Talk:369: Dangers

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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https://www.google.com/search?q=%22died+in+a+blogging+accident%22&biw=1366&bih=599&tbs=cdr:1,cd_max:1/10/2008&start=0&sa=N&filter=0 I seem to be incapable of finding any google search results before 10th of January 2008 featuring the phrase "Died in a blogging accident" that is not relevant to this XKCD comic. Weird.108.162.208.177 17:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Google now has 687000 results for "Died in a blogging accident", "can be found on over 10000 web pages" doesn't reflect that, but I wouldn't know which number to use for an edit :) 141.101.92.9 00:28, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I highly doubt the gardening search had anything to do with Spinal Tap. Gardening accidents are common. -- Flewk (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

According to some sleuths on StackExchange, it sadly seems the original "died in a blogging accident" posts no longer exist, as they were posts from a Myspace that is now gone. 172.68.141.190 09:06, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

There aren't any results for 'died in a knitting accident' before Jan 11, 2008. I wonder if there's a similar situation there?


When I attempted to find the two results for blogging accidents, I didn't use the date query feature, and instead narrowed it down by deleting search terms that came up that were usually signs of being influenced by the xkcd comic. However, with this search query: "died in a blogging accident" -xkcd -randall -instagram -chexquest -knitting

on page four, you get two results from the steelguitarforum: https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=36877&view=next (from 2001) https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=881412&sid=2668da1dbca46c81ce7f6fd2b7b8b620 (from 2007) So, unless these dates were changed after the fact, this implies that these two search results were what Randall got. Unfortunately, these aren't people, instead they're a beer brand and a hard drive, respectively. 162.158.75.160 20:13, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

"until this comic" led me to a wikipedia page. I'm not sure that's the right link. --1234231587678 (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

You mean the bit that is "Died in a blogging accident" was very rare in Google until this comic appeared.? Links to Observer Effect (in a disambiguation-like list). I don't think it's the best (direct) link, but clearly supposed to be saying that now that people were aware of the possibility of "died in a blogging accident", there are now many more mentions of it than there were prior to publication.
I'm sure we could find a more appropriate wikilink. Something like the Streisand effect, but without the reversal-of-intent element to it, just straight and sudden cascading positive-reinforcement. (There must be some effect that means that, right?) 172.69.194.14 02:59, 12 March 2024 (UTC)