https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=164.40.236.53&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T09:09:12ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=80:_My_Other_Car&diff=2631780: My Other Car2013-01-27T20:06:36Z<p>164.40.236.53: fixed grammar. still not perfect, but better than before.</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 80<br />
| date = March 24, 2006<br />
| title = My Other Car<br />
| image = other car.jpg<br />
| titletext = It's much better than the other one.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
This comic references a popular form of {{w|bumper sticker}} (adhesive stickers which are usually short and wide and are designed to be put on the rear bumper of a car so that those following the car in traffic can read them) which says "my other car is a ____". Sometimes the blank is a fancy car like a Porsche or a Ferrari; sometimes it's an even more expensive transportation like "yacht" or "private jet".<br />
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I don't know what the first of this type of sticker said, but the premise was to jokingly imply that someone driving in a less fancy vehicle was wealthier than they looked, as they could afford fancy car (they simply chose to drive the clunker that day). The designer of the first stickers might even have intended them for serious use by wealthy drivers. The form of sticker ultimately became so well known that the phrase entered the pop-culture lexicon.<br />
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Due to their popularity, these stickers also have been parodied in various ways, like the one [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] has invented here. Randall's sticker is a more "honest" sticker which admits "this IS my other car"; in other words, this is the nicer of my cars. <br />
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This sticker could probably be used on an expensive car to mirror the traditional sticker's use on a cheaper car. However, the car in the strip is a Mitsubishi, which is not a particularly expensive brand. Thus it appears Randall is using the sticker for contrasting purposes: while others would drive a modest car but joke that they have a really nice car at home, Randall's car is modest and, as he noted in the title text, his other car is "much" worse than this one.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[A blue driving Mitsubishi with spoiler]<br />
:Bumper sticker: This IS my other car.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]</div>164.40.236.53