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The Book
- Students attending public school in the OASIS have to use student IDs containing their real names instead of their avatar names while on school grounds. Wade mentions this is done so teachers don't have to address students by silly usernames such as "Pimp_Grease" or "BigWang69".
- Wade likens the appeal of signing an indenturement contract with a corporation post-graduation to rolling around nude in broken glass.
- Roughly a year prior to the start of the book, Wade hitched a ride off-world with I-r0k to level up his avatar by killing some low-level kobolds over and over. I-r0k decided to take screenshots of his avatar, caption them "Penis-ville the Mighty Kobold Slayer", and post them to a popular gunter message board.
- Wade mentions watching videos of cute geeky girls playing covers of 80s music on ukuleles partway through infodumping about his research into Halliday's interests. He admits that the videos weren't actually part of his Halliday research and he just finds Endearingly Dorky girls playing ukuleles attractive for reasons he "can neither explain nor defend."
- You can buy anti-matter bombs on eBay. Granted, they are virtual ones, but still.
- After Wade defeats the holder of the copper key in a game of Joust, he mentions that he must restrain himself from victoriously shaking his ass in the general direction of the key holder.
- Before that, his narration notes how absurd the overall challenge must look to an outside observer; a normal kid, (Wade's avatar is made to look similar to him) and a lich, hunched over and playing an old-school video game in the middle of a dungeon. According to him, it's like something off the cover of an old-school video game magazine.
- The fact the key is the prize of a game of Joust.
- After the fact that the Copper Key is on Ludus becomes public knowledge, the planet is quickly overwhelmed by hordes of Sixers and gunters traveling to the Tomb of Horrors. The school board eventually gives up, makes a duplicate of the planet sans the code for the Tomb, and relocates the students and staff to Ludus II.
- Og, a Physical God within the OASIS, claims to being a bit clumsy after Wade and company discover that he can invisibly eavesdrop in private chat rooms and knocked over a stack of comic books during a previous conversation.
- Ogden, agreeing to do a live television interview, talks about how IOI are a bunch of corporate scum who use their wide variety of wholly-owned subsidiary companies, including news networks, to spread their propaganda. When the reporter sheepishly points out that the network doing the interview is one of those companies, Ogden notes that yes, it is, and begins cackling about how they'd better cut the interview short before he says anything else embarassing to them.
- When Wade is imprisoned by IOI he has to run tech support. The glimpses we see of his interactions with clients show some impressive (though company-censored) snarking.Client: Well, what am I supposed to do with it [a useless sword] now?
Wade: You could shove it up your ass and pretend you’re a corn dog.
COURTESY VIOLATION — RESPONSE MUTED — VIOLATION LOGGED - As he starts to get out of IOI's headquarters, Wade realizes there is one camera... so he proceeds to grin at it and flip it off, knowing that Sorrento will be watching the security tapes later.
- Wade reveals to the rest of the High Five that despite having had several weeks of lead time, the Sixers still haven't been able to open the Third Gate. He mentions that Sorrento has tried reciting the words carved above the gate in multiple languages, attempted to derive meaning from said words via the Bible, and generally done "every asinine thing you can imagine", all to no effect.Wade: They're getting desperate now. Sorrento has tried everything except genuflecting, doing a little dance, and sticking his pinky finger in the keyhole.
Shoto: (grinning) That's probably next up on the agenda. - During the final battle, there is a massive pitched battle between two groups of Giant Mecha, including all five of the Voltron lions. It is mentioned off-hand that most of IOI's mechs are destroyed so quickly that they didn't even get to form Voltron.
- Wade loads back into the OASIS after the Cataclyst is set off. The extra life he picked up loads him back at the exact spot where he was standing when he died, which is now over a giant pit where Anorak's Castle used to be. Cue the Wile E. Coyote moment with Wade desperately trying to grab the edge of the open gate, and failing, falling into the pit.
- After Wade gets his hands on Leopardon, he lampshades how the voice commands he can use to pilot the robot only work if he shouts them, thus giving a justification for why heroes in those Giant Robot shows seem to have No Indoor Voice when in a fight.
