2018: Wall Art

2018-07-12T01:40:03Z

FunwithFractions: Trivia

<noinclude>:''"2018", this comic's number, redirects here. For the comic named "2018", see [[1935: 2018]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2018
| date = July 11, 2018
| title = Wall Art
| image = wall_art.png
| titletext = At first, I moved from pokémon posters to regular oil paintings, but then these really grumpy and unreasonable detectives from the Louvre showed up and took them all. They wouldn't even give me back my thumbtacks!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ART THIEF - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

''{{w|Pokémon}}'' is a media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, which started with the release of the first video games, ''{{w|Pokémon Red and Blue}}'', for the {{w|Game Boy}} in 1996. Originally released in Japan as ''Pokémon Red and Green'', the game was released in North America as ''Pokémon Red and Blue'' in 1998, 20 years ago at the time of publishing.

This is another comic about getting older. Cueball mentions that he thought Pokémon posters were cool 20 years ago (when Pokémon was first released). Now that he is older, he instead has framed oil paintings, which were what wealthier older folks were displaying on their walls at the times that their teenagers were widely into Pokémon. The punchline comes when White Hat mentions that his oil paintings are just paintings of Pokémon characters, showing that Cueball hasn't completely adopted those older cultures in 20 years of maturing, but does have more money.

The title text mentions that Cueball originally had "regular" oil paintings. However, these appear to have been stolen from the {{w|Louvre}}, a famous art museum in Paris, which houses the {{w|Mona Lisa}}. Thus the "grumpy and unreasonable" detectives which came to retrieve the paintings. It even suggests that Cueball had attached those valuable and expensive oil paintings on his wall by poking through them with thumbtacks.

The comic repeats a common theme of poking fun at how nerds tend to not fully "get" the culture surrounding them, adopting parts but remaining completely blind to other parts. Sharing and reading jokes about this may help people who experience that pattern handle the stress of being unable to completely conform, by bonding over the commonality.

==Trivia==
This is the only xkcd comic so far and likely will be the only xkcd comic ever where the year when the comic was published, in the Gregorian calendar, is the same as the comic's number. This comic is numbered 2018 and was published on Friday, July 11, 2017.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[White Hat and Cueball are standing looking at eleven framed pictures on a wall.]
:Cueball: Getting older is so weird. 20 years ago, I thought thumbtacked Pokémon posters made my wall look so cool.

:[Cueball has his hands raised up in a close-up.]
:Cueball: But these days I feel this compulsion to get framed oil paintings and spend hours carefully arranging them.

:[Return to the setting in the first frame.]
:White Hat: These are all oil paintings of Pokémon.
:Cueball: Look, I’m meeting maturity halfway.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]

84: National Language

2018-06-11T17:13:12Z

FunwithFractions: /* Transcript */ Modified transcript text

{{comic
| number = 84
| date = April 3, 2006
| title = National Language
| image = national_language.jpg
| titletext = She's pretty sharp when provoked.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is about the concept of {{w|Nativism (politics)|nativism}}, which is the view that those who are native to a place should have more rights than immigrants. A frequently expressed view in the U.S. (and in other countries) is that immigrants should learn English, which is the primary language in the United States.

In the comic one character is arrogantly arguing the nativist position. However, the woman next to him interrupts him and says a phrase in the {{w|Cherokee}} language - "Hello, my name is Sarah" - which is an Iroquoian language used by the Cherokee {{w|Native Americans in the United States|Native American}} people. Although Cherokee seems to be a relatively {{w|Cherokee#Origins|young culture}}, it is much more native to America than any European culture, such as that which brought English.

The woman is therefore effectively suggesting a "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" argument that if the Europeans did not have to learn the native language, why should current immigrants learn English? She points out that even the English speakers are immigrants who did not learn the native language. Alternatively, she is saying that the term "national language" has no clear meaning especially in the United States where there is no official language; therefore, the "language they speak there" can be any of the languages spoken in the country: English, Spanish, German, Cantonese or Cherokee, to name a few.

==Transcript==
:This happened to my friend:
:[Cueball 2, Sarah, Cueball, Megan, and Cueball 3 standing in a row]
:Cueball: English should be the national language. These immigrants should have to learn English when they come here.
:Megan: Yeah.

:Cueball: When you go to live somewhere, you learn the language they speak there. English is the language of the land.

:Sarah: Excuse me, but ''osio Sarah dawado.''

:Cueball: What the hell was that?
:Sarah: Cherokee.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2018: Wall Art

84: National Language