3133: Dual Roomba

2025-10-25T02:53:08Z

2600:1700:721:69CF:6CC2:92DF:A4AF:729B: C’mon. You can’t leave the word “only” out of that sentence!

{{comic
| number = 3133
| date = August 25, 2025
| title = Dual Roomba
| image = dual_roomba_2x.png
| imagesize = 679x272px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I tried uploading it to a household appliance porn site I found, but apparently their content is limited to only fans.
}}

==Explanation==

A {{w|Roomba}} is a small household robot that was designed to clean floors. To do so, its underside is equipped with brushes and vacuums to clean the floors. Roombas are generally not meant to clean anything other than floors, but Cueball has his Roombas clean each other when they get dirty (as opposed to the simpler solution of cleaning the Roombas by hand).

When Cueball demonstrates his Roombas cleaning each other to White Hat, White Hat remarks that the cleaning Roombas look sexually suggestive. The term "{{w|Not safe for work}}" (NSFW) describes material, like pornography, which may not be appropriate for a general audience, and in particular the kind of workplace internet browsing that would normally be particularly discouraged because it's likely to offend colleagues and/or violate workplace policies regarding such offense. While the Roombas don't look at all like sexual organisms, their interaction evidently reminds people of sex, as they are going back and forth across each other's surfaces and change positions in the middle of it. When one Roomba is cleaning the top of the other, it looks like {{w|doggy style}}; when it's cleaning the bottom, it looks like {{w|missionary position}} or {{w|69 (sex position)|69}}, depending on the orientation of the front and back.

Cueball says that the {{w|YouTube}} video that he posted about this trick was demonetized, meaning that the video is not allowed to generate ad revenue. This normally happens to NSFW videos, such as those with NSFW content or a large amount of profanity.

One popular monetized pornography (porn) site is called {{w|OnlyFans}}. The title text says that Cueball tried to upload his video to a porn site dedicated to "household appliances," but was unable to because its content was limited to only {{w|Fan (machine)|fans}}. This is a play on words; for the real OnlyFans site, "fans" is short for "fanatics," rather than mechanical fans. A site dedicated to household appliance porn would be an example of [[Rule 34]] (if you can imagine it, there is porn of it). The same play on words has already been made in [[1378: Turbine]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball holds a finger up in front of White Hat. Behind Cueball, to the right, there is a stationary Roomba on the floor.]
:Cueball: The Roomba keeps my floor clean.
:Cueball: But what do I do when the '''''Roomba''''' gets dirty?

:[In a frame-less panel White Hat looks over Cueball's shoulder as he has turned and gestures towards two Roombas on the floor. The new Roomba is climbing up a ramp on to the first, still stationary, Roomba. Small lines behind the climbing Roomba indicates movement.]
:Cueball: Simple:
:Cueball: I got a second Roomba and a ramp, so they can clean each other.

:[White Hat looks on as Cueball kneels down to flip the first Roomba over. He turns it on so it begins to move even though it is turned over, this is indicated with motion lines. The ramp is next to it, and the other Roomba is next to the ramp, now that one is stationary.]
:Cueball: After the tops are clean, I flip one of them over so they can clean each others’ undersides.

:[Cueball and White Hat are now watching the Roombas clean each other. The second Roomba has used the ramp behind them to climb on top of the first. Both of them are wiggling as indicated with several motion lines around them.]
:White Hat: There’s nothing NSFW about this, and yet it’s the most NSFW thing I’ve every seen.
:Cueball: Yeah, my YouTube DIY video about this got demonetized.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:Roomba]]
[[Category:Sex]]

3128: Thread Meeting

2025-10-25T02:28:37Z

2600:1700:721:69CF:6CC2:92DF:A4AF:729B: Fixed grammar

{{comic
| number = 3128
| date = August 13, 2025
| title = Thread Meeting
| image = thread_meeting_2x.png
| imagesize = 399x425px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hey, so did you ever finish your video series about Cassie and the caterpillar morph? I loved the first three, but never ... no, sorry, I get it, this isn't the place. Sorry! Sorry.
}}

==Explanation==
Many people have different sets of acquaintances from different parts of their lives, and there's not much overlap. For instance, they have colleagues at work and friends from different hobbies. People encountered in online forums are often very separate, since they may be anywhere in the world and even have quite differently eclectic tastes that they never mention. People find it surprising when there are overlaps in unrelated spheres.

In this comic, NorthLakeKayak and AntaresMike are two participants in an online thread (presumably about boating, or maybe specifically kayaking). NorthLakeKayak recognizes the username AntaresMike as also used by someone he remembers from a different forum about {{w|Animorphs}}, and apparently not a likely username to have [[1963: Namespace Land Rush|been independently claimed]] by someone else.

As children, the most striking example of this type of compartmentalization is that {{tvtropes|TeachersOutOfSchool|we think of teachers as only existing in school}}. They're actually people with real lives (as also referenced in [[2808: Daytime Firefly]]), but we find it extremely weird when we encounter them in some mundane place outside school, like at a restaurant or store. The comic makes the point that encountering the same person in two unrelated online forums is analogous to this.

This strip shows NorthLakeKayak excitedly identifying AntaresMike, and referencing the Animorphs forum, then appearing to realize that's {{w|off topic}} for the forum, and awkwardly trying to transition back to discussion of kayaks. The title text continues these themes, presumably within the same forum thread, specifically wanting to discuss a video series AntaresMike had done. This is followed by a correction (either self-censoring or in response to an unseen reply) with apologies that "this isn't the place" to discuss such things.

Very often, the culture/rules of a particular forum will encourage relevance to the forum's ''{{w|raison d'etre}}'', at least in its main threads, and fellow users will get to know all about their on-topic obsessions but usually only see hints of other individuals' alternate pastimes and hobbies. Additionally, it's possible that AntaresMike prefers to keep their interest groups separate. Animorphs fandom is a particular niche and nerdy interest that some people would hesitate to discuss it around people who aren't part of the fandom, either out of embarrassment, or out of fear of boring people. If that's the case, AntaresMike might not appreciate having those interests discussed in front of a kayaking forum. If the forum has a {{w|Private Messaging}} feature, this off-topic personal discussion could be taken there. Conceivably, the message from the title text ''was'' taken 'off-thread', but the author still finds their own excited tendency to blur the boundaries between subject matter embarrassing.

The alt text references ''Animorphs #19: The Departure''. In this book, Cassie, a girl with the power to transform into animals, {{tvtropes|ShapeshifterModeLock|is trapped as a caterpillar}} after she exceeds the two hour limit on morphing. The video essay likely focuses on this book because it contains elements that stand out among the series, such as that the caterpillar form can uniquely "reset" its morphing time limit by metamorphosizing into a butterfly, or that it introduces the recurring character Aftran, a former member of the Yeerk Empire who chooses to defect and start a peaceful resistance group.

==Transcript==
:[A portion of a thread in an online forum is shown. It has one post and a reply to that post.]

:[First post:]
:[Stylized A avatar] '''AntaresMike'''
:[To the right of AntaresMike's username are a grayed-out star, plus sign in a circle, and illegible text in a box.]
:You could also check out <u>this</u> kayak model. I attached a motor to mine, and it's a little bit of a kludge but it works great.
:[Below the first post are grayed-out icons of a word balloon, two links from a chain, an arrow, and illegible text.]

:[Reply (indented with a line connecting from AntaresMike's reply to NorthLakeKayak's):]
:[Cueball picture avatar] '''NorthLakeKayak'''
:[To the right of NorthLakeKayak's username are a grayed-out plus sign in a circle, and illegible text in a box.]
:Oh, hey, AntaresMike! I know you!
:Honestly I didn't realize you existed outside of the Animorphs fandom. I haven't seen you in forever!
:Uh. So. How are you doing?
:Kayaking, I guess.
:Anyway yeah that model is great.
:[Below the reply are grayed-out icons of a word balloon, two links from a chain, an arrow, and illegible text.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Running into someone on a thread who you know from a totally different part of the Internet feels weirdly like running into your teacher in a store.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Animorphs]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3133: Dual Roomba

3128: Thread Meeting