1624: 2016
| 2016 |
 Title text: Want to feel old? Wait. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Like 2016, the comic is just a few hours old If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
This New Year comic, the second in a row, uses a common genre of Internet humor, which Randall has used several times before, is an attempt at making people feel old. This is done by mentioning the ages of various things (often movies) which came into existence during their lifetime. Since many people tend to think of anything that they can remember a time before as "new", this often provokes a feeling of age and out-of-touchness.
In this comic Cueball crashed through the roof of a sleeping White Hat's house (note the white hat on the bed) to wake him up, ask him if he want to feel old? and then starts to make such a list of things that are ten or twenty years old, before he is interrupted (before going on to mention even older things).
White Hat is clearly less interested in Cueball's attempts to make him feel old than he is in the fact that Cueball has apparently crashed through his ceiling and woken him early in the morning on New Years day. To which Cueball just replies that 2016 is already hours old and that time is passing. As it is New Years morning White Hat has probably not been in bed too long, and may even be drunk/hung-over, so he is acutely aware that the New Year is only a few hours old, and also that time is passing.
Night at the Museum and Cars are both children's films from 2006, "Hips Don't Lie" was an unescapable hit for Shakira, and the Wii is a Nintendo games console. If you were born in the early-to-mid nineties, these were probably cultural touchstones of your childhood - most people who enjoyed these are now legally adults.
Twister and Independence Day are both disaster movies that were huge box office hits. The Rock probably refers to the action film The Rock, which also came out in 1996, but it could also refer to the the wrestler The Rock, who made his WWF/WWE debut in 1996 (he remains a celebrity to this day, although you may know him as Dwayne Johnson). Pokémon Red and Blue, the first games in the Pokémon series, came out in Japan in 1996 (Americans wouldn't get them until 1998, however, and Europeans had to wait until 1999). "Wonderwall" was perhaps the biggest hit for the band Oasis and remains a favorite of acoustic guitarists to this day.
The title text adds a humorous alternative to suggested ways to feel old - by waiting... Although one would have to wait for some time to experience noticeable results.
Previously there has been two other New Year comics with only the new year used as the title, in 2012 it was 998: 2012 in and in 2014 it was in 1311: 2014. For some reason this only seems to happen in the even years.
Transcript
- [Cueball comes crashing through the ceiling suspended by a rope, White Hat is in bed and appears to have been awoken by the noise sitting up. At a first glance it looks like Hairy, but as White Hat doesn't sleep with his white hat on he has hung it on the back of the bed).]
- *Crash*
- Cueball: Want to feel old?
- Cueball: Night at the Museum, Cars, Hips Don't Lie, and the Wii all turn 10 this year.
- Cueball: Twister, Independence Day, The Rock , Pokémon, and Wonderwall all turn 20.
- Cueball: And -
- White Hat: Oh my God, couldn't you at least have waited until morning?
- Cueball: It's been 2016 for hours! Time is passing!
- White Hat: I am acutely aware.
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This guy looks more like white hat, you can see it hanging off one of the bedposts 173.245.54.58 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- True, I have corrected this, mentioned it in explanation and transcript and also made a note in the wiki code so people who do not read the explanation won't change it without learning of their mistake ;-) --Kynde (talk) 16:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Isn't Wonderwall already 20 years old? Mudri (talk) 11:28, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
- Yes it was from 1995 a mistake by Randall. It was probably first big in the US in 1996 though? If the unpluged MTV version was more famous (?) then it was recorded in 1996. Mentioned now in the explanation. And happy new year to all on explain xkcd --Kynde (talk) 16:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
I feel old because all of those things mentioned (even the 20-year ones) are so much more recent than my own personal milestones and I know that the unsaid 30-year set, at least, would be even better.
Let's see, a sample list for 30 years could include, as one per month: The Challenger disaster; Halley's Comet; Microsoft's IPO; Chernobyl; Short Circuit; Mexico hosts the World Cup; Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson; Castle In The Sky from Studio Gibhli; Desmond Tutu is a Bishop; Reagan and Gorbachev meet (unsuccessfully) in Reykjavík; Iran-Contra; Rutan Voyager's non-stop non-refuelled circumnavigation of the Earth; and, precise date unknown... The Simpsons created!
And 40 years has its interesting points: the Cray-1 created; Apple Computers formed; Concorde flies; as does the (shuttle prototype) Enterprise; Vikings 1 and 2 land; Jimmy Carter nominated; Bob Marley killed; the Sex Pistols swear; the first Laser Printer; The Selfish Gene...
Anyway... Happy New Year, to all. Young and old. 162.158.152.227 20:10, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Simpsons became it's own show on the 17th December 1989. Prior, it was featured on The Tracey Ulman show. The first Tracey Ulman short aired on April 19th 1987. It may have been CREATED in 1986, however.162.158.152.119 01:50, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
I think Mr. Ford and others would dispute that Cars are only 10 years old. While _I_ may have walked to school (in the snow) (uphill (both ways)), I knew others driving back then. :p 108.162.221.33 04:41, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- The Cars may be 40 years old, but even if the FX are lousy by todays standard, "You Might Think" is brilliant as ever. :P 162.158.90.211 13:02, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh man, this was a year ago already! Time really is passing quickly. -- LuigiBrick (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
(This comment thanks to the highlighting of a typographical error, in the main page, by another user. A pity I couldn't wait another four years to make this addition...) The (valid) speculation that Mission: Impossible inspired the wire-dangling entrance is tarnished by it being smashed through the ceiling and otherwise unsubtle. I'd have said it was more inspired by Minority Report, as the first example of a rope-descent intrusion that comes to mind, but that was 2002 (wow... 20 years ago... not actually sure if that feels longer ago or less so, the last couple of years may have done funny things to my sense of time passing... or that might just be me and my own advancing years). No doubt this otherwise fairly standard action-trope existed in the more violent form in plenty of other films from other years ending in a 6, and probably multiple notable instances. (However, the most obvious James Bond example, the earliest I could definitively recall myself, was released in 1967. Darnit.) Still, an interesting idea. 14:46, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
