Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Though this comic predates it, there is a meme (also known as Rule 16 or Rule 30 of the Internet) that has traveled through the Internet that there are no girls on the Internet. This comes from a stigma that girls are too stupid to go on the Internet. The puerile nature of the Internet creates a repulsive force because of exactly what Cueball is doing. As soon as anyone claims to be a female online there will invariably be a slew of "tits or gtfo" replies.
Black Hat, while usually a destructive force, and self-proclaimed classhole, stands up for women everywhere. He enlists the help of a Ponytail character named Joanna (and in fact it could be claimed that Ponytail's name is Joanna) to ban Cueball from the Internet if he slips up again. Which he does.
IRC is the acronym for Internet Relay Chat. It is a protocol that eventually evolved into the instant messengers, chat rooms, and XMPP (formerly Jabber) servers around today. With the advent of live-streaming video online, IRC channels are making a come-back as a way for hosts and audiences to communicate with each other in real-time.
An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse that will disrupt electronics from functioning normally. An EMP is an unusual spike in voltage. Small EMPs will disrupt electricity momentarily, larger EMPs are capable of burning out circuitry.
There is no lost love between Randall and people who "jokingly" do something.
- [Black Hat stands in the entrance to a room. The door has been broken down. A surprised Cueball has turned away from his computer to face the remains of the door.]
- Black Hat: Hi. I'm here about the girl who visited your IRC channel last night looking for Java help.
- Cueball: What did you do to my door?
- Black Hat: When someone with a feminine username joins your community and you say "OMG a woman on the Internet" and 'jokingly' ask for naked pics, you are being an asshole. You are not being ironic. You are not cracking everybody up. You are the number one reason women are so rare on the Internet.
- Black Hat: At least, the parts of it you frequent.
add a comment! ⋅ refresh comments!
- [Ponytail enters the room, holding some sort of device.]
- Black Hat: As someone who likes nerdy girls, I do not appreciate this. I'm here to ban you from the Internet. The gal behind me with the EMP cannon is Joanna - she'll be assigned to you for the next year. Try to go online and she'll melt your PC.
- Cueball: Dude, she's hot. Is she single?
- Black Hat: Joanna, fire.
It's a little unfair to say that the "rule", such as it is, exists because internet users believe women are too stupid <sic> to be online. A more accurate reason would be because so many men masquerade as women for various reasons. (Such as extra attention, or as a fetish)
Therefore, someone claiming to be female is met with cynicism online - often with unfortunate results. 220.127.116.11 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I find it amusing that, while ostensibly egalitarian/feminist/what-have-you, this comic's last panel still has Black Hat giving Joanna the order to fire -- for all his high-flown (and largely justified) rhetoric, he still doesn't realize she doesn't need telling.
18.104.22.168 22:28, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
- I see that more because of a boss/employee relationship between black hat guy and joanna 22.214.171.124 19:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
If I ask you to close the blinds, because you are closer to the window, would you assume I think myself superior? Same here, Joanna has the gun, BHG doesn´t, therefore he asks her to do it. 126.96.36.199 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- Furthermore, Joanna seems like something of a soldier type. No matter how much she wanted to, she would not fire unless given the order, lest she incur the wrath of Black Hat. Hppavilion1 (talk) 18:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
Females are often met with lots of males trying to hit on them by private messages in chat or on the main screen no matter the subject content of the chat room. This predatory-like wave of sexual lust will often cause the female gender to use gender neutral sounding screen names to try and avoid this effect. Hence making the internet seen void of females except for porn site spam bots profiles.... The behavior of males have lead to a reaction behavior of females to hide who they are for dread of harassment both online , in gaming and in the geek culture in general.188.8.131.52 04:01, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
So do people who are surprised someone is a girl and don't act like a sexist dick get a free pass? I mean, the answer must be yes, but at the same time XKCD's hyperfocus on some things above all other has often left me, your typical computer enthusiast, in the dark. 184.108.40.206 08:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't see how this remains incomplete; Cueball's actions seem to be accounted for. I have removed the Incomplete tag. --Quicksilver (talk) 19:53, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm surprised no one bothered to mention the title text. I added a short explanation, referring to the "It's okay, I have a black friend" excuse. Feel free to refine it. Dulcis (talk) 17:01, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
I removed the incomplete tag because the reason for this being incomplete was invalid. Dulcis (who added the racist rationalisation argument) was not asserting that the title text was racist but used a racist concept as a simile to explain the title text. Foyfluff (talk) 15:36, 07 January 2014(UTC)
- I agree. Case closed. lcarsos_a (talk) 19:30, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
I would dispute that this comic "pre-dates" the No Girls On The Internet "meme", which I seem to remember being around wayyyyyyyyy before 2007 - maybe even back into the 90s (though there's something tugging at my mind saying it was a post millennial thing born of SomethingAwful or FARK). Unless of course we have citeable evidence for it being birthed after the comic was uploaded... 220.127.116.11 15:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Its kind of funny that the fact that apparently Black Hat smashed the door completely off it's hinges in order to enter the room goes completely without mention in the description or comments, almost as if everyone just presumes it's so common it doesn't even bear mentioning. - Pennpenn 18.104.22.168 23:32, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
- Black Hat has stolen a Russian submarine to get his hat back, flooded a government building with playpen balls as an elaborate prank, and disassembled a double-parked car in order to get its extra parking spot. If you only want to count what he had done predating this comic, his record's still pretty impressive; he has (for example) strapped James Bond to a centrifuge and corrected his scientific knowledge, he can employ the vicious CAREBEARSTARE attack, and he sliced off Cueball's hand for making a stupid/nonsensical joke and then acting smug about it. Kicking a door off its hinges isn't that impressive, in context. 22.214.171.124 04:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)