1554: Spice Girls

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Spice Girls
The Earth's five major mass extinctions were the Posh Extinction, the Sporty Extinction, the Scary Extinction, the Ginger Extinction, and the Baby Extinction.
Title text: The Earth's five major mass extinctions were the Posh Extinction, the Sporty Extinction, the Scary Extinction, the Ginger Extinction, and the Baby Extinction.

Explanation[edit]

Cueball and Megan are apparently playing a game in which they name all of the elements in some category. Cueball asks Megan to name all of the Spice Girls, a pop group whose nicknames were

Instead, Megan winds up making up names by tacking "Spice" onto words from other, completely unrelated categories:

This seems to be a continuation of 1417: Seven, where Megan asks Cueball to name the seven dwarfs. Apparently Megan confuses different sets of five (or four when she is not trying) which may be compared to the way Cueball mixes items from different sets of seven, thus not mentioning a full set, but just seven items from seven different sets of seven.

The title text has the correct "first" names of the Spice Girls, but replaces the "Spice" part of their names with "Extinction" to associate them with Earth's five mass extinctions. The five actual worst mass extinctions are:

Randall previously referenced the Spice Girls in 1511: Spice Girl (more specifically, using "Which Spice Girl Are You?" as an example of online personality quizzes). And already in the next comic 1555: Exoplanet Names 2 he suggest to give five exoplanets around the same star the five nicknames. On the other hand, he suggests he mixes up different sets when they each consist of seven members.

Transcript[edit]

Cueball: Your turn: Can you name all of the Spice Girls?
Megan: Hmm… Hearing Spice, Vision Spice, Smell Spice, Touch Spice, Taste Spice?
Cueball: That’s senses.
Megan: Denial Spice, Anger Spice, Bargaining Spice, Depression Spice, Acceptance Spice.
Cueball: Stages of grief.
Megan: War Spice, Famine Spice, Plague Spice, Death Spice?
Cueball: You're not even trying.
Megan: No, wait, I can get this for real. Uhh…
Megan: Pog Spice, Story Spice, Sarah Spice, Gender Spice, Baleen Spice?
Cueball: …Close enough.


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Discussion

Is this a reference to "seven"[1]? -- 199.27.128.224 (talk) 01:48, 22 July 2015 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

  • It is certainly reminiscent; I thought of it immediately upon seeing this one. Nyperold (talk) 17:37, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

(above is not me)I think that the final frame may also be a single element of different sets: Gender {properties of a noun/pronoun, such as case and number}, Baleen {types of whales} are relatively clear the others I can only guess (POG {#1 games of the '90s}?(pretty wild guess), story {if it were "plot" or "setting/scene" I'd guess "elements of a story", but I don't know what "story" could be an element of}, Sarah could either be of biblical significance (mothers of Abrahamic nations?) or popular name significance--173.245.52.26 06:14, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Is it just me, a coincidence, or did Randall use the "90's Theme" quite often, lately? 1546: Tamagotchi Hive, 1548: 90s Kid, 1552: Rulebook and this one are all about things more or less popular in the 90's Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 07:56, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Pretty sure he's made 90s references since the beginning since he is a 90s kid himself. Possibly that there's been a higher density of them because something came up that gave him a bunch of ideas. Sometimes I'll see him reference something in his What-If articles which he will then use for another comic shortly after. 108.162.212.5 19:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a reference to J.L. Borges' Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, a supposed Chinese manuscript in which animals are divided into categories that seem to us to be completely crazy. Borges is trying to get us to imagine a culture that would find such categorization natural, and hence show how our own ways of organizing the world might seem crazy from the outside. If this is correct (and not just a massive overintellectualization!) Randall is showing us the madness of dividing women into ginger/scary/baby/sporty/posh, and hence the madness of pop culture. Whether this is the intent or not, reading Borges is Not Optional! Timband (talk) 10:41, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Someone should add a reference to the Spice Girl #1511 comic, aside from "not to be confused with..." 108.162.254.107 11:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


Track Spice, Bristol Spice, Willow Spice, Piper Spice, and Trig Spice? Okofish (talk) 17:08, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


Isn't the spelling Space Girls? 162.158.92.43 09:39, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Cinnamon Spice, Pumpkin Spice, Ginger Spice, Vanilla Spice, and Nutmeg Spice? Still sounds like white trash to me, so doesn't make a difference.

Guy above me makes me think. Space Girls. Perhaps one day there'll be five girls at once on the ISS. Perhaps even six. And then they'll make something called "Space Girls" haha. Maybe all existing female astronauts should get together and make a parody of some Spice Girl song and make it about space. But if they do it on the ISS it'll be even more hilarious. NASA you must do this just for the pun, if not to inspire more girls to wish to be astronauts. International Space Station (talk) 05:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)


pog spice? 172.70.38.202 20:18, 26 April 2021 (UTC) doc


Up Spice, Down Spice, Strange Spice, Charm Spice, Higgs Spice141.101.105.151 07:22, 27 October 2021 (UTC)