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Nostalgia Content

|< < Prev #3256 (June 8, 2026)

Title text: Gen-Z got a chunk of the Carboniferous, and now all their memes are about how pathetic and small today's dragonflies are.

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Explanation

This is incomplete: This page was created by a Parataxtite. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic is a joke about nostalgia content. In it, a database for creating nostalgia content has accidentally included some Early Devonian features in it. These features, while certainly being old, are far too long ago for anyone to be alive at the time,^{[citation needed]} let alone remember it, hence defying the purpose.

In the example in this comic, Cueball puts Pogs and Tamagotchis (previously the subject of another comic), human creations of the late 20th century, with the Devonian Prototaxites and armoured fish - with the ridiculous age comparison between them part of the joke. (Pogs became a fad in the early 1990s, and Tamagotchis came into production in 1996, while the Devonian period ended 359 million years ago.) Prototaxites (in the original comic, "Parataxites"; see "Trivia", below) were huge fungus-like organisms that lived during the Devonian. The armoured fish Cueball speaks of are from an ancient class known as Placodermi, which appeared during the Silurian and Devonian periods. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish, and the first fish clade to have pectoral fins. Devonian placoderms include Dunkleosteus, Titanichthys, Bothriolepis, and Rhamphodopsis. Silurian placoderms include Xiushanosteus, Anglaspis, and Poraspis. There was also Sacabambaspis from the Ordovician.

The title text shows another example of nostalgia content warped by the accident, where Gen Z memes got a chunk of the Carboniferous in their nostalgia database. During the Late Carboniferous, organisms such as those placed in the genus Meganeura were prolific. Meganeura species resembled today's dragonflies, with the notable difference of having wingspans of up to 65 cm long, which would obviously dwarf modern dragonflies. However, this change happened over millions of years, and in Gen Z's time the dragonflies are as small as ever, hence the ridicule.

Transcript

This is one of 26 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[Cueball is standing, with his arms out, in front of a Prototaxite structure towering over a mossy landscape. To his right, a Tamagotchi (bottom-left) and bottle-cap-like Pogs (top-left) appear. The three pogs that can be seen show a skull with a snake through its eyeball, a figure 8 and a star (three more pogs are also shown, but have obscured pictures).]

Cueball: Who else remembers pogs? Tamagotchis? Vast forests of Prototaxites towering over the mossy landscape as armored fish stir in the deep?

[Caption below the panel:]

Due to a database error, millennial nostalgia now includes a portion of the early Devonian.

Trivia

Cueball had originally incorrectly refered to the huge fungus-like organisms as "Parataxites", but the text in the comic was later corrected to read Prototaxites. "Parataxites" might be an accidental pun/thinko on parataxis, of which Cueball's speech is an example.

As revealed in the Wikipedia article, the taxonomy and ecology of Prototaxites remain in dispute. Prototaxites might have been related to fungi, to algae, or to a lineage of eukaryotic organisms that is no longer extant, and its 8-meter length might have been erect ("tree-like") or prostrate on the ground (or in the water).

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Discussion

Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.

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This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 12:28) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

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yum yum [citation needed]

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

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<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."> More testing: hello ​ does​this​work (yes​it​does) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

‮hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What is this?????????????????????? King Pando (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)‭

Hello 107.1.219.44 19:29, 29 April 2026 (UTC)
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Recent comments:

11 June 2026

		12:25	Talk:3256: Nostalgia Content‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+500)‎ . . [GSLikesCats307‎; 47.248.235.170‎]
			12:25 (cur | prev) . . (+282)‎ . . 47.248.235.170 (talk)
			12:13 (cur | prev) . . (+218)‎ . . GSLikesCats307 (talk | contribs)

10 June 2026

		16:44	Talk:3111: Artificial Gravity‎‎ (3 changes | history) . . (+1,579)‎ . . [Kirinhatchi‎; BunsenH‎; 82.132.237.84‎]
			16:44 (cur | prev) . . (+854)‎ . . 82.132.237.84 (talk)
			14:10 (cur | prev) . . (+421)‎ . . BunsenH (talk | contribs)
			14:00 (cur | prev) . . (+304)‎ . . Kirinhatchi (talk | contribs)

		16:22	Talk:3256: Nostalgia Content‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+1,636)‎ . . [82.132.237.84‎; 2601:241:8002:3e0:e405:a8ca:8b60:4a9c‎]
			16:22 (cur | prev) . . (+1,419)‎ . . 82.132.237.84 (talk)
			04:35 (cur | prev) . . (+217)‎ . . 2601:241:8002:3e0:e405:a8ca:8b60:4a9c (talk) (prototaxites)

9 June 2026

15:13

Talk:Five-Minute Comics: Part 4‎ (diff | hist) . . (+749)‎ . . 82.132.239.2 (talk)

12:33

Talk:Main Page‎ (diff | hist) . . (+226)‎ . . 188.143.49.44 (talk) (→‎Discussion of latest comic)

8 June 2026

		21:09	Talk:3255: Planetary Science‎‎ (4 changes | history) . . (+878)‎ . . [50.45.232.78‎; 135.84.57.36‎; 130.76.187.47‎ (2×)]
			21:09 (cur | prev) . . (+421)‎ . . 50.45.232.78 (talk) (responded to user:Barmar)
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			12:42 (cur | prev) . . (+184)‎ . . 130.76.187.47 (talk)

03:52

Talk:3253: Sunbeam‎ (diff | hist) . . (+324)‎ . . 2601:642:4c00:2191:4b6c:bdbe:918f:b29b (talk) (ugh)

03:21

Talk:3237: Husband and Wife‎ (diff | hist) . . (+124)‎ . . 47.28.76.207 (talk)

		03:08	Talk:Five-Minute Comics: Part 4‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+174)‎ . . [47.141.37.161‎ (2×)]
			03:08 (cur | prev) . . (+79)‎ . . 47.141.37.161 (talk)
			03:08 (cur | prev) . . (+95)‎ . . 47.141.37.161 (talk)

7 June 2026

		18:03	Talk:3253: Sunbeam‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+1,973)‎ . . [89.135.99.233‎; 81.179.199.253‎]
			18:03 (cur | prev) . . (+1,894)‎ . . 81.179.199.253 (talk)
			11:04 (cur | prev) . . (+79)‎ . . 89.135.99.233 (talk)

6 June 2026

		23:03	Talk:725: Literally‎‎ (3 changes | history) . . (+134)‎ . . [81.179.199.253‎; 2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:dcf7:d1e6:4002:1a3‎ (2×)]
			23:03 (cur | prev) . . (+74)‎ . . 81.179.199.253 (talk) (You know I have absolutely no idea what that should be spelling. "Meter but dead"? "Mentor bit dud?" Anyway, I'll let someone else work out what on earth that's about.)
			22:47 (cur | prev) . . (+23)‎ . . 2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:dcf7:d1e6:4002:1a3 (talk)
			22:46 (cur | prev) . . (+37)‎ . . 2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:dcf7:d1e6:4002:1a3 (talk)

22:52

Talk:2115: Plutonium‎ (diff | hist) . . (+150)‎ . . 2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:dcf7:d1e6:4002:1a3 (talk)

22:51

Talk:3140: Biology Department‎ (diff | hist) . . (+179)‎ . . 2605:59c8:22e3:3e14:dcf7:d1e6:4002:1a3 (talk)

		17:57	Talk:3253: Sunbeam‎‎ (6 changes | history) . . (+4,923)‎ . . [Velocifyer‎; Alexei Kopylov‎; 81.179.199.253‎; 82.132.239.79‎ (3×)]
			17:57 (cur | prev) . . (+987)‎ . . 81.179.199.253 (talk)
			16:00 (cur | prev) . . (+232)‎ . . Velocifyer (talk | contribs)
			14:00 (cur | prev) . . (+4)‎ . . 82.132.239.79 (talk)
			13:56 (cur | prev) . . (+121)‎ . . 82.132.239.79 (talk)
			13:48 (cur | prev) . . (+3,338)‎ . . 82.132.239.79 (talk)
			00:38 (cur | prev) . . (+241)‎ . . Alexei Kopylov (talk | contribs)

12:57

Talk:3099: Neighbor-Source Heat Pump‎ (diff | hist) . . (+421)‎ . . 149.40.62.4 (talk) (Dave Barry made this joke in The Taming of the Screw)

5 June 2026