It's my turn to be stumped by an XKCD

I don’t think there are any references here I’m not getting. I’m simply stumped. It’s not just that I don’t get the joke, I don’t even understand what in the comic is supposed to constitute the joke in the first place.

Did you read the mouseover?

Well, yes, and I had already figured out it’s supposed to be something about communication. I just can’t parse what’s going on in the strip.

This morning, I assumed this one was three seperate strips, like the old boomerang comics. Much confusion resulted. But I think the joke is just:

A. It’s ironic that two people tried to warn others of the holes and all three end up falling in.
B. Mocking how terrible and self important human communications can be.
C. In the end, the absolutely clueless fairylander who should be the worst communicator of the lot ends up communicating best.

In other news, I’ve quit my job and am enrolling in a university course in analysing jokes :stuck_out_tongue: .

I lose all track of having any feeling of knowing what’s happening at panel 6.

I got that this was probably what was supposed to be going on overall.

Okay, how does the strip illustrate self-importance?

What makes him a clueless fairylander? I don’t mean that as a debate topic, I mean literally, I don’t comprehend this strip. What is happening that indicates “clueless fairylander”?

The take-home message: It’s easier to show someone what you mean than tell them. Especially if the person you’re trying to tell doesn’t listen real well.

Okay, Kindergarten level question here, because it appears that is where I need to be:

In panel two, what does it mean that there’s a thought bubble over person B which contains an image of person A posed as he is currently posed in the “actual” world in that panel?

I had to go to the forums for this one too.

Hat Guy sees hole to the left. He goes to warn Hair Guy about the hole, but poor communication leaves Hair Guy understanding that Hat Guy is upset, but not about what. Hat Guy walks off annoyed by Hair Guy’s confusion and complains about it to Girl, but Girl is more interested in warning him about the hole to the right (in the same manner in which Hat wanted to warn Hair). They both walk off confused and annoyed. Girl meets Hair Guy (who inexplicably becomes Bald Guy) and commiserate about Hat Guy being annoying. They walk off, and all three fall into the holes that each was trying to warn the others about but nobody was listening.

Epilogue: Beret Guy sees a hole, takes Bald Guy to see it, and Communication Happens.

This in conjuction with the alt-text (“Anyone who says that they’re great at communicating but ‘people are bad at listening’ is confused about how communication works.”) suggests that the point is to establish that the onus is on the communicator to explain well just as much as it’s on the listener to pay attention.

Honestly I think it’s really freaking opaque. (On consideration this may also be the point of the strip, as Randall could easily have picked a better method of communication.)

That’s to show B is more concerned with A’s agitation than with A’s reason for the agitation.

Thanks Bosstone it has become much clearer to me now.

I’ve said before: My interlocutor’s failure to understand is identical to my failure to explain.

This is a tough one.

So, the dude with the square hat sees a hole
He tries to tell a dude with hair about it
Dude with hair can’t understand him
Dude with square hat leaves. Meets a girl
Dude tells her about the dude with hair. She tells dude with a square hat about a different hole
Girl meets dude with hair and they walk off, talking about the dude with the square hat.
They walk into the first hole.
Dude with the square hat walks into the second hole
…ugh, I’m exhausted.
Anyway, it’s kind of a shitty comic (today).

Bosstone does a better job than this and makes an intriguing hypothesis that Randall intentionally made this confusing to further make his point. I’d say that’s reaching for 99% of comics, but that’s actually possible for Randall.

  1. Hat man: “Hey, there’s a hole there”
  2. HM: “hey man, there’s a hole there” Squiggly Hair Man: “here comes a guy”
  3. HM: “a big hole is over there” SHM: " He seems excited"
  4. SHM: “hey, the guy is walking away” HM: “that guy seems clueless”
  5. HM: “SHG is clueless” Walking woman: “there’s a hole up ahead”
  6. WW: “HM seems clueless” HM: “WW will meet SHM”
  7. SHM: “how about that HM” WW: “How about that HM”
  8. SHM: “did you see HM?” WW: “I saw HM”
  9. SHM: “He’s some HM” WW: “yes”
    10-12) SHM and WW fall into hole, as does HM
  10. Beret Guy: “hey, a hole”
  11. BG runs from hole
  12. BG “Let me show you something” Roundheaded Kid “here comes BG”
  13. RHK “what does BG want?”
  14. BG: “look at the hole”
  15. BG and RHK “That’s a hole all right. Better not step in it”

OK, that was way too much work…

It means that Guy In Hat is completely failing to get his message across. All Guy With Short Hair is getting is ‘Guy In Hat is kinda crazy’. So Guy In Hat stalks off thinking Guy With Short Hair is an idiot, and Guy With Short Hair wanders off thinking Guy With Hat is crazy.

So, Guy In Hat meets Girl…she tries to warn him of the hole, he tries to tell her about Guy With Short Hair ignoring his warning about the other hole. They talk past each other, and stalk off thinking that the other one’s an idiot who won’t listen. Girl meets Guy With Short Hair, they talk about how Guy In Hat is a loon…and they both fall in the hole. Guy In Hat falls in the hole he failed to hear Girl warning him about, since he was so busy trying to warn her about the one on the other side, while talking about the idiot who wouldn’t listen.

All 3 of them are crappy communicators, who fail to get their point across, or listen to what the other one might be trying to tell them. (Communication is a two way street, after all.)

So, now Guy In Beret meets Bald Guy. He skips the whole warning, and goes with ‘let me show you something’…which leaves Bald Guy a bit confused about what Guy In Beret is planning at first, but clearly he gets the point across well enough that Bald Guy follows. And then he shows him the hole that nobody else noticed, thus communicating well, if not the same way as everybody else was trying.

On point B, what Bosstone said about them talking about the people, not the problems.

On Point C, the guy with the beret is a recurring character. see here, here, and here, for example.

Story about confusing communication is confusing. It’s a, I say, it’s a joke, son.

In the “why didn’t I get it?” post mortem, I can’t shake the feeling that part of the problem is that I think it’s more likely the listeners aren’t listening well than that the speakers aren’t speaking well–since the message is an extremely simple one to get across.

If it’s such a simple message and the recipient still doesn’t get it, I think the onus is on the speaker to revamp their message.

Thus Guy In Beret’s switching to ‘let me show you something’.

I disagree. Some things are as clear as can be. “There’s a hole in the ground in that direction so you should be careful” is definitely clear enough in the scenario in the comic. And the speech balloons in the cartoon suggest that’s exactly what the person is saying.

But the other person doesn’t pick up on it. So either the other characters are all idiots, or for some reason, the message isn’t getting across.