XKCD Isn't Funny - #1483 - Quotative Like

I have to admit a bias as I'm going in here: I hate linguistics, mostly because I used to have a friend who would only talk about linguistics and nothing else. I'm not exactly sure how much that affects my perception of this joke, but I feel that anyone reading should know when something may be affecting my judgement (more than usual anyway). I'd have Andrew review it but it turns out he's too busy working on Half-Life 5.

Now, I've always thought people who use the quotative like are obnoxious, just because every time I can think of, it's been used to tell really stupid, boring stories.
"Ohmygod, the other day my boss was like 'if you don't start acting nice to the costumers, I'm gonna fire you', and I rolled my eyes at him and I was like 'well, listen, if you're gonna fire me, you're gonna lose the hottest person in this store', and he was like 'get out' and I was like 'fuck you, I don't need this', and I stole all the money in the cash register and stabbed everyone in the face"

Speaking of stupid, boring stories, "I found this article on the linguistics of the "quotative like"". I understand not every conversation can be the subject of a major motion picture, but c'mon, silence would be better than that.

I also don't buy that Bald would instantly know what a quotative like is just from hearing the phrase. Reading this comic is the only time I can recall seeing the word "quotative" at all, and I read a decent amount.

The punchline is executed as correctly as it can be under the circumstances, but by the time we get there I just don't care, because we started out in a really stupid, boring way. It's like how track 15 of Sufjan Stevens Illinois is the second-best song he's ever written (best is of course "I Want To Be Well"), but you have to suffer through fourteen whole other tracks to get to it. Alternatively, it's the opposite of how "Live At Domino's" perfectly climax's The Avalanche's Since I Left You, even though everything up to that point and after was also completely worth listening to.