in that link you provided. I have serious doubts about someone who claims that people cannot acquire talent after they finish school, and that "talent" is a boolean quality you either have or not. He also claims that "constructive criticism" is a mass hallucination while simultaneously attacking two forms of politics and one form of religion, which I think is why that guy can just shove it.

His other arguments might be valid, but I'd hardly think that the author of that list is worthy of ever being used as proof or of anything.

EDIT: About the blatant theft thing: It's a fairly simple, if geeky joke based around applying a concept in an unfamiliar situation. In the XKCD strip, we're treated to the "porn makes people have unrealistic expectations of real sex" idea, but rather than being about the acts themselves, Randal has applied the joke to the method of presentation. Then he makes a pun on "corrupt." In SMBC, the same "known idea in new situation" -joke is applied to the extremely small screens of PDAs or whatever it is. It is in fact highly likely that Monroe and the author of SMBC, at about the same time, were reminiscencing about low-quality video, and being annoyed at the miniature screen size of a PDA respectively.

People makes jokes about things they're amusingly annoyed by. Tell, how many jokes are there about people spending a little too much time on The Other Wiki? Or here?

edited 26th Jul '09 10:39:42 PM by LatwPIAT

Calm down. Nobody's being an asshat. Mr. Lostman is not a troll. He's entitled to his opinion, and he's being pretty gracious about it.

I never meant Lostman as the asshat in question and I doubt he is a troll. Trolls tend to be more of the hit-and-run variety. I'm simply curious about his MO. What does it serve to throw your opinion - sorry, reasoning - repeatedly into someones face you know you cannot convince and whose opinion you - by admission - don't give a shit about. Is this a "hateboy"? Or is there some higher calling?

Single Issue Obsessive.

Not that I can be too critical about that one; I have obsessive sides myself.

Single-Issue Wonk is the tvtropes page.

Mr. Lostman, it's been asked before and I'll ask it again (since you'ven't seemed to give an answer yet. Or at least nothing I recognise as an answer):

Why do you keep reading xkcd if you don't like where it's gone for the past half-year or so?

Man, just when I thought this thread was cooled down enough for reasonable agreeing-to-disagree discussion...

Latw PIAT: I have serious doubts about someone who claims that people cannot acquire talent after they finish school, and that "talent" is a boolean quality you either have or not.

I've always thought of talent as something you're more or less born with. Skill, you develop.

edited 27th Jul '09 8:52:39 AM by Lucky Revenant

But does one acquire talent from nothing, or is it possible to develop a talent that hasn't expressed itself after the age of 20. You can find lots of people in history who only came into their talent in later years (or came into a new talent in later years). Whether it was always there or not is irrelevant, either way it went undetected for longer than this meta-meta-critic says is possible.

I didn't like this one. Didn't really seem particularly funny.

The mistake Lostman takes here, is coming to this thread with an attitude more fit to, say GameFAQs forums or soemthing. We don't tend to get really confrontational on the forums, and kinda assume everyone who is on the offence to be a troll.

To his credit, I've seen Mr. Lostman posting in one other thread.

Oh, and here. So he's not a troll, just a bit of a Single-Issue Wonk.

edited 27th Jul '09 11:37:31 AM by Tzetze

Might as well chime in to say that I love 616.

Edit: Typo fail...

edited 28th Jul '09 10:19:38 PM by Lyanna

Continuity Nod ftw. And who here past their teens hasn't felt that way.

I'm currently in the process of trying to apply for my first student loans, so I can definitely relate to this one.

I'm currently in the process of finding an apartment to live since I got wait-listed for housing by my college.

Well-played, Randall. Very well-played.

(Also, the Avoidance comic was rather nice too. I liked the idea.)

Clappy humor, this is the problem with xkcd lately. I saw this mentioned under some Family Guy thread, and guess what? It also applies to xkcd, only it usually even forgets the wit to go with it. Glad I have a name for this symptom now.

'Avoidance.' Simple, generic concept. Okay so far. Bad execution. Here it is donebetter◊. The result speaks for itself.

I won't even talk about how empty and spacious 616 was.

Topical humor. Ah. Randy said he wasn't going to do that, but oh well. What do we got? A joke that makes no sense without keeping up in the news. Afterall, we have no idea why that policeman would be there talking(what is going in the first panel i dont even) with that stickfigure. (There's no race either, apparently, which makes this look even lamer unless you count facial hair?)

@Ana: You know how I feel about opinions. Please check again in case you forgot. And I know what you meant. Yes, logic is just so helpless in the face of rudeness and sarcasm.

@Law: Incredibly convenient, isn't it? Is it so hard to accept Randall stole a joke? Can he do no wrong?

@Oscredwin: The parts of the link I was interested in advocating were the sections about "Opinions". You get what you see with the rest. With enough Fan Wank, I can suggest to you that line was exaggeration. (Entirely plausible! Like coincidences!)

@Sabbo: Perhaps you need better recognition skills? Would you accept BileFascination?

@Jethro: There can be no "offence" (offense?). This is a thread for discussion of xkcd. If it's official position is "positive and postive only", (why is criticism labeled negative anyways) there can be no room for talk or growth or whatever it is people get from discussion. Assuming people who have contrary opinions to be trolls (or idiots; just putting that out there for other people) is a very bad habit that I'd drop.

Do any of you have (or rather, claim to have) an IQ of 224 ... ? On a side note, I don't think I can really be puntual.

I would ask you if you were dropped on yer head when you were a kid, but that would be mean.

Instead, I will merely ponder:

What is it that makes people come out with such vitriol against a work of media, which is not offensive and does no harm to them? I'm not just talking about Mr. Lostman here. Look at the hate for The Jonas Brothers, or Ctrl-Alt-Del, or Twilight. People go out of their way to hate on these things, and for what? I have plenty of shows, books, movies and comics I hate, but I'm not whining all over the place about it. And I'm not trying to make my whining look like an intelligent critique.

If Bile fascinates you, by all means, enjoy, but don't go around bitching about it incessantly. It just shows you to be an asshole.

No, he should bitch about it if he wants. If Mr. Lostman wants a more friendly reception though he should try bitching together with an audience that agrees with him.

No, no, he has every right to bitch. I'm just advising against it for his sake.

This is what I'm talking about. Such negativity! Also, the link under Bile Fascination ... hoping it was subtle, but not too subtle there ...

edited 30th Jul '09 10:19:06 PM by Mr. Lostman

This is what I'm talking about. Such negativity!

Wow. Poor child. You came in and started whining, bitching and moaning, and now no one likes you. An who's talking about negativity here now?

You have every right to come here and complain. It's a free internet, and tvtropes is not big on banning or censorship it seems. But don't expect people to like you when you come and try to suck all the enjoyment out of a lighthearted forum with your over the top, "look at me I'm so Intellectual" attention whoring.

Mr. Lostman likes chainsawsuit. I find this funny. But he also likes kiwisbybeat, so he must be a good guy.

He's not a troll, he has a right to his opinion, although I don't know why he keeps saying it here when obviously nobody cares. All of you: why do you care? It's a webcomic. Assuming you don't buy merchandise, it costs you thirty seconds every few days. Calm down. It's not important. Quit insulting Mr. Lostman.

edited 30th Jul '09 10:36:07 PM by Tzetze

I see a butthurt xkcd fan that is bitching not everybody likes xkcd. Pot meet kettle. (See what I did thar?)

"Bitching" is another word for whining, which actually applies to the one using it. As in, you're whining about me disagreeing, which you take as whining. Different opinions = whining/bitching. What did I tell Jethro? This guy paid no attention.

Edit: Ah, didn't see Tzetze's post. No matter.

edited 30th Jul '09 10:37:09 PM by Mr. Lostman

And then you used the word "butthurt". This is all so stupid.