https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Jefoid 2026-05-20T18:30:39Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.30.0 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1305:_Undocumented_Feature&diff=55476 2013-12-18T13:47:22Z

<p>Jefoid: /* Explanation */</p> <hr /> <div>{{comic<br /> | number = 1305<br /> | date = December 18, 2013<br /> | title = Undocumented Feature<br /> | image = undocumented_feature.png<br /> | titletext = And it doesn't pop up a box every time asking you to use your real name. In fact, there's no way to set your name at all. You just have to keep reminding people who you are.<br /> }}<br /> <br /> ==Explanation==<br /> {{incomplete|Incredibly short}}<br /> Cueball (presumably) has found a secret support chatroom. Eventually, the comic comments on how nothing is forever, but eventually subverts this by attacking Facebook's video ads that had been announced the day just before the release of the comic.<br /> Over years he and the other members of the chatroom become friends in their secret hideaway. The chatroom seems to serve no purpose other than perhaps being some sysadmin's source of entertainment. <br /> Cueball/the narrator then develops an existential outlook, contemplating the relatively short life of the chatroom server and also the lives of its small group of users.<br /> <br /> The fact that it has no video ads or even names for its users is a feature of the simpler times of the internet.<br /> <br /> The title text expands on this by mentioning the pop-ups on Youtube asking for your channel/user name. Youtube would like to make you use your real name. On Facebook you're supposed to use your real name anyway. Based on the final frame, the comic appears also to be a negative commentary on the recent addition of auto play video ads to Facebook.<br /> <br /> ==Transcript==<br /> :[A support window is shown.]<br /> :An old Windows utility has an undocumented feature. If you open &quot;help&quot; and click on the background, you get dropped into a &quot;support&quot; chat room.<br /> :Support Window: Launching support forum...<br /> <br /> :[An active conversation between two people is shown.]<br /> :Only a few of us ever found it. But we became friends.<br /> <br /> :[Cueball and Ponytail are at computers.]<br /> :We kept launching the program to check in. Eventually some of us were running VMs just to keep accessing it.<br /> <br /> :[Another conversation.]<br /> :As the Internet aged, so did we.<br /> <br /> :[Three question marks.]<br /> :We don't know who runs the server. We don't know why it's still working so many years later. Maybe we're some sysadmin's soap opera.<br /> <br /> :[A group of people are shown in a bubble.]<br /> :It will probably vanish someday, but for now it's our meeting place. Our hideaway.<br /> <br /> :[The bubble is now smaller, and some parts of a web are shown.]<br /> :A life's worth of chat,<br /> <br /> :[More of the web is shown.]<br /> :Buried in the deep web.<br /> <br /> :[A flat landscape is shown with the sun at the horizon.]<br /> :But even if it lasts forever, ''we'' won't. When we're gone, who will remember us?<br /> <br /> :[Cueball and Hairy are shown standing together in a bubble.]<br /> :Who will remember this strange little world and the friendships we built here?<br /> <br /> :Nobody.<br /> <br /> :[An empty bubble is shown.]<br /> :This place is irrelevant. Ephemeral. One day it will be forgotten.<br /> <br /> :[The bubble starts to fade away.]<br /> :And so will we<br /> <br /> :[The bubble has almost completely faded away.]<br /> <br /> :[The bubble is now completely gone.]<br /> <br /> :But at least it doesn't have fucking video ads.<br /> <br /> {{comic discussion}}<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br /> [[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]<br /> [[Category:Internet]]<br /> [[Category:Philosophy]]</div>

Jefoid