2014-03-21

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1345 - ANSWERS

Don't click on this. It won't make it make any more sense.

I had to check explain-xkcd to even get what he was trying to say here. Based solely on the explanation given there, which as of this date may or may not be correct, this comic is an attempt to display the following joke:

"We don't know why we sleep, but no one loses sleep over it."

In which case... what? How could Randy try to portray that, and come up with the abomination shown above? I can't even explain why this fails to be funny, I can barely explain why it fails to show the joke it's supposedly supposed to be showing.

Okay, so:
Dude: "Humanity is curious."
Chick: "No it's not, we sleep, and don't know why."
Dude: "You're right, I'm wrong."

What type of mental gymnastics was Randy doing when he wrote this? This almost comes off as dadaism, all non-sequiturs and moon-logic. So the girl's response is supposed to in some way contradict the guy's opening statement, based on the guy's reactionary closing statement. The problem is, it doesn't. She might as well have said "You're wrong, mice eat cheese.".

People are studying sleep (thus, the 'no one loses sleep over it' is incorrect), which is mentioned in the alt-text, leading me to believe this comic may have been so incomprehensible that even explain-xkcd couldn't understand it, and honestly, its explanation is the best one out so far. The forums have mostly been ignoring the lack of sense in favor of debating what we know about sleep, and I thought it was just a rehash of #203.

As a second point, the odd way of describing sleep also makes the reader think the joke is just in the way of describing. There's not even a real lead-in to the supposed second half of the joke.

If anyone has a better understanding of this comic, please say so, and I'll add on a bit to this post explaining why the comic sucks at portraying that, too.

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