713: GeoIP

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GeoIP

Title text: 'Meet hot young singles in your mom's basement today'? Man, screw you, GeoIP.

Explanation

GeoIP is a service that converts IP addresses to their respective location on the Earth. This is done by looking up the IP address in a database maintained by various internet service providers. Advertisers often take advantage of the Jones effect by creating localized ads which misleadingly appear to be specific to your location, but are often simply stock photographs with the name of the nearest town superimposed on top.

The comic satirizes this phenomenon. The International Space Station (ISS) has a high speed data downlink, but no direct connection to the internet. But here, Cueball trolls the advertisers from on board the ISS, by inserting his actual location on low Earth orbit into the database under that IP address. He proudly presents his result to Ponytail where the advertisements claim that there are "local girls" (one of whom vaguely resembles Danish) in low Earth orbit; a distance of roughly 420 kilometers above the Earth surface, and thus at least that far away from all other girls in the world if they are not on the space station (or a nearby spacecraft, such as one bringing supplies to the space station). One of the girls' slightly tilted image may indicate that she is in zero gravity, rather than standing on the ground, lending some credence to the idea that she really is "in low Earth orbit".

The title text shows GeoIP has become so accurate that it can now pinpoint the user's location to his Mom's basement. In United States, an adult living with his parents is considered shameful for that person, since it means that the adult does not have a job and cannot support themself. The ads are typically of the form -- "Meet hot young singles in <user's location>" where the <user's location> part is filled in from GeoIP. In this case, the GeoIP is so accurate that it not just identifies that user is in his parents' house, but it also pinpoints the location that he's hiding in the basement, perhaps because he does not want to be seen by people visiting his parents. Thus GeoIP is unknowingly shaming the user by reminding him that he is in his mom's basement, and hence the "Screw you" response. However, this would also prove the false nature of these advertisements, as the user is unlikely to have not noticed any hot young singles currently sharing his mom's basement.^{[citation needed]}

Transcript

[External view of the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting the blue Earth below, shown with white clouds as stripes below and black sky above. Dialog, written in white on the black sky, comes from within the ISS.]

Cueball (inside the ISS): Yes!

Ponytail (inside the ISS): What?

Cueball (inside the ISS): I got our downlink into a GeoIP database.

[Internal view of the satellite, Cueball and Ponytail are floating weightlessly around, Cueball is at a laptop style computer mounted to the wall. They are in a white room, with black around, but due to being weightless in space, the room is turned on edge as to not give any semblance of a given up/down direction.]

Ponytail: Why?

Cueball: To mess with advertisers. Check it out.

[A zoom in on the computer screen is shown, it shows an ad on a pink background. The ad has a heading and then shows two photos of long haired girls in sexy poses each with captions below and a labeled button at the bottom. The location (as messed up by Cueball) is written in gray, the rest of the text is in black, to indicate that this part of the text has been inserted in the ad based on the location.]

Meet local girls in

Low Earth Orbit

tonight!

Tanya, 18

Amber, 19

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Discussion

The title text is more than hyperbole: In the United States, if someone is "living in their mom's basement", it implies they can not or will not get a job allowing them to move out. i.e.: they are a loser. The resultant weak response "Screw you, GeoIP" seems to push that depiction even further. 173.245.56.186 23:11, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't get this. The title text goes "Meet hot young singles in your mom's basement today?" Not their. Isn't this another "yo' mama" joke, simply implying that your mama has hot young singles in her basement?Mumiemonstret (talk) 08:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I think it just means that you can do the same trick on *your* IP, just replacing the string "low earth orbit" with "your mom basement". MGitsfullofsheep (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I think this means that your mum is the hot young single in her basement... 141.101.98.241 12:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes nothing hyperbole here. It is just another of Randall's many your mom jokes and can be insulting in almost anyway you think about the sentence. Have tried to change the explanation of the title text according to this. --Kynde (talk) 21:28, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think this is a "Your Mom" joke. I agree with the first comment. It is simply that GeoIP has gotten so accurate that it can now pinpoint the user's location to his Mom's basement. An adult living in his parent's house is termed shameful in US as it means that the adult does not have a job and cannot support himself/herself. That is why he's hiding in the basement in the first place, instead of it just being 'Mom's house'. The ad is usually like this -- "Meet hot young singles in <user's location>" where the <user's location> part is filled in from GeoIP. Clearly, there are no "hot young singles" in his Mom's basement and it feels like GeoIP is unknowingly shaming the user by reminding him that he is in his mom's basement, and hence the "Screw you" response. 199.27.130.216 00:54, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

But it's your mom's basement, so that suggests you are online dating with a close relative? I don't understand it. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 20:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No that is simply GeoIP being fooled just like the ISS entry being put in. If someone living his his/her mom's basement got that ad, they already know there is no hot young girls in that area otherwise he would not be online trying to find close hot young girls. 108.162.216.166 13:38, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The title text is saying that GeoIP is very accurate, and, just like it "assumed" that there were "local girls" in low earth orbit, it "assumes" that there are local girls in "your mom's basement", even though there are actually none.TaperingBirch (talk) 14:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Is it just me or do the girls look like they're floating in zero gravity? Tbodt (talk) 00:13, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

420??? 🌿 🌿 🌿 “in low Earth orbit; a distance of roughly 420 kilometers above the Earth surface” 42.book.addict (talk) 03:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

It varies (like "413 perigee to 422 apogee" frequent orbital variation, with periodic decay/reboost over time), but yes. Hubble is at ~540km up, and Iridium sats are at 780ish. LEO is arbitrarily defined as up to 2000km, but usage is skewed to the lower end of the not-totally-scraping-the-atmosphere range, including all manned space-stations (and all manned missions that aren't trans-lunar) of past and present. 141.101.99.43 03:54, 8 February 2024 (UTC)