explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

42: Geico

2017-12-21T02:48:35Z

162.158.255.154: /* Explanation */ Mentioned more golf clubs.

{{comic
| number = 42
| date = November 28, 2005
| title = Geico
| image = geico.jpg
| titletext = David did this
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references a long-running ad campaign for {{w|Geico}} insurance in which a character (different in each commercial) lists a series of horrible events or news, but then caps it off with "but I've got good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico" – news that may be good, but is usually either trivial compared to the magnitude of the preceding bad news, or else is said to the person whom all of the preceding bad news applied to, giving them false hope that the good news was for them. It became a recognizable pop culture phrase. Geico's ad is also mentioned in [[870: Advertising]]

In this one-panel comic, [[Cueball]] parodies the punchline by saving money on his car insurance by intimidation, instead of choosing the best provider.

The title text [[Randall]] attributes this comic to the unknown friend [[:Category:David|David]]. He does the same in [[51: Malaria]] and [[100: Family Circus]]. We can assume (or rather, we can ''hope'') that "this" refers to the act of writing the comic, as opposed to the act of threatening his insurance agent.

A golf club is also mentioned in [[81: Attention, shopper]], and used for similarly socially unacceptable actions.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holding a golf club.]
:Cueball: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by threatening my agent with a golf club.

==Trivia==
*This was the 38th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[35: Sheep]].
**The next was [[38: Apple Jacks]].
*Original title: "Monday's Drawing: Geico"
*Original [[Randall]] quote: "Current mood: :( sick"
**The sad smiley was green with two x for eyes.
**It suggests that he was feeling really bad.
**This is further supported by the fact that he made a reply to the first comment on LiveJournal "hehe, silly".
**His reply: "No laughing, 'less you want some of this too! *hefts golf club menacingly*"
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 38]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:David]]

591: Troll Slayer

2017-10-09T18:31:43Z

162.158.255.154: /* Explanation */ Small changes in spelling and grammar.

{{comic
| number = 591
| date = June 1, 2009
| title = Troll Slayer
| image = troll slayer.png
| titletext = We have met the enemy and he is us.
}}

== Explanation ==
{{w|Stephenie Meyer}} is the author of the {{w|Twilight (novel series)|Twilight novels}}, a series of {{w|vampire}} novels popular with young teens. It is a love it or hate it type of novel, with a large following and a large portion of haters as well.

In the comic, {{w|4chan}}, an {{w|imageboard}}, is featured. Imageboards such as 4chan have the feature to post anonymously. The users of 4chan launch an attack on a Twilight board and Stephenie Meyer asks them to stop. When they refuse, Meyer writes 4chan into her next novel, thereby drawing in a large number of fans of her novel as a counter-attack to what 4chan ran on the Twilight forum. This results in what the original 4chan users consider a ruined imageboard (not that this plan would have any chance of success in the real 4chan, but there's the joke as presented).

The title of the comic is drawn from the internet slang term {{w|troll (internet)|troll}}, which refers to actively attempting to get a rise out of a forum. In this instance, 4chan attempted to troll a Twilight board and Meyer acted against the troll, making her a "slayer" of them. Obviously the pimpled boy she chats with is very dismayed by this result, as there are now so many more vampire-book-fans than computer geeks on 4chan, and they cannot get through with any of their funny/evil plans anymore. There may also be a reference to the famous {{w|vampire slayer}} known as {{w|Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy}}, seeing that Stephenie's main character vampires do not need to be slain, but she then turns on those who tries to do so in real life on the message board.

The pictures used on the two panels showing the 4chan imageboard tells a lot about their users. It is unclear what the text page refers to. And also what it is that [[Cueball]] is standing next to. But a black hat, as shown in the third picture is typical for an internet troll (see the xkcd version of [[Black Hat]]), and also the guy saying {{w|LOL}} is already laughing out loud at you before you read his text. He also LOL's in his comment about the angsty teens that reads the books, and whom he looks forward to trolling.

In the second 4chan panel all four images relate to ''Twilight''. The first picture most likely depicts {{w|Edward Cullen}} and {{w|Bella Swan}} (from the movies) standing with their backs against each other. This person enjoys being anonymous.
The second picture with the text ''Dawnz'' refers, in "plural" form, to the last book ''{{w|Breaking Dawn}}'' which was split into two films {{w|The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1|part 1}} and {{w|The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2|part 2}}. This person wish to know about peoples favorite vampire, exactly the kind of questions the trolls would have mocked on the Twilight board, now infesting their own site. The third picture is of a person (man/woman?) who have tried to dress up like a {{w|goth}} vampire, even commenting on the darkness of the picture. The last picture depicts the cover of the last book ''Breaking Dawn'' with the two chess pieces. This fan seems to be searching for a date around Dallas...

The title text refers to {{w|Walt Kelly}}'s famous {{w|Pogo_(comic_strip)#.22We_have_met_the_enemy_and_he_is_us..22|saying}}. Kelly used it to refer to all of mankind, whereas here it refers to the users of 4chan, by bringing on the enemy of their forum themselves.

==Transcript==
:[A list of post comments alongside pictures on a website. The first picture shows a page from a book/website with a small black picture with a white feature in the upper left corner and text to the right and below it. The second picture shows Cueball in front of three people, with a unclear drawing to the right (is it a canon?). The third picture shows a man with a black hat holding up a sword to the left and a trumpet to the right. The fourth and last picture is cut off in the middle at the bottom of the frame. The visible top part shows a drawing of a mans face from the nose/ears and up. The man has black hair and says LOL].
:Text picture: Hey, let's troll the fuck out of the Twilight boards
:Cueball picture: I'm in. Should be fun
:Man with sword picture: Me too. Signing on now.
:LOL face picture: Lol angsty teens.

:[Stephenie Meyer is shown sitting facing right and chatting at her computer. She get's a reply from the screen. It looks like she actually speaks the lines of text to someone, but she only types it in via the keyboard. This becomes clear in in the next panel where the pimpled boy she talks to obviously types his reply on the keyboard. Across the top border of the frame is a smaller frame with a caption:]
:Hours Later:

:Stephenie Meyer (typing): Hi, it's Stephenie Meyer. Fine, you don't like my books. But please leave us alone.
:Pimpled boy (from computer): Show us your tits.
:Stephenie Meyer (typing): I asked politely. Don't make me get tough.

:[A boy with lots of pimples and black hair is sitting at his computer typing (facing the other way towards Stephenie in the previous panel). He writes his reply on the keyboard and receives a reply from Stephenie coming out of the computer.]
:Pimpled boy (typing): And what, call the internet police? You don't get it, do you? We've been trolling for years. We're all anonymous. There's nothing you can do to hurt us. We're the net's hate machine.
:Stephenie Meyer (from computer): Okay. Just remember, I gave you a chance. <code>*Disconnected*</code>.

:[A page from a book is shown lying slanted across the panel. Some of the text is thus cut off at the edges of the frame. The first eight lines can be read clearly, even though the last letter in both the 2nd and sixth line is partly cut-off. Below that there are four incomplete lines, where only the visible part will be transcribed, but a good guess at the missing text is written in square brackets. Across the top border of the frame is a smaller frame with a caption:]
:Six Months Later:

:Vampires! Book VI

:Edward ran a pale hand
:through his perfect golden-
:bronze hair, then signed
:on to 4chan.org, the darkest
:place on the internet, where
:all his vampire compatriots
:spent their time.
:Suddenly, there was [a]
:[sha]rp knock at the d[oor]
:[?e?] swept in [?]
:[?r?]ing

:[Another list of post comments alongside pictures on the same website as in the first panel. The first picture shows a man with black hair and a woman with long hair standing with their backs against each other (probably Edward and Bella from the books). The second picture is just a white frame with the text Dawnz. The third picture shows a person from the chest and up. The person has black hair and black clothes, with some kind of collar. The fourth and last picture shows two chess piece a large one in front of the other. The picture is shown completely but the text message seems to be more than two lines long, but only the top two lines are shown. Across the top border of the frame is a smaller frame with a caption:]
:Shortly thereafter:

:Two people picture: OMG I love this place it's so edgy being anonymous
:Dawnz picture: Whos your favorite vampire
:Collared person picture: Check out my pic Im so dark just like this site
:Chess piece picture: Any Twilight fans in Dallas want to meet a lonely

:[Back to the boy with lots of pimples now sitting resigned at his computer without typing.]
:Hairy: Oh... Oh God.

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] 
[[Category:Twilight]]
[[Category:Internet]]

495: Secretary: Part 2

2016-02-26T21:53:35Z

162.158.255.154:

{{comic
| number = 495
| date = October 28, 2008
| title = Secretary: Part 2
| image = secretary part 2.png
| titletext = That helmet won't save him.
}}

==Explanation==
Whenever something big happens the news media likes to have at least two things: interviews with people that are the news, and on-the-scene reporters. Even if those reporters are simply standing in front of a building that something happened in, they have to be on-scene. To thwart the media (and probably everyone else), [[Black Hat]] has built a {{w|moat}} around his apartment building. The second reporter is on-the-scene from the Internet, or rather, one of its darkest corners: {{w|4chan}}. In more detail, 4chan is a collection of image boards, which act somewhat like forums, where users go to share images. The different boards are named by their "folder" structure, for lack of a better term. Therefore, the name /b/ comes from its URL: 4chan.org/b/. Pronounced "slash bee" (because the second forward slash is not necessary), /b/ is the "random" board, where anything goes, where anything is the superset of all sets, as in anything. Absolutely. Anything. As in, going more than two seconds without seeing pornographic content or hateful slurs is almost unheard of. /b/ is also the one that gets the most publicity, because it has started most of the {{w|meme}}s [http://knowyourmeme.com/] on the Internet, as well as the birthplace of {{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}. The chaotic nature of the forums explains why the title text suggests that the reporter isn't safe, even though he is wearing a helmet. In fact, a goofy helmet like that is liable to get the trolls on him faster than if he didn't have it.

{{w|Ron Paul}} is a man who is currently a U.S. Representative for Texas. At the time the comic was published, he was running, for the second time, for {{w|President of the United States}}.

A {{w|haberdasher}} is a person who sells small articles of clothing that have been or can be sewed. In modern English a haberdashery (where a haberdasher would work) is a place that sells hats.

Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign did, in fact, use a {{w|blimp}} which was named the {{w|Ron_Paul_presidential_campaign,_2008#Ron_Paul_Blimp|Ron Paul Blimp}}. However, despite their elegant appearance, blimps are not a very fast way to travel.

The images on the board behind the reporter are: The Fonz, /b/, a CD, and Epic Fail Guy, spelling out ABCDEFG.

The title text states that the second reporter (Tom)'s helmet won't help him, though from what, it is unclear as he himself stated he wasn't sure why he was wearing the helmet.

All comics in the [[:Category:Secretary|Secretary]] series:
*[[494: Secretary: Part 1]]
*495: Secretary: Part 2 (this one)
*[[496: Secretary: Part 3]]
*[[497: Secretary: Part 4]]
*[[498: Secretary: Part 5]]

This series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday) and not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.

==Transcript==
:News Anchor: Breaking news—the President has made a nomination to the new post of Internet Secretary. We know little about the man, shown here.
:{Image of Black Hat.}
:Image Caption: Possibly a haberdasher?

:News Anchor: Attempts to reach the nominee at home were unsuccessful.
:Reporter: What the hell kind of apartment has a moat?

:News Anchor: To understand the culture from which he came—and which he may soon administer—we sent a reporter to what we're told is the source of that culture. Tom?

:Tom: I'm coming to you live from the 4chan /b/ board. Despite the tube cloggage, nascent memes are flying fast and furious.
:News Anchor: Why are you wearing a helmet, Tom?
:Tom: I'm not sure.

:[Meanwhile in Ron Paul's blimp.]
:Ron Paul: Ahoy! What news of the blogs?

:Ponytail: Dr. Paul! The President's named his nominee!
:Ron Paul: It's not me?

:Ron Paul: Wait! I remember that guy from the campaign! He's a notorious troll!

:Ron Paul: They mustn't put him in charge. Quick, call the capitol!

:Ponytail: Can't, sir. The tubes just went down completely.
:Ron Paul: Blast!

:Ron Paul: Then we'll go ourselves. Full speed ahead!

:[The blimp advances minutely.]

:[The blimp advances minutely.]

:[The blimp advances minutely.]
:Ron Paul: I said full speed!
:Ponytail: It's a blimp, sir!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ron Paul]]
[[Category:Secretary|02]]
[[Category:Airships]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Talk:1030: Keyed

2015-10-13T02:30:51Z

162.158.255.154: Informed people about the female psyche

Is is just me, or does that explanation make Carrie Underwood sound like one crazy b*tch? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 01:21, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
:''All'' man-basher songs make women seem like crazy bitches. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.114|108.162.245.114]] 03:19, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
::All women who sing man-basher songs ''are'' crazy bitches.

Could this comic explain why Ponytail was at Beret Guy's place of "Business"?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.77|108.162.216.77]] 17:05, 18 March 2015 (UTC)