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{{work}}{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd''|noerror}}
[[File:xkcd-compiling-resize_4449.png|link=http://xkcd.com/303/|frame|'Are you stealing those LCDs?' 'Yeah, but I'm doing it while my code compiles.']]
{{quote|''Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics [[Hard on Soft Science|(which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).]]''|The disclaimer at the bottom of every ''xkcd'' webpage}}
'''''[http://xkcd.com xkcd]''''' is a [[Stick Figure Comic]] by Randall Munroe. It is a gag-a-day [[Web Comic|web comic]], and generally does not have a continuing plotline or continuity (though there are occasional short story arcs). Many of the jokes are based on math, physics, [[UNIX]] and [[Memetic Mutation|Internet memes]], as well as romance and sex.
Originally a relatively unknown set of personal sketches and doodles, it grew in popularity in 2006 when other webcomics (such as ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'') began linking to it. However, it was when Randall posted a "[http://xkcd.com/195/ Map of the Internet]", and said map was subsequently [http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/11/1150241 featured on Slashdot], that xkcd's popularity truly erupted. Since then, it has been among the most well-known of webcomics.
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There are other recurring characters in the same social circle -- e.g. the [http://xkcd.com/220/ dark-haired] [http://xkcd.com/625/ existential nihilist] -- but most of them are less distinctive.
Has mentioned [http://xkcd.com/609/ the original TV Tropes wiki]. The wiki has returned the favor, taking many
''xkcd'' is part of the documentation for ''goto'' on the [http://fi.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.goto.php PHP website], and was mentioned [https://web.archive.org/web/20150326223351/http://asset.soup.io/asset/0453/8747_0991_800.png as a ticket in a changelog]<ref>For those curious, [http://xkcd.com/619/ here's #619]</ref>.
Numerologists take note: adding up the numerical values of the title's letters yields a sum of [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|42]]. Coincidence? ...[[Subverted Trope|Yes]].
On July 11, 2007, ''xkcd'' became the first web comic website to be archived by the Library of Congress.
[[Webcomics Long Runners|Reached one thousand comics]]<ref>As there was no comic #404 due to an [[In-Joke]], the actual 1000th comic is the 1001st as opposed to the milestone one</ref> in January 2012. As the above-mentioned main character says, "Wow - just 24 to go until a big round-number milestone!"▼
In 2012, ''xkcd'' launched a [[Spin-Off]] blog/column called ''[http://what-if.xkcd.com/ what if?]'' in which Monroe addresses serious (but frequently off-the-wall) questions about science with a combination of surprising rigor and thorough tongue-in-cheek, along with illustrations in his trademark art style (don't forget to hover your mouse over them all).
▲[[Webcomics Long Runners|Reached one thousand comics]]<ref>As there was no comic #404 due to an [[In-Joke]], the actual 1000th comic is the 1001st as opposed to the milestone one</ref> in January 2012. As the above-mentioned main character says, "Wow - just 24 to go until a big round-number milestone!"
Strip #1190, [https://xkcd.com/1190/ "Time"], won the 2014 [[Hugo Award]] for Best Graphic Story (beating out ''[[Girl Genius]]''). At over 3100 frames, it took months to post fully... and it is not the type of story you might think it is at first.
{{tropenamer|page=xkcd}}
* [[Asbestos-Free Cereal]]
* [[Know Your Vines]]
* [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys]]
{{tropelist|Tropes used in (or by) ''xkcd'' include:}}
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* [[Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder]]: [http://xkcd.com/57/ 57: Wait For Me]
* [[Acceptable Targets]]: In-universe, string theorists, liberal arts majors, [http://xkcd.com/610/ 610: Objectivists] (and [http://xkcd.com/1049/ again] at 1049), [http://xkcd.com/590/ 590: typographers] and [http://xkcd.com/114/ 114: computational linguists]. Also, [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs|Velociraptors]].
* [[Affectionate Parody]]: [http://xkcd.com/141/ 141: Parody Week], whose strips don't really make fun of anything and, in some cases, could actually have been used by the regular cartoonist except for the artwork. It turns into a deconstruction of parody with the author halting his [[Megatokyo]] parody because he feels sorry for the writer. The author also stops a later [[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]] parody because he respects the writers too much (with the respect transitioning to [[Ho Yay]] and then [[Slash Fic]] before he finishes.)
* [[Aggressive Categorism]]: [http://xkcd.com/385/ 385: How It Works].
{{quote|'''Guy to Guy''': Wow, you suck at math.
'''Guy to Girl''': Wow, girls suck at math. }}
* [[
* [[All Just a Dream]]: [http://xkcd.com/806/ 806, "Tech Support"].
* [[All Love Is Unrequited]]: [http://xkcd.
* [[Alt Text]]
* [[Ambiguous Syntax]]: [http://www.xkcd.com/37/ Hyphen] and [http://www.xkcd.com/90/ Jacket]
* [[Anachronism Stew]]: [http://xkcd.com/771/ Discussed. No one will care in the future.]
* [[Analogy Backfire]]: [
* [[Angrish]]: One comic has a father conditioning his daughter's speech centers to shut down when she's upset. [[Hilarity Ensues]] to say the least: [http://xkcd.com/573/ 573, "Parental Trolling"]
* [[Animal Athlete Loophole]]: There's no rule saying a meerkat can't play [http://www.xkcd.com/115/ rugby!]
* [[Animalistic Abomination]]: [https://xkcd.com/1013/ In this strip], "sheeple" - a term normally employed by soapboxers and cranks addressing the "unwashed masses" - turns out to mean "race of underground-dwelling sheep people". [[Be Careful What You Wish For|Do not wake the Sheeple]].
* [[Anything But That]]: Many of the strips revolve around Randall's fear of velociraptors.
* [[Applied Mathematics]]: It's fond of this.
* [[April Fools' Day]]:
** For 2010, they changed the layout so that you navigate through the comics with a [http://xkcd.com/unixkcd/ text interface]. If you typed in 'cat' with no arguments, you'd get {{spoiler|a line of text that reads "[[Cuteness Proximity|You're a kitty!]]"}} There were a lot of [[Easter Egg]]s hidden in there. [http://xkcd.com/149/ 'make me a sandwich'/'sudo make me a sandwich'], emacs, the [[Konami Code]]... [https://web.archive.org/web/20100405025431/http://wiki.github.com/chromakode/xkcdfools/commands the list goes on.]
** And for 2011, all comics went 3D. Also counts as [[Hypocritical Humor]] given [http://3d.xkcd.com/880/ the April Fool's comic itself].
** And for 2012, [http://xkcd.com/1037/ the comic itself] changes depending upon the web browser one views the comic with (as well as various other factors, such as location and operating system, but the web browser is the easiest to view the change with), with at least four different variations in Google Chrome, Windows Explorer, Moxilla Firefox, and Opera.
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** [http://xkcd.com/1021 1021: "Business Plan"] is hand-drawn, like the early strips were.
* [[Art Style Dissonance]]: It's surprisingly smart for its limited art style.
* [[Author Appeal]]: Randall seems to [http://xkcd.com/136/ really], ''[http://xkcd.com/400/ really]'' [http://xkcd.com/584/ like] [http://xkcd.com/598/ cunnilingus], going so far as to create https://web.archive.org/web/20120625232531/http://cu.nniling.us/ a redirect to xkcd itself
* [[Author Avatar]]: The plain-featured stick man. (Sometimes. It can also be just anyone without special features.) Also, [http://xkcd.com/135/ this]
* [[Author Filibuster]]: Quite a few on [[DRM]], for example [http://xkcd.com/488/ here.] Eventually [[Lampshaded]] [http://xkcd.com/511/ here] and [http://xkcd.com/546/ here.] [http://xkcd.com/14/ This one] provides a similar counterpoint, though it's not exactly a lampshade.
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*** Tetris in [http://xkcd.com/724 724] and [http://xkcd.com/888/ 888].
* [[Burma-Shave]]: [http://xkcd.com/491 Found here.]
* [[Butterfly of Transformation]]: This parody right [https://xkcd.com/1336/ here].
* [[Call Back]]: Very popular, especially in the [[Alt Text]].
** In "[http://xkcd.com/55/ Useless]", an early comic, a heart is inserted into various mathematical formulas ending in question marks. It was captioned "My normal approach is useless here." Five years later in "[http://xkcd.com/881/ Probability]", he wrote a strip about a terminally ill
** Another in "[http://xkcd.com/884/ Rogers St.]", to "Little Bobby Tables" from "[http://xkcd.com/327/ Exploits of a Mom]"
** Also, "[http://xkcd.com/724/ Hell]" and later, "[http://xkcd.com/888/ Heaven]".
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** [http://xkcd.com/761/ Can go wrong].
** Also found [http://xkcd.com/909/ here].
* [[Creator Breakdown]]: In 2010 Monroe discovered that his fiancee has cancer. Coincidentally, [http://xkcd.com/1048/ quite a few comics] he wrote afterward touch on the subject - including a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] [https://www.xkcd.com/1928/ in 2017].
* [[Creepypasta]]: Parodied [http://xkcd.com/1023/ here].
* [[Cuteness Proximity]]: Shown in the strip "Cat Proximity", which is the [[Trope Namer]] as well.
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** [http://xkcd.com/693/ Fun seventy years, indeed.]
** [http://xkcd.com/772/ When we said to make it more realistic, we meant the graphics.]
* [[Defictionalization]] - wetriffs.com, mentioned in [http://xkcd.com/305/ a spoof of] [[Rule 34]], is now a real thing. Granted, not terribly detailed. And no, we're not linking to it. <ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081201162017/http://wetriffs.com/ Yes, we are]</ref>
* [[A Degree in Useless]]: According to the [[Alt Text]] here, [http://xkcd.com/764/ anthropology].
** Also, [http://xkcd.com/451/ literary criticism.]
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'''Congresswoman:''' ...You refuse to quarter troops in your house?
'''Black Hat Guy:''' I have few principles, but I stick to them. }}
== F-J ==
* [[Face Palm]]: [http://www.xkcd.com/852/ Here] is an example (last panel).
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* [[Love You and Everybody]]: [http://xkcd.com/442/ I love the whole world.]
* [[Major-General Song]]: "[http://xkcd.com/1052/ Every Major's Terrible]", which is about choosing a course and how the person can't/won't/doesn't want to do any of them. Someone sang the whole comic (with accompaniment) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu1VhsNOwPU here].
** Note that the video was released within ''hours'' of the comic. Say what you will about
* [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]]: the female character.
** On the other hand, most characters in the strip have a strong devotion to making life a little weirder from the start, [http://xkcd.com/325/ including Black Hat Guy.]
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** [http://xkcd.com/24/ This strip] starts out fairly normal. Then the whole world falls apart all of a sudden.
** The small print about "the algorithm" on the home page might also qualify as either an example or a parody:
{{quote|We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.<ref>In context, possibly a reference to the search engine rather than the [[Jeeves and Wooster (novel)|hypercompetent valet]]</ref>. The algorithm is [[Banned in China]]. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus. This is not the algorithm. This is close.
The [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/04/19/billboards/actual story behind that] is as follows: In 2007, some billboards popped up in [[Big Applesauce|New York]] with those sentences on them, as part of an apparent viral marketing campaign by [http://www.ask.com/ ask.com]. However, they apparently didn't finish it; the phrases didn't return anything relevant on Google. Randall decided to exploit this by having the many bloggers in his fanbase post the sentences as links to xkcd.com. He added them to the site itself so that the effort wouldn't be misinterpreted as an attempted [[wikipedia:Google bomb|Googlebomb]]. It worked; if you Google the phrases, the top results are all references to xkcd. }}
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: Too many to fully enumerate. Some examples:
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* [[Selfcest]]: You'd think [http://xkcd.com/267/ this] is going somewhere dramatic, but no.
* [[Self-Deprecation]]: One way to interpret [http://xkcd.com/793/ this strip].
* [[Self-Imposed Challenge]]: A rare non-video game example: [http://xkcd.com/724/ This] strip inspired an actual [https://web.archive.org/web/20130815143646/http://www.swfme.com/view/1046212 Flash implementation] of the game. It's pretty unplayable (that's kind of the point) with the usual Tetris goals, but [http://www.metafilter.com/90888/Theres-also-a-Katamari-level-where-everything-is-just-slightly-bigger-than-you-and-a-Mario-level-with-a-star-just-out-of-reach#3034952 a MeFite] pointed out the game is actually interesting and reasonably challenging if you try to end the game with as ''few'' pieces as you can.
* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: [[Wikipedia]]'s propensity for this is discussed in the strip [http://xkcd.com/739/ "Malamanteau"].
* [[Silent Scenery Panel]]: The occasional landscape drawings.
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*** In the same one, it also has someone asking how long it'll take the flu to reach [[Pandemic|Madagascar]].
** [http://xkcd.com/886/ "Craigslist Apartments"] has a few notable addresses, including one {{color|blue|house}} on [[House of Leaves|scenic Ash Tree Lane.]]
** [http://xkcd.com/696/ Strip Games]. See the [[Alt Text]]? [[
** [[Jerkass|Black Hat]] is based on Aram from ''[[Men in Hats]]'' in many ways
** [[Godel Escher Bach|Hofstadter]] [http://xkcd.com/917/ and his recursiveness].
** [[FoxTrot|Jason
** The [[Alt Text]] of [http://xkcd.com/591/ this strip] is [[Pogo (comic strip)|"We have met the enemy and he is us"]].
** [http://www.xkcd.com/681/ Gravity Wells] has [[The Sirens of Titan|a couple of things in Titan going "weeoooeeooo"]].
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* [[Truth in Television]]: The "Get out of my head Randall!" meme where many of the comics are applicable to the everyday lives of the readers.
* [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life]]: Possibly the [http://xkcd.com/609/ first actual work to use this]?
* [[Twice Shy]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131024062958/http://xkcd.org/642/ This strip]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130923133103/http://xkcd.org/817/ And again].
== U-Z ==
* [[Un Installment]]: [http://xkcd.org/404 404]{{Dead link}}
* [[Unsound Effect]]:
** [http://www.xkcd.com/260/ Draw. Make make. Scoop. Pour.] [[Lightning Can Do Anything|Tie. Rumble. Boom. Crack. Fuse.]] [[Long List|Follow. Detach. Open. Remove. Admire. Examine. Grind. Set. Approve.]] '''[[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Give.]]'''
* [[Up to Eleven]]: The basis of [https://web.archive.org/web/20130923150946/http://xkcd.org/670/ 670].
* [[Unholy Matrimony]]: Hat Guy acquired a girlfriend in a mini-arc, who shares similar interests and is more than a match for him. She comes up again, but slightly more rarely than he does.
* [[Vanity License Plate]]: The tendency of such plates to be owned by pretentious rich jerks is parodied, and [http://xkcd.com/81/ Black Hat Guy claims another victim].
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** [http://xkcd.com/681_large/ She apparently has a deeper gravity well than Saturn.]
* [[You Answered Your Own Question]]: Happens [http://www.xkcd.com/852/ here]
* [[Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal]]: [http://xkcd.com/397/ When] Zombie [[Hard on Soft Science|Feynman]] wants brains after explaining how ''[[
{{quote|'''Person''': Try the physics lab next door.
'''Zombie Feynman''': I said BRAINS. All they've got are string theorists. }}
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{{reflist}}
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{{Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story}}
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[[Category:Webcomics Long Runners]]▼
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