1036: Reviews

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Reviews
I plugged in this lamp and my dog went rigid, spoke a sentence of perfect Akkadian, and then was hurled sideways through the picture window. Even worse, it's one of those lamps where the switch is on the cord.
Title text: I plugged in this lamp and my dog went rigid, spoke a sentence of perfect Akkadian, and then was hurled sideways through the picture window. Even worse, it's one of those lamps where the switch is on the cord.

Explanation

When shopping for anything via reviews, whether it be electronics or even something as simple as lamps like the comic demonstrates, one negative review can spoil a lot of positive reviews. That hits home even more if the review is specific, because humans attach more weight to anecdotes and specific stories. This comic points out the absurdity of paying attention to those reviews, by making the negative review itself absurd (a lamp making your cats go deaf and interfering with your taste buds would imply, at the very least, anomalous radiation, and would not be on store shelves long before some kind of serious recall). The 2nd frame starts out normal -- a lamp with lots of negative reviews implies the product really isn't good after all -- and then proceeds to get more and more absurd all the way to the image text.

Francs are units of currency formerly used in France and currently used in Switzerland; Francs have not seen much in France use since the adoption of the euro in 1999, but the Swiss franc is still the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Assuming Swiss francs, the price of the artisan lamp is about US$1310 (at the quoted rate as of December 2015). For comparison, US$15 can get one a decent lamp at IKEA.

In the title text, Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. Even if the dog actually did speak a sentence of perfect Akkadian, the chance that the owner would be able to recognize it as such is negligible. But apart from that the dog first went rigid and after delivering the line it was hurled out the picture window. The final joke it that the worst part of this lamp, was not the above mentioned crazy effects on his dog, but that the lamp had, completely normally, the switch on the cord, as opposed to having it on the body of the lamp. A production argument about where to place such a switch, leading to someone getting fired, was part oft he joke in 1741: Work.

Transcript

Shopping before online reviews:
[Cueball and Megan stand in a store. Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. There is another lamp on the table behind them.]
Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
Megan: And affordable.
Cueball: Let's get it.
Megan Ok!
Shopping now:
[Cueball points at a lamp on the table in front of him. Megan looks at her phone.]
Cueball: This lamp is pretty.
Megan: It's got 1 1/2 stars on Amazon. Reviews all say to avoid that brand.
[Cueball and Megan are now both looking at their phones.]
Cueball: This one has good reviews.
Megan: Wait, one guy says when he plugged it in, he got a metallic taste in his mouth and his cats went deaf.
Cueball: Eek. What about- ...no, review points out it resembles a uterus.
[Cueball is still looking at his phone, Megan has hers at her side.]
Cueball: Ok, I found a Swiss lampmaker with perfect reviews. Her lamps start at 1,300 Francs and she's only reachable by ski lift.
Megan: You know, our room looks fine in the dark.
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Discussion

Even better is when reviewers start talking about other products that they've used in the past, and you're suddenly investigating and comparing capacity, weight and compartment placement between 20-odd messenger bags. Davidy22[talk] 10:03, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm surprised they didn't find any bobcats. Black Hat should have expanded his enterprise beyond eBay by now. Anonymous 17:57, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I do this too, but I mainly look for trends in the bad reviews (DOA, Stopped working after a few months, etc), rather then one bad review spoiling a large number of positive ones. 173.245.55.66 16:55, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

 I was shopping on Amazon for a 25' fiber-optic cable. One cable had mostly 5-star reviews, but one knocked 2 stars off because, in the reviewer's words, "it was a little too long for my needs." They why did you order a 25-foot cable??? Idiot.

The title text seems to refer to some horror movie. Arifsaha (talk) 19:25, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Before I edited it, the explanation contained "For comparison, one can get a decent lamp at IKEA for only about US$15!" We're all geeks here; I can't be the only one who read that as a factorial. (In which case, the Swiss lampmaker's lamps are cheap enough to be well worth the trip.)108.162.216.56 18:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Is nobody gonna add a page about the lamp that ended with a metallic taste in the reviewers mouth and his cats going deaf?