2014-12-29

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1466 - PHONE CHECKING


I wonder which of the XKCD phones she's using to check the website.

This is one of those weird cases where I thought it was funny before realizing I'd misinterpreting it. I read the "Site's down."/"Weird." exchange in the last panel to mean that the site was actually a prank of some kind designed to mess with the type of pricks that are aware of their flaws but don't do anything about them. However, the alt-text and explainxkcd both contradict this.

The actual joke is that the site is down because it's overloaded, and all of the compulsive phone-checkers were keeping it down by refreshing so much, which is actually kind of clever. Once again, XKCD's insistence on expecting the reader to imply a large portion of the joke causes the joke to fail. A simple caption below the bottom panel "due to the amount of people refreshing, the site wouldn't come online until two hours later", etc, would work fine in getting the punchline across.

It's a point in Randy's favor that he shows the two people meeting up in the first panel, it makes the conversation seem a lot more natural than his usual material. The point may have to be taken away for the phone's teleportation in and out of frame.

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