Talk:2824: Abstract Pickup

... nobody has anything to say? -- Dtgriscom (talk) 02:34, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

self explanatory 172.69.22.144 02:54, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

we just dont like pickup artists, not much more to say - Vaedez (talk) 03:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I do: I think it is weird it is White Hat who performs the pickup-artistry on the abstract painting. Given the character traits, shouldn't we expect Black Hat? --172.64.238.101 12:52, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I get the impression that, while Black Hat has terrifying and misanthropic tendencies, mere pickup artistry is beneath him. He is, after all, a classhole. I think White Hat (also rarely a sympathetic character) is being used because the casual jerkiness and disrespect (even in a slightly surreal scenario) would cheapen Black Hat's brand.Dextrous Fred (talk) 15:03, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

(Got an Edit Conflict with Fred, above, who seems to have said much of what I do, below but snappier..! But resubmitting mine anyway.) I can't see Black Hat trying to neg a painting. And though BH's SO is notably familiar with and skillful in negging, I don't see it as being BH's MO. Even to make people's life a misery (and it seems a different kind of misery-making thing to nerdsniping or otherwise messing with everyone's heads... somewhat too personal, at least when not already personally provoked by the target of his actions).

I'm less clear in my head about whether it's actually a White Hat thing, as I don't relate so much to him in any clear way (even as a counter-example), but I think it's his kind of equivalent to White Beret's misunderstanding of the 'sciences' (the whole gamut of soft-to-hard, from how to conduct a businesses to quantum effects), but in the field of the 'arts' or otherwise performance-related fields. (I really must check WH's profile/prior comics, to refresh my opinion on him, see if I'm remembering his general role in xkcd correctly enough.)

In short, though the negging might be thought to deserve to 'dark-shade' the hat of the character, a little, it's actually a victimless aggression (against an abstract target, in more ways than one, which cannot suffer ill effects from any of this verbal psychdrama) and overwhelmingly it's a basic misunderstanding incarnated into an odd (but not 'impossible') behaviour. In neither BH nor WB 'territories' of wrongness. But I could perhaps imagine seeing a generic Cueball doing it, however, or even Rob in his odder moments... 172.70.85.2 15:13, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like we need a grey hat character...172.69.70.151 16:26, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I suspect the US holiday on Monday had a large portion of editors busy with festivities. Editing will likely pickup today! (See what I did there?) Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 12:54, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Should we add a "pickup artist" category? 108.162.241.217 15:57, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I too aspire to be a cute dizzying swarm PotatoGod (talk) 23:00, 6 September 2023 (UTC)