1627: Woosh

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Woosh

Title text: It also occasionally replies with 'Comment of the year', 'Are you for real', and 'I'm taking a screenshot so I can remember this moment forever'.

Explanation

Replying to a comment with "woosh" generally indicates that there was a joke, and the commenter failed to recognize it (or they prefer not to recognize it, if the joke is rather obscene) — "woosh" is an onomatopoeia for the joke metaphorically "flying over their head". A bot replying to comments with "woosh" at random would be very confusing, as people would search for the nonexistent joke they missed. This is similar to 559: No Pun Intended.

"Comment of the year," just like the original bot reply, could be taken two ways but both would likely cause confusion. Either the reader takes the "CotY" at face value, implying that the original comment is extremely significant, or as a sarcastic quip, which would give it basically the same meaning as "woosh", suggesting that the commenter had an unoriginal or ridiculous idea.

"Are you for real" implies that the commenter (the bot) doesn't believe that the original commenter is serious.

"I'm taking a screenshot so I can remember this moment forever" either adds an implied air of extreme importance, hilarity or significance to a comment, or sarcastically suggests that the comment was unoriginal, useless, or otherwise unimportant. People who read it might assume that there is a hidden joke or meaning somewhere inside the original comment.

So the point of creating such a bot is for spreading massive confusion, where there wouldn't be any in the absence of the bot's comments.

Transcript

[Online comment thread with text placed next to user pictures in three different levels. The first comment on the first level, the second on the second level and the last four on the same third level. Except for the second comment which is made by a person whose picture is a white silhouette of a human head and shoulders on black background, all the other comments are made by the same person with a picture of a guy with short black hair on white background. Below the pictures and below the text there are some unreadable information (indicated by wiggly lines) for the users name and time stamp etc. of the comments.]

Hairy guy: This video looks fake to me.

White silhouette : Woosh

Hairy guy: Huh? Everyone's acting like it's real!

Hairy guy: If it's a joke lots of people aren't getting it.

Hairy guy: What am I missing?!!

Hairy guy: Answer me

[Caption below the panel:]

Nothing creates more confusion than my bot that replies to random Internet comments with "Woosh".

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Looking for a joke that isn't there sounds a lot like xkcd.com/559. 162.158.2.140 05:43, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Woooosh! 108.162.245.181 05:48, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Woosh { 108.162.245.131 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Woof (Guess my bot still needs some work) 162.158.153.131 08:41, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

woof (i just gave up on it when it said woof. maybe woofbots are the next generation) -- Squishmallow fan (talk) 20:57, 20 April 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If it was a joke video that was never meant to be real to begin with and the commenter didn't realize this, then woosh would actually make sense Figvh (talk)

Woosh173.245.56.65 10:32, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Probably in reaction to a video [1] that gained notoriety this week and raised a big discussion whether is was spontaneous or enacted. Duartix (talk) 11:16, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• You mean [2]? -- Hkmaly (talk) 00:53, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course bots that auto-reply to comments can have problems of their own. Let Reddit's lolpenisbot be a cautionary tale.162.158.152.203 21:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Woosh 141.101.98.38 17:52, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Woosh 141.101.98.38 17:52, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Woosh 141.101.98.38 17:52, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

This comic seems to promote the same behaviour that he criticizes in xkcd.com/481, xkcd.com/810, xkcd.com/1258, and i'm sure others. I've seen a great deal of 'wooshing' in the past couple days, hopefully this disservice to the internet doesn't last.--162.158.152.131 11:12, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Woosh Spongebog (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you for real?199.27.133.41 23:31, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm taking a screenshot so I can remember this moment forever. 108.162.238.76 05:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment of the year Trogdor147 (talk) 01:39, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcdwooshbot/ It now exists. Might we add this as a note on the article? Wolf9400

Maybe in a trivia section? -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 00:22, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Wait, isn't this exactly the reason why explainxkcd.com exists? To look for non-existent hidden jokes in xkcd. 108.162.214.149 10:44, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment of the year.108.162.216.34 20:00, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Woosh 162.158.62.119 16:37, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I think I've found something even more amazing that "woosh" that can confuse people WAY more. Ever heard of 0x10c? Try typing that on a social network like Candid and see what happens. People get so confused. xD --JayRulesXKCD ^{what's up?} 17:15, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

0x10c108.162.242.21 14:28, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

woosh woosh woosh (stops) HeY thERe WaSSuP >;) The sus lol (talk) 20:17, 29 April 2024 (UTC)