xkcd vs. MATT

I am a little upset that this thread has more posts than the PBF one. I think what Russell was trying to say with that comic is that instead of bitching about how much we dislike XKCD, we should instead be talking about how good PBF is.

p.p.s. i think the tar joke is not about it's arcaneness. it's that everyone makes an incredibly simple, frustrating mistake about the simplest aspect of tar, every time they use tar without checking, i.e. "tar cvf directory/ tarball.tar" when they mean "tar cvf tarball.tar directory/".

i greatly enjoy the 2 new PBF comix he writes a year xp

every time they use tar without checking, i.e. "tar cvf directory/ tarball.tar" when they mean "tar cvf tarball.tar directory/".

stop, my sides

tbf if that's the joke, i do think that's the funniest xkcd cartoon ever

btw that "2%" thing is really bs - there are some jokes I can think of where I do feel I'm one of the few that gets it (the Todd Rundgren joke on 30 Rock) but I think I do get like 99% of the jokes on the Simpsons or Family Guy and there's no way I'm always in the "2%"...I'm really quite ignorant

pbf guy is working on short films mostly now http://vimeo.com/user4387261/videos

i greatly enjoy the 2 new PBF comix he writes a year xp

i think it's a good testament to the strength of two really good ideas per year vs. two hundred shitty ones (yes I'm talking about xkcd here) in the internet age

There is room in the world for two really good ideas and two hundred tossed-off bits of "this is moderately amusing to the intended audience" per year.

you go to that room I'll be in this room

lol

But yeah I don't think that looking at this as a delivery platform for joeks (rather than quietly ironic ideas) is going to get you much joy.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 22 February 2013 14:03 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that "2%" thing is really bs

is the point. a proper 2 percenter should be accessible to 80 percent plus of the audience but make most of them feel special for getting it. the cartoons already listed do regular meta-gags about 2 percent gags too, so that the 2 percent of the 2 percent can feel good about themselves, and so on, until every viewer is on the inside nice and warm and gently explaining the humour to their partner/room-mate/sibling who is trapped on the outside about to punch them in the balls

^^^ good idea for an XKCD strip, will pitch

also it helps if the joke isn't the weakest shit ever

u guys have weird opinions about what makes ppl feel good

bingo - what kind of upset me in retrospect about the Rundgren joke was the realization that if Todd was as big as the Beatles and the joke was actually quite easy to get, it wouldn't be funny because it doesn't really make sense. I'm sure the Simpsons had a few but I think Arrested Development was probably the king of making jokes that very few people got that were actually really funny.

like when a simpsons writer comes up with a joke that's a bit obscure, i am pretty sure that they put it in because it's funny to them, not as like a secret high-five to their ~special viewers~

is a joke a joke if no one gets it? What is the sound of one hand clapping?

s1ocki if those kind of gags with that kind of motive don't exist then why do the meta-commentary gags in the same shows exist to show us that the writers are aware of what they're doing?

because they find them amusing

if I were into programming & shit xkcd wouldn't make me feel good because it sucks. I might even dislike it more, in a "fuck you for thinking all you had to do was name a thing I recognise" way

I program for a living and I understand most of the dumb obscure xkcd strips but I am surrounded by people who are more amused by Dilbert than Xkcd and I thank the flying spagethhti monster for that

if I were into programming & shit xkcd wouldn't make me feel good because it sucks. I might even dislike it more, in a "fuck you for thinking all you had to do was name a thing I recognise" way

^^^ this might be part of the cause of the bile tbh. when we recognise ourselves as a potential member of the target audience then get all radge because we feel all misrepresented.

but over-analysis isn't hitting the exact spot here. i guess the closest thing to what i mean is "everything about his tone feels super douchey"

I might even dislike it more, in a "fuck you for thinking all you had to do was name a thing I recognise" way

Again, that's never what's going on there.

never.

Again, that's never what's going on there.

this is true, there's usually a Cathyesque joke about whatever the subject is. xkcd's jokes are harder to get than Garfield's but as a whole they're about equally as funny so the "recognition" bit is a big part of it.

as a comics nerd rather than a computer nerd, i feel that anyone who tolerates the pisspoor 'drawing' on xkcd is helping to kill an artform i love

I'd say that most of the time what I object to is it being consistently really really really super lame and unfunny, but yeah every glimpse I get of this guys's weltanschauung just makes him seem like a prick. Random example:

http://xkcd.com/915/

and there are way more egregious examples all over this thread, that was literally the 1st random one I clicked. Fuck this smug prick imo

doesn't give a fuck about wine; probably has way too many opinions about file formats.

this was the first random one I got

http://xkcd.com/922/

its better than the one you got for virtue of not having a thousand fucking words in it but I couldn't be less clever than this if I tried!

jesus, the mouseover text! GET A BLOG, NO ONE CARES

xp to the 1st random: I dunno, you could've picked a setting where the smug guy won, that one seems pretty solidly ILX opinion.

I've looked at the second one now - are you guys fucking with me by specifically picking ones that would fit in well here?

for a dude who's got a huge boner over what an amazing world this is to explore, he seems pretty closed minded about stuff. unless it's his world that he wants everyone to explore. i need to do myself a favor and never read these comics again.

Okay, that is definitely projecting - he is nuts about nearly anyone who geeks out about things, he's just not convinced that the stuff other people feel he must geek out about (EG wine) is as important as his stuff, or anyone else's stuff. I mean, this isn't exactly subtext!

wait no - not "is as important as", "is much more important than"

Naw its clearly the guy doesn't want to hear someone talk about Fight Club cause its a big dumb shouty fighty movie for bros -- and he is most certainly NOT a bro! (If he were like 10 years younger he's probably be a brony tho)

it's not about his opinions about fight club/connoisseurdom so much as his unshakeable belief that his ~insights~ about these things are so fascinating that he needs to get up on his lectern. Also in the first one there's the satisfaction he seems to take in ignorance/missing out on stuff. Enjoy your shitty wine dude

xxxp exactly

first random one i got no lie

http://xkcd.com/451/

i think i get it now. XKCD:programming nerds :: The Big Band Theory:sci-fi nerds

smh xp

oh that's so clever! he sees thru all that mumbo jumbo language that philosophers use!

ok, xkcd wins, he's better than everyone. someone should email him and tell him he can stop writing comics.

btw I've read more xkcd today than I have in like the last 5 years. need to get off this thread!

even better, he could have drawn a picture of a bog roll and labelled it "English degrees - please take one"

also "xkcd" is really annoying to type

i dont know if that comic is more or less infuriating than this

http://xkcd.com/162/

haha "my hobby is shitting on academics who don't use numbers"

Alas, poor Matt

was just gonna say, all this negativity is getting me down now so to get back to the thread premiss:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02483/170213-MATT-ST-web_2483363a.gif