Difference between revisions of "256: Online Communities"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
(Major reorganisation from bullet points to proper list.)
(Fixed formatting)
 
(10 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{comic
 
{{comic
−
| number    = 802
+
| number    = 256
−
| date      = October 6, 2010
+
| date      = May 2, 2007
−
| title    = Online Communities 2
+
| title    = Online Communities
−
| image    = online_communities_2.png
+
| image    = online_communities_small.png
−
| titletext = Best trivia I learned while working on this: 'Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize it's the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the WORLD?' Then you wait for the listener to do a double-take.
+
| titletext = I'm waiting for the day when, if you tell someone 'I'm from the internet', instead of laughing they just ask 'oh, what part?'
 
}}
 
}}
−
{{TOC}}A [https://xkcd.com/802_large/ larger version] of this picture can be found by clicking the comic on [https://xkcd.com xkcd.com].
+
{{TOC}}A larger version of the image is available [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities.png here].
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
−
This comic shows a map of internet communities where the size of each region roughly corresponds to its size, and its proximity to other regions indicates similarities. This is the successor of [[256: Online Communities]]. It differs in that it is updated, and furthermore, instead of using the ''membership'' of whichever service to determine its size on the map, it uses its "daily social activity."
+
This is Randall's first map of online communities, with a successor at [[802: Online Communities 2]]. As Randall says on the map, the area of each "country" is roughly proportional to its membership, at least in 2007. Geographic location means a bit more, however, as the compass rose-shaped island near the middle of the map points out. North-south corresponds to a spectrum from practical to intellectual, and east-west corresponds to one from web-focused to real-life-focused. The map also bears a slight resemblance to {{w|South East Asia}}. Each "country" is represented by size and related points of interest. We also have a "Sea of Memes" and a small "Straits of web 2.0".
  
−
The map actually has two super−maps intended to show the relative usage of types of communication: the online community map is surrounded by the much larger "countries" of E−Mail, SMS ("Instant Messaging") and "Cell Phones," which in turn are surrounded by the even huger "Spoken Language."  It is unclear whether "Cell Phones" is intended to represent an independent region, or whether it is meant to be a sub-region of "Spoken Language."  The ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that cell phones are the primary medium of SMS, and are also used to access email and online communities.  It's also unclear why other forms of communication, such as handwritten letters, are not included.
+
----
 +
=== Compass Rose-shaped Island===
 +
This is a joke located near the middle of the map, that nonetheless serves to organize the illustration. A Compass Rose —the name for the multi-pointed star that shows where North is on the map— appears on most maps; however, here, it's actually land that just coincidentally looks like a compass rose.
  
−
At the title text [[Randall]] explains that, using his definition of "most activity per day," Farmville is actually the ''second'' most popular social-network farming game - the Chinese game Happy Farm was more popular at the time. This strikes many English-speaking xkcd readers as odd, because Farmville is much more famous, leading one to wonder how it could not be the most played. The phrase "browser-based social-networking-centered farming game" is an example of an [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OverlyNarrowSuperlative overly-narrow superlative.]
+
The "points" of the island do, however, roughly organize the map. Left is "Focus on Real Life," labelled "IRL," an abbreviation for "In Real Life." Right is "Focus on Web," labelled ".com." Up is "Practicals," labelled "N," as in "North," but with small letters making it spell "Noob," slang for a "Newbie" or "New user" — a person less experienced with the internet, as many of the sites to the top of the map are ones infamous for having large numbers of largely computer-illiterate people. Down is "Intellectuals," labelled ''"π,"'' an important constant in mathematics approximately equal to 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937511.
  
−
===Facebook Region===
+
----
−
The Facebook region deals with social networks, that is, websites oriented towards having people meet.
+
=== The Icy North===
 +
These are communities that were once major players, but now in a much reduced role. While some are still fairly large, they're somewhat relics of older times, hence the "Mountains of Web 1.0" that run through them — Web 1.0 is the first major generation of websites.
  
−
'''{{w|Facebook}}
+
; [https://yahoo.com Yahoo!]
 +
: Yahoo was the most popular search engine around 1998, but lost out to Google. It remains in business due to diversification (it now owns Tumblr, for instance).
  
−
: A social networking site that allows people to meet old real−life friends and make new friends that share similar interests. One of its most notable features is that a member can update a "status" or make normal posts about the happenings of the member's life, complete with pictures, other members "liking" these posts. The size of the Facebook region is not exaggerated, as most websites seem to allow "liking" their content or allow/require logging in the website with a Facebook account. There even are cell phones with a "Facebook" button!
+
; Windows Live
 +
: ''Windows Live Messenger'' used to be a particularly major way for friends to communicate, now taken over by Skype and the like. Once a more-or-less ubiquitous branding, now used much less. https://home.live.com/ ‎is one remnant.
  
−
; {{w|FarmVille}} and {{w|Farm Town}}
+
; [https://aol.com AOL]
 +
: AOL was once a huge player in the internet service provider market, noted for sending out millions of floppy disks and CD-ROMs in the 1980s and '90s offering a month or so free internet service (followed by high fees and difficult cancellation). Notably, AOL was the first company to sign up large numbers of people to internet access throughout the year, whereas before then internet was mainly provided by colleges and universities, fundamentally changing internet culture (see {{w|Eternal September}}). This influx of new users or "Noobs" (short for "newbies") names the ''Noob Sea'' south of AOL. The ''Chat Rooms'' nearby were a selling feature of early ISPs — ways to communicate with other people from that ISP. They are largely dying now, but were a major selling point in the early days.
  
−
: These are Facebook games in which users manage farms. '''{{w|Happy Farm}},''' the Chinese game that inspired the other two, does not require Facebook integration, so it is separated by a solid line from Facebook. The "Unethical Bay" refers to how these games tend to addict players into constantly buying virtual items of questionable value.
+
; [https://classmates.com Classmates.com] and [https://reunion.com Reunion.com]
 +
: These are early sites that offered to help you find your former classmates from school, a role largely taken over by the big, more generalized social media sites. Classmates.com is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"
  
−
; People You Can't Unfriend
+
; [https://friendster.com Friendster]
 +
: This was the first big social media site. It was later outpaced by ''Myspace'' and ''Facebook'' (see Social Media below). It has survived by rebranding itself as a social gaming site, now used primarily in Southeast Asia.
  
−
: Refers to people whom, due to real-life expectations and relationships, unfriending them is difficult, no matter how you really feel about them.
+
; Qwghlm
 +
: A reference to ''{{w|The Baroque Cycle}}'', a series of science fiction books by Neal Stephenson. In them, Qwghlm is a group of islands in the icy north. See [https://baroquecycle.wikia.com/wiki/Qwghlm http://baroquecycle.wikia.com/wiki/Qwghlm].
  
−
; Blatherskite River
+
; Chasm
 +
: A barely-readable note just below the "O" of "NORTH." This may simply be a reference to a lot of fantasy series containing a chasm. (For example, the One Ring is destroyed by flinging it into a fiery chasm in The Lord of the Rings.)
  
−
: Refers to the conversations on Facebook, which may be long yet devoid of general meaning or logic.
+
----
 +
=== Dating sites (Northwest coastal regions)===
  
−
; Data Mines
+
; [https://eharmony.com E-Harmony], [https://okcupid.com OkCupid], and [https://mixerdates.com/ MixerDates]
 +
: These are dating sites; the other, larger sites near them are mostly social media sites.
  
−
: Refers to the data mining that Facebook does with the interests of its members. This fuels the profitable advertising business at the expense of customer trust.
+
; The Lonely Island
 +
: This label appears to be a joke: Surrounded by, but separate from dating sites and social media sites, it would be a rather lonely place. Possibly named after "[https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Tol_Eress%C3%ABa Tol Eressëa]" (Translation: The Lonely Island), a somewhat obscure location in J. R. R. Tolkien's books, but there are {{w|The Lonely Island|other possibilities}}.
  
−
; Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions
+
----
 +
=== Social Media (West)===
 +
These are sites mainly used to communicate with friends, such as Facebook and Myspace. The first large one was ''Friendster'', but this has largely become a social gaming site primarily used in Southeast Asia, as discussed in The Icy North, above. Other social media sites listed are:
  
−
: Refers to how interactions with family members on Facebook suddenly become more awkward because everyone on Facebook (and sometimes ''off'' Facebook, given that you do not necessarily need to log in if you want to see someone's Facebook account) if you are discussing with your family through post comments.
+
; [https://faceparty.com Faceparty]
 +
: A UK social media site started in 1999.
  
−
; 524,287 Strong for Mersenne Primes
+
; [https://myspace.com Myspace]
 +
: A social media site partially owned by {{w|Justin Timberlake}}. Started in 2003, and peaking around the time this comic was made, it nonetheless still remains popular for bands (hence "Myspace Bands" in the southwest). It was never known for having a particularly attractive web design (partly because users could extensively customize the look and feel of their profile pages), hence only a very small part of it labelled "Attractive Myspace Pages."
  
−
: Refers to the communities who gain followers for a cause. A {{w|Mersenne prime}} is a prime number that is 1 less than a power of 2
+
; Series of Tubes
 +
: A reference to an internet meme. In 2006, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, while arguing for the end of "{{w|Net neutrality}}", a concept that keeps ISPs from favouring or charging more for high-speed access to sites, claimed that such regulation was needed because the Internet was "not a truck" you could just load up with as much as you want, but a "series of tubes." This was fairly accurate, but his arguments were poor and badly phrased, and his speech subsequently received widespread derision (originally from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show), and it became a running gag on the internet.
  
−
; 524287
+
; [https://facebook.com Facebook]
 +
: Generally considered (at least in the West) the "modern" social media network, and the most popular. However, this comic is from 2007, and Facebook did not catch up to Myspace until 2008-2009.
  
−
: The 7th known Mersenne prime.
+
; [https://orkut.com Orkut]
 +
: A social media network launched in 2004 by Google, it became hugely popular in Brazil, India, and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
  
−
; Jungle-Bay Mountains of "It's Complicated"
+
; [https://xanga.com Xanga]
 +
: A blogging and social media site launched in 1998.
  
−
: Refers to one of Facebook's options as to what a user's relationship status currently is. A Jungle-Bay Mountain is a complicated and undefined climate, hence the complication.
+
; [https://livejournal.com LJ]
 +
: LiveJournal, a blogging site, more or less, but one that allows an internet forum-like structure where anyone, or selected people, can all start new posts on a community. Noted for a large number of teenagers, fanfic authors, and the like in its heyday, hence the "Bay of Angst" to its south.
  
−
; "lamebook bay"
+
; [https://www.blurty.com/ Blurty]
 +
: LiveJournal's software is Open Access, meaning anyone can use it to set up a site. {{w|Blurty}} is, according to Wikipedia, an 18+ general community using this software.
  
−
: Refers to the online website "lamebook", where users post photos of funny things that happen on Facebook (these can include statuses, "fails", put-downs and images.)
+
; [https://cyworld.com Cyworld]
 +
: A South Korean social media site featuring avatars and "mini-rooms."
  
−
; "Old Facebook" Resistance
+
----
 +
=== The Blogipelago (Southwest)===
 +
This is a portmanteau of blog and archipelago. Sulawesi is a real island in the Indonesian archipelago, implying that this region's similarity to Indonesia is probably intentional.
  
−
: Refers to Facebook's earlier users, who have often resisted (and resented) changes made to Facebook as it became more popular.
+
; [https://www.huffingtonpost.com Huffington Post]
 +
: ''The Huffington Post'' is a web-only news site, named after its founder, Arianna Huffington. It's noted for attracting notable people to do very good write-ups of politics and news, generally with a liberal slant, but also for having a medicine section that supports every sort of quackery and nonsense, including a regular column by {{w|Dana Ullman}} promoting {{w|homeopathy}} (see [[765: Dilution]]).
  
−
; Privacy Controls
+
; Shipwreck of the SS Howard Dean
 +
: In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, Howard Dean raised funds mainly over the internet, and was doing very well, until a gaffe caused him to crash and burn just before the primaries began. See {{w|Howard Dean presidential campaign, 2004}}.
  
−
: This is located on the map surrounded by a Lava Pool, which is a reference to how difficult it is to find the privacy controls within Facebook.
+
; Cory Doctrow's Balloon
 +
: Reference to [[239: Blagofaire]].
  
−
; Niche Market Mountains
+
; [https://boingboing.net Boing Boing]
 +
: An occasional trend is for a smallish magazine to get a website, have the website become vastly more popular than its print edition, and become a successful website. Examples include [https://cracked.com Cracked.com,] [https://theonion.com The Onion,] and the subject of this label, [https://boingboing.net Boing Boing.] Boing Boing is a group blog covering technology, intellectual property, science fiction, and futurism.
  
−
: Refers to social networks aimed towards more niche markets are located. Similar to how mountains tend to be isolated from mainland, niche social networks tend to be just that: niche, without much interaction with the general populace.
+
; [https://technorati.com Technorati]
 +
: A site for searching blogs.
  
−
; Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks
+
; Sulawesi
 +
: As mentioned above, a real island that is part of the Indonesian archipelago.
  
−
: Refers to the tons of websites wanting to take advantage of the success of websites like Facebook to compete or even overpower with them. Even so, these websites tend to not have the userbase or even the expertise towards the long-term, hence they become wastelands: environments devoid of life, except the few life forms that are from these wastelands (in this case, the ones who are loyal to the website or which are sadly few).  
+
; {{w|Xu Jinglei}}
 +
: A Chinese actress. According to Wikipedia: "In mid-2006, her Chinese-language blog had the most incoming links of any blog in any language on the Internet, according to Technorati."
  
−
In the Charred Wasteland stands:
+
; [https://postsecret.com/ PostSecret]
 +
: A website that people send postcards to, describing their secrets. Some are little secrets (like swigging milk directly from the jug or carton), some are old, deep-seated traumas, and some are just things that they could never admit to anyone publicly. Worth a look.
  
−
; {{w|Ozymandias}}
+
; The Wet Sea
 +
: Perhaps a reference to a West Sea, but not sure what that would be. Maybe just a simple joke, as what else would a sea be but wet?
  
−
: The titular broken statue of Shelley's poem. In the poem, only "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "shattered visage" are all that remain of the once-great statue and both of these features are present in the comic. According to the poem, the pedestal before the broken statue reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..." hence "friend of friends" below Ozymandias on the map.
+
; TWB
 +
: This is short for "{{w|Translators Without Borders}}," a charitable project that tries to translate necessary texts into the languages of the people who need them for free. This ''might'' be it, if it's meant to relate to Wikipedia, to the east of it. On the other hand,
  
−
In the north are:
+
; [https://TMZ.com TMZ]
 +
: This is a major celebrity gossip blog, rated #15 in the "[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs World's 50 most powerful blogs"] by ''The Guardian,'' and, at time of writing, rating #11 in the [https://technorati.com/blogs/top100/ Technorati top 100.]
  
−
; The Duckface Mountains and The Red Cup Mountains
+
----
 +
=== Sea of Culture (Central region) ===
 +
Sites for sharing and showing off music and images, most focusing on self-created content.
  
−
: "Duckface" refers to [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face this incredibly obnoxious facial expression], and "red cup pictures" are any pictures containing party-goers holding disposable red plastic beverage cups. Facebook is absolutely flooded with both types of pictures.
+
; Gulf of YouTube
 +
: [https://youtube.com YouTube] is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google has since purchased YouTube.
  
−
In the south is:
+
; Piczo
 +
: Teen-oriented website that allowed one to make a profile and put up pictures. The site has been dead since late 2012, due to the rise of Facebook. See {{w|Piczo}}.
  
−
; Buzzword Bay
+
; Broadcaster
 +
: Another dead site, almost lost to the web. Only a few scraps of information remain on the web. [https://www.seomastering.com/wiki/Broadcaster.com One of the rare scraps of remaining information] indicates that it was a webcam broadcasting service that also allowed YouTube-like sharing of videos.
  
−
: {{w|Buzzword}}s are words and phrases that make you sound a lot more topical than you actually are, used to garner attention. Again, Facebook status updates are commonly filled with buzzwords.
+
; The Bit Torrent''' and the '''P2P Shoals
 +
: Reference to file sharing (passing around often copyright-infringing files, such as movies, CDs, and the like), often done with the {{w|BitTorrent}} protocol. A "Torrent" can also be a flood of water, hence it being used to name a river. "P2P" stands for "{{w|Peer-to-peer}}", the basis for the BitTorrent protocol.
  
−
While Facebook is the largest "country" of the Facebook Region, there are a lot of smaller "countries" that represent smaller social networks.
+
; [https://flickr.com Flickr]
−
 
+
: a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
−
Below Facebook (and "Old Facebook' Resistance") are:
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Diaspora (social network)|Diaspora}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A fully open-source, decentralized, privacy-respecting-and-expecting alternative to Facebook. From what this map tells, Diaspora is little-known, even if Facebook is taken out of the context.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|StudiVZ}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A German-speaking social network similar if not a ripped-off version of Facebook.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|XING}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A German-speaking social platform similar to {{w|LinkedIn}}.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Ning (website)|Ning}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A service to create custom social websites. Its free services shut down in 2010.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Taringa!}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A Spanish-speaking social network that is based on a forums. Copyrighted material is frequently found there.
 
−
 
 
−
Next to the Euro(pean) Gulf are:
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Skyrock (social network site)}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A French-speaking social network.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Wer-kennt-wen}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A German-social network somewhat like MySpace.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Nasza-klasa.pl}}
 
−
 
 
−
: NK, misspelled on the map as nasa-klasza.pl, is a Polish-speaking social network based on school relationships.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Badoo}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social network primarily based on dating and picture-sharing.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Classmates.com}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A service in which the user can meet classmates that came from the same high school. The website is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said [https://dudemanphat.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-am-i-supposed-to-care-about-nick.html "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"] (Incidentally, [https://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003325519_adcouple27.html there is more to the coupled picture than what the advertisement says.])
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|MySpace}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social networking website that is a kind of proto-Facebook: users could customize their one-page websites with whatever they wanted, make their interests and daily lives public, and interact with other users. Back in the mid 2000s, MySpace was the largest social network. However, the surprisingly-less-customizable Facebook ended up taking the place of MySpace. The "bands" country of MySpace refers to how a lot of bands in the day advertised and interacted using the website. Indeed, the latest incarnation of MySpace (in terms of 2013) is more oriented towards band members.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|LinkedIn}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social network aimed towards people in the workplace, which is why it is adjacent to Corporate Bay.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Orkut}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This was one of Google's first social networks before Google made [https://plus.google.com/ Google+]. It shut down in 2014.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Hi5}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social network that is very popular among people in Latin America.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Renren}}
 
−
 
 
−
: "People" in Chinese, this is "a Chinese copy of Facebook".
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Bebo}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social network popular in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It went bankrupt in 2013 and will move away from social networking and into apps.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Friendster}}
 
−
 
 
−
: One of the first major social networks, it has fallen way off in usage in recent years and was eclipsed by MySpace. It is still popular in Asia.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|VK (social networking website)|Vkontakte}}
 
−
 
 
−
: VK is the second largest social network service in Europe after Facebook. It is available in several languages, but particularly popular among Russian-speaking users around the world.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Netlog}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A Belgian social networking website specifically targeted at the global youth demographic.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Mixi}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an online Japanese social networking service.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Qzone}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social networking website, which is big in China. According to a report published by Tencent, possibly surpassing other social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace in China.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Tuenti}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A Spain-based, social networking service, that has been referred to as the "Spanish Facebook."
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Cloob}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A Persian-language social networking website, mainly popular in Iran. After the locally (and internationally) popular social networking website Orkut was blocked by the Iranian government, a series of local sites and networks, including Cloob, emerged to fill the gap.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Kaixin001}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social networking website which ranks as the 13th most popular website in China and 67th overall.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Piczo}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A privately held blog website for teens. In November 2012, Piczo.com shut down.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Odnoklassniki}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A social network service for classmates and old friends. It is popular in Russia and former Soviet Republics.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Adult FriendFinder}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A pornographic dating site.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Match.com}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A dating site, mainly targeted at people looking for marriage.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Ok Cupid}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Another dating site, however it has been owned by Match.com since 2011.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|PlentyofFish}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is yet another dating site, also owned by Match.com since June 2015.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Sulawesi}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A real-life island in the Indonesian archipelago. It also appears in 256: Online Communities.
 
−
 
 
−
===MMO Isle===
 
−
MMOs (short form of "Massive Multiplayer Online Game") are online games where multiple people take the role of a character and play in a setting hosted by the game.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.habbo.com/ Habbo Hotel]
 
−
 
 
−
: A website where someone creates a human avatar an interacts in a virtual world that is not that different from the one in real life.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Club Penguin}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is [https://disney.com/ Disney's] former MMO where someone creates a penguin avatar and interacts with other in a more polar, cartoony setting. Club Penguin is aimed towards children. It has been shut down near the end of March 2017.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://maplestory.nexon.net/ Maple Story]
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an MMO that has a more natural setting. The most distinguishing feature of Maple Story is its cartoony pixel art.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.gamefaqs.com/ GameFAQs]
 
−
 
 
−
: While this is not an MMO, it is a website that has the largest repository of walkthoughs, that is, guides that help someone beat a game. GameFAQs is notable for not only its large repository of walkthroughs of games that are across an extreme variety of consoles, handhelds, and even computers (not all of them MMOs), but also the drama that is rumoured to happen in the GameFAQs forums.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.ign.com/ IGN]
 
−
 
 
−
: While this is also not an MMO, it is the largest website that gives news on video games in general, not just MMOs. Each of the games mentioned in the site have pages that have summaries, reviews, screenshots, other art, videos, and links to news related to its games.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml FFXI]
 
−
 
 
−
: Final Fantasy XI is an MMO from SquareEnix, being the first MMO of the popular ''Final Fantasy'' series.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.runescape.com/community Runescape]
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an older MMO.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://us.battle.net/sc2/en/ Starcraft II]
 
−
 
 
−
: A realtime strategy game with a science fiction setting that heavily involves space travel. While technically not an MMO, it has a significant online multiplayer component.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://us.battle.net/wow/en/ WoW]
 
−
 
 
−
: World of Warcraft is the definitive MMO, being not only the most popular and one of the longest-running but also the most expansive (having its own spinoff games, comic books, novels, and even figurines), WOW giving the idea of how an MMO should be. A player can choose from a variety of races, each with its own heavy history.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://secondlife.com/ Second Life]
 
−
 
 
−
: This is similar to Habbo, albeit with a bigger suspension of disbelief (one example being that the player does not need to be a human) and in a 3D setting.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.nationstates.net/ NationStates]
 
−
 
 
−
: A text-based political simulation game. Notably, some of its traffic comes not from the actual game (which is optional), but the extensive set of political, roleplaying, and general forums attached.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.urbandead.com/ Urban Dead]
 
−
 
 
−
: It described itself as "A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse", which sums it up pretty well. It was finally closed down on 2025-03-14, [https://urbandead.com/stats.html reportedly] with 7893 characters still actively playing until the end, 6087 of them still standing (and 29 Christmas Trees).
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.kingdomofloathing.com KoL]
 
−
 
 
−
: Kingdom of Loathing is a comedic browser-based MMO-ish RPG with minimalistic stick-figure art.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|CDC Games}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A Chinese company reputed to be the largest MMORPG distributor.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Eve Online|EVE Online}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A science fiction MMO which is notable because of its virtual economy.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Gaia Online|Gaia}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Gaia Online, while not an MMO, is a forum oriented towards pop culture, including video games and Japanese media. Its most notable feature is the heavy customization possible of a member's pixel-art avatar. Its members tend to roleplay a lot, albeit in a more written, story-based form. Gaia has gained a reputation with its members stealing art and causing drama. The ferry that links the gaia island with 4chan was most likely due to the "boxxy" row, where vlogger boxxy posted videos of her using gaia, which then were circulated on 4chan. This resulted in a division of the sites users, and many more hacking attacks, including a DDOS attack on 4chan itself.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.everquest.com EverQuest]
 
−
 
 
−
: EverQuest is one of the first MMO's, it's still running and has a huge number of expansions.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.uo.com UO]
 
−
 
 
−
: Ultima Online along with EverQuest this was one of the first and longest running MMO's.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|City of Heroes|CoH}}
 
−
 
 
−
: City of Heroes was a superhero-based MMORPG that was shut down November 2012.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://atlantica.nexon.net/ Atlantica]
 
−
 
 
−
: Atlantica Online is a turn-based MMORPG.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://lineage.plaync.com/ Lineage]
 
−
 
 
−
: A Korean MMORPG, its North American servers were closed 2011/06/29 due to being unprofitable.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.lineage2.com/en/ Lineage II]
 
−
 
 
−
: A Korean MMORPG, mainly played in Asia along with its predecessor. It adopted a Free to Play model on 2011/11/30.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|SubSpace (video game)|SubSpace}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A 2D, topdown shooter released in 1997. The servers have been shut down, but it continues to operate through the work of fans. It's widely considered an early entry into the MMO genre due to its unprecedentedly high player count.
 
−
 
 
−
Other notable regions include:
 
−
 
 
−
; The Mountains of Steam
 
−
 
 
−
: Referring to the game distribution service [https://store.steampowered.com/ Steam] where people can buy and download video games in general, not just MMOs. There is also an extensive [https://steamcommunity.com/ community] where users can share content, and instant messaging chat by text, voice, or game streaming.
 
−
 
 
−
; River Grind
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to "grinding". In most MMOs, the character is a fighter of some sorts, yet starts at a level 1, signifying the character's aptitude level in combat. The character can level up and gain more aptitude levels through earning experience, of which the most reliable and otherwise common way is the process of "grinding," that is, repeatedly fighting opposing monsters (sometimes of a level notably lower that your character's), gaining experience points from winning these battles until your character gains a level, that is, "levels up". While a practical necessity in strengthening the character, this process can be tiresome, hence the expression "grinding."
 
−
 
 
−
; Spawn Camp
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to "spawn points", the places where AI-powered enemies and players who have died in-game respawn, and the act of "spawn camping", in which the player character simply stands behind or around the spawn points to fight the enemy creatures or respawning players as soon as they appear.
 
−
 
 
−
; Gulf of Lag
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to how the MMO can be slowed down a considerable amount due to the large amount of players simultaneously using the same server, this congestion bogging down the server and frustrating the users.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/final-boss-of-the-internet End Guy for the Internet]
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to "end bosses," the last — and usually hardest to defeat — "bad guy" in a game (or a section of a game).
 
−
 
 
−
===YouTube Region===
 
−
The YouTube region refers to websites that are based on user-created content.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.youtube.com/ YouTube]
 
−
 
 
−
: This is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google had purchased YouTube.
 
−
 
 
−
Many of the sites on the map are just references to {{w|viral video}}s at {{w|YouTube}}:
 
−
 
 
−
; Viral Shores
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to how viral videos (whether they be viral marketing or simply memes)  tend to proliferate on YouTube.
 
−
 
 
−
; Britney
 
−
 
 
−
: This likely refers to pop singer {{w|Britney Spears}} and the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc‎ "Leave Britney Alone" guy].
 
−
 
 
−
; Maru Gulf
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to Maru the Cat, a YouTube celebrity [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/676:_Abstraction also mentioned in xkcd].
 
−
 
 
−
; Prairie Dog Habitat
 
−
 
 
−
: This likely refers to the viral video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw Dramatic Chipmunk] (which is actually a Prairie Dog).
 
−
 
 
−
; Rick Rolling Hills
 
−
 
 
−
: References {{w|Rickrolling}}. More information [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ here]. The "deserted" note likely refers to how Rick Astley himself is tired of the meme, or again, how people tend to leave the video upon getting "Rick Roll'd," never actually going to the video with the express purpose of viewing the video. It could also refer to the lyric in the song, "Never gonna tell a lie and desert you".
 
−
 
 
−
; Lunar Landing Soundstage
 
−
 
 
−
: Reference to the {{w|Moon landing conspiracy theories}}, which Randall has railed on before.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|OK Go}} Bay
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to the band "OK Go" who have multiple viral music videos on YouTube, most famously [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA "Here it goes again"] featuring treadmills.
 
−
 
 
−
; HTML5 swamp
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to YouTube's spotty support of HTML 5 (an update on HTML that is frequently touting its media capabilities, making HTML 5 a viable alternative to Flash). Of course, by the time the comic was written, HTML 5 was still in its infancy. The Music Video Bay refers to the amount of music videos (official or otherwise) are present in YouTube.
 
−
 
 
−
Other counties of the YouTube region include:
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://vimeo.com/ Vimeo]
 
−
 
 
−
: A website where people tend to showcase artistic content that they made on their own, notably independent studios.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://secure.flickr.com/ Flickr]
 
−
 
 
−
: A website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://fotolog.com Fotolog]
 
−
 
 
−
: A photo website very popular in South America in 2004-2008, which was used as a social network.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.last.fm/ Last.fm]
 
  
 +
; [https://lastfm.com LastFM]
 
: A music website that uses a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler". Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they listen to and transfers ("scrobbles") the information to Last.fm's database via the music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.
 
: A music website that uses a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler". Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they listen to and transfers ("scrobbles") the information to Last.fm's database via the music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.
  
−
; [https://www.deviantart.com/ deviantArt]
+
; [https://deviantart.com DeviantArt]
−
 
 
 
: The largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.
 
: The largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.
  
−
; [https://www.newgrounds.com/ Newgrounds]
+
; Straits of Web 2.0
−
 
+
: A ''strait'' is a narrow passage between two outcroppings. Web 2.0 is a term used to describe new internet architectures, which these programs and Wikipedia (the other side of the strait) are examples of. '''Gays of Web 2.0''' is a pun: The opposite of a gay person (homosexual) is a straight person (heterosexual).
−
: A website that hosts art, (Flash-based) videos, audio, and (Flash-based) games to which other users can comment and rate. Even so, content from Newgrounds tends to be obscene, though there is a filtering system if a viewer does not wish to see obscene content.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.chatroulette.com/ Chatroulette]
 
−
 
 
−
: A website where people are randomly paired up with each other and video/text chat.
 
−
 
 
−
; Brickshelf
 
−
 
 
−
: This is the online resource for {{w|LEGO}} fans.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://tumblr.com/ Tumblr]
 
−
 
 
−
: A websie where people could make a blog and post text, pictures, video, audio, quotes, and links. The most distinguishing feature is the ability to "reblog" these posts from other's people's blogs into the user's own blog. Notable features of Tumblr include sketchblogs (where people upload their sketches), Ask blogs (where people answer questions other users ask, the moderators of these blogs usually pretending to be a character from a form of media), and the large amount of "social justice" (a highly controversial political movement). (See also [[1043: Ablogalypse]].)
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|b3ta}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A popular British website, described as a "puerile digital arts community" by The Guardian.
 
−
 
 
−
; The Isle of teenagers who just discovered macroeconomics
 
−
 
 
−
: A joke about how teenagers tend to think that the world and the economy are a lot simpler than they actually are. Combined with the typical internet mindset, this leads to a lot of teenagers posting blogs and videos and comments on blogs and videos describing how idiotic the government and other red-tape-related adults are.
 
−
 
 
−
; The Snob Sound
 
−
 
 
−
: This could refer to the large amount of people who look down on others in the surrounding websites (one example being an original artist looking down on people who draw mainly fan-art).
 
−
 
 
−
; The Iraq
 
−
 
 
−
: A reference to Miss Teen USA 2007, in which Ms. Teen South Carolina, Lauren Katlin, said "I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as...the US should help the US and should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we are able to build up our future." The usage of "the Iraq" has became a meme.
 
−
 
 
−
===Twitter Region===
 
−
 
 
−
; Bieber Bay
 
−
 
 
−
: A reference to {{w|Justin Bieber}}, a pop singer whose singing sprouted on YouTube and became very popular on Twitter and other social media. He is very much vilified because of his rather feminine appearance and his hordes of fans (called "Beliebers") that seem to support him to ridiculous extents. Lately, though, Justin Beiber has taken a "bad boy" attitude because of all the Beliebers who are willing to defend him no matter what, him partaking in a lot of questionable activities that include tattoos, questionably-legal substances, and buying prostitution, thus lowering his popularity in the general populace.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Google Buzz}}
 
  
−
: A former social network attempted by Google.  It has since been shut down.
+
----
 +
=== User-created content and discussions (Southeast)===
 +
Sites such as {{w|Wikipedia}} and chat programs such as IRC.
  
−
; Bit.Ly Mountains
+
; Wikipedia
 +
: The world's largest encyclopedia, collaboratively edited by its users. It's labelled as "The Wikipedia Project" (actually called ''{{w|Wikimedia}}''), since Wikipedia has generalised to cover a number of separate web sites, though, at the time of this comic, none near the size of Wikipedia (excepting, possibly, Wikimedia Commons, which is partly an image repository for Wikipedia), perhaps explaining the small size of all the other vertexes of the "web."
  
−
: A reference to the URL shortening service {{w|bit.ly}}.
+
; Usenet
 +
: The predecessor of most modern forums. A set of discussion groups that dominated the early internet. It also predates the standard web architecture to some extent — there's no standard weblink for it, for instance. See {{w|Usenet}}.
  
−
; Kanye's Isle of Sadness
+
; IRC isles
 +
: IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, a simple, low-bandwidth program for chatting. Common uses include Dungeons and Dragons games and other geeky pursuits.
  
−
: A reference to the musician {{w|Kanye West}}, whose Twitter, at the time, was [https://www.buzzfeed.com/mlew15/25-of-kanye-wests-most-thought-provoking-tweets-h0se famously introspective and stream-of-consciousness].
+
; [https://sourceforge.net SourceForge]
 +
: A code repository. Basically, a place for programmers to meet up and work together on a variety of free and open source projects. See {{w|sourceforge}}. Has become less respectable since this comic was created in 2007, due to [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/gimp_dumps_sourceforge_over_dodgy_ads_and_installer/ allowing misleading advertisements intended to trick people into installing questionable software.]
  
−
; Sarah Palin USA
+
; [https://mit.edu MIT]
 +
: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most respected universities for Engineering, Robotics, and other such fields.
  
−
: This is the Twitter handle of former politician {{w|Sarah Palin}}.
+
; [https://www.engadget.com/‎ Engadget]
 +
: A blog/online magazine, in multiple languages, reviewing tech products and commenting on technology news.
  
−
; Clueless Politician Coast
+
; [https://gizmodo.com/‎ Gizmodo]
 +
: A blog about technology and design.
  
−
: A reference to the number of politicians on Twitter and other social networks who repeatedly share clueless updates that more often create an uproar than help their election chances.
+
; [https://makezine.com/blog/ MakeBlog]
 +
: A blog highlighting bizarre and interesting do-it-yourself projects, often with a geeky theme.
  
−
; Desert of Food Updates
+
; Google's Volcano Fortress
 +
: A volcano fortress is one traditional dwelling place of evil geniuses in fiction, and Google has quietly taken over huge chunks of people's interaction with the web. Perhaps this provides some background for [[254: Comic Fragment]]?
  
−
: A reference to the number of pictures of food that are shared on social media (especially Twitter). There has even been some controversy on posting such pictures.
+
; Stallman's Airship
 +
: A joke, perhaps in line with Cory Doctorow's Balloon ([[239: Blagofaire]], also referenced in this strip). The Super Mario series of games also commonly contains bossfights in airships.
  
−
; Journalists Trying to Find the Cutting Edge
+
----
 +
=== Ocean of Subculture and Sea of Memes (East)===
 +
Sites related to smaller internet communities, aka "subcultures" and internet memes. The "Viral Straits" references the idea of something "going viral," i.e. spreading quickly to huge numbers of people on the internet. These sites are often responsible for things going viral, and the memes listed are ones that went viral in the past.
  
−
: This is referencing journalists on Twitter trying to keep up with the way that news is gathered and delivered now, despite usually working for a newspaper that publishes once a day.
+
----
 +
===Sites===
  
−
; SHAQ
+
; [https://www.2ch.net/‎ 2Channel]
 +
: A Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for...
  
−
: A reference to the former NBA basketball player, {{w|Shaq}}.
+
; [https://4chan.org 4Chan]
 +
: An imageboard in which people can upload pictures, while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as /b/, is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. The fact that 4chan is a very small island on this map (to the far right on the map - left of "dragons" in the sentence ''Here there be anthropomorphic dragons'') made quite a fuss for Randall. And this caused the comic to be mentioned in [https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/02/25/fruit-opinions/ FRUIT OPINIONS!] on the [https://blog.xkcd.com/ Blag]. Although this comic was one of the more controversial, it had nothing on the impact of [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], which was the cause of the Blag entry as that became the most controversial comic written to that point (i.e. 2008): ''...beating out comics about cunnilingus, the Obama endorsement, and my making 4chan tiny on the map of the internet''. (See the grapefruit comic for more details).
  
−
; {{w|identi.ca}}
+
; [https://reddit.com Reddit]
 +
: The once-self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos, and videos, and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
  
−
: This is an open source social networking and micro-blogging service, being an alternative to Twitter.
+
; [https://digg.com Digg]
 +
: A former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere. It has since been sold after this comic was released and restarted as an aggregator of news stories.
  
−
; Breaking! Waves
+
; [https://fark.com Fark]
 +
: A website that writes humorous commentary on various news reports, especially the strange, bizarre, or things from the political far-left and far-right.
  
−
: A pun on the fact that so many people used the word "Breaking" at the beginning of tweets that do not warrant that tag that the word has lost most of its meaning and become a joke. It is a pun because waves "break" on the shore.
+
; [https://somethingawful.com Something Awful]
 +
: A website that is meant to highlight "awful" things. SomethingAwful also has a large troll base, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from ''Encyclopedia Dramatica'' and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the "Let's Plays" of ''Dangan Ronpa'' and ''Super Dangan Ronpa 2'', which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games.
  
−
; Web 3.0
+
; [https://slashdot.org Slashdot]
 +
: A news site for technology-related news stories, which are submitted by its users. The "{{w|Slashdot effect}}" is named after this site.
  
−
: Refers to the unofficial term {{w|Web 2.0}}. In this case, "Web 1.0" refers to websites that give information to users. Web 2.0 refers to websites where the users themselves create content. Web 3.0 has sometimes been used as a term for {{w|semantic web}}, a machine-readable version of the web, but this usage is far from universal.
+
; [https://ytmnd.com YTMND]
 +
: A community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated). Its name is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!"
  
−
; Hashtag games whose popularity confuses and depresses you
+
; [https://StumbleUpon.com Stumble Upon]
 +
: A website that attempts to develop a profile for users in order to recommend which websites they might enjoy.
  
−
: Refers to the game where a user posts something under a particular hashtag and others respond with their own ideas, all tagged under the same phrase. This has been very popular for no clear reason, as Randall notes.
+
; [https://delicious.com/ Del.icio.us]
 +
: Another image and website aggregator, linking to various things of interest. It uses tags to let people find specific types of content. Since this comic was released, this website they renamed as simply "Delicious".
  
−
===Geotagged Bay===
+
----
  
−
; {{w|Yelp}}
+
===Memes and related===
  
−
: A website where people post reviews of real-life public locations (one example being restaurants).
+
; Isle of Slash
 +
: "{{w|Slash fiction}}" is a type of {{w|fanfiction}} that takes two male characters from another work of fiction and puts them in a plot where they have lots of sex with each other. Named because of a common way of writing pairings in fanfiction, "X/Y", with the / being pronounced "slash." Adding to this, "Isle of" sounds like "I love."
  
−
; {{w|Geocaching}}
+
; Numa
 +
: A reference to the viral video "Numa Numa," consisting of a man dancing and lip-syncing to the song "Dragostea din tei" (Romanian for "Love from the lindens").
  
−
: A worldwide GPS scavenger hunt where users upload positions of caches and others will find them and log it online.
+
; Your Base
 +
: A reference to the "{{w|All your base are belong to us}}" meme, a line from the game ''{{w|Zero Wing}}'', a game with a huge amount of hilariously badly translated {{w|Engrish}} dialogue. See [[286: All Your Base]] for more discussion of the meme.
  
−
; {{w|Foursquare}}
+
; Bay of Trolls
 +
: {{w|Troll (Internet)|Trolls}} are people who attempt to stir up controversy by intentionally saying statements meant to annoy others into responding. "Bay" can refer to both a sheltered port and to an animal's cry, so "Bay of Trolls" can be read as "Shelter for Trolls" or "Angry Shouting of Trolls." Given the communities surrounding it, both would make sense.
  
−
: A location-based social network.
+
; Soviet Russia
 +
: {{w|Russian reversal|"In Soviet Russia" jokes}} are a style of joke commonly associated with -comedian {{w|Yakov Smirnoff}}, which has since become an internet meme. Example: "In America, you always find a party. In Russia, Party will always find ''you''." — playing off of the idea that "Party" can also refer to the Communist Party. The meme version usually isn't as clever as that, though. See "[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-soviet-russia in soviet russia]."
  
−
; Latitude
+
; SPAAARTA
 +
: As in, "THIS! IS! SPAAARTA!!!", a famously over-the-top line from the movie ''{{w|300 (film)|300}}''.
  
−
: Refers to {{w|Google Latitude}}.
+
----
  
−
===Troll Bay and the Sea of Memes===
+
=== MMORPGs and related games (Northeast by East)===
 +
An area dedicated to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games), large-scale games with huge numbers of players put into the same world. The label "Here there be anthromorphic dragons" references a common marking on old maps ("Here there be dragons") but updates it to joke about the more humanoid dragons seen in many games, or again, how dragons, especilally anthropomorphic dragons, are very-very popular in the furry community.
  
−
; {{w|Reddit}}
+
; [https://games.yahoo.com Yahoo Games]
 +
: A branch of Yahoo (see "The Icy North") dedicated to games (mainly boardgames).
  
−
: This is the self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos and videos and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
+
; [https://uo.com UO]
 +
: ''Ultima Online'', one of the first MMORPGs, and the first to grow to any size. Based on the long-running ''Ultima'' RPG computer games. Started 1997.
  
−
; {{w|Help:Using talk pages|Wikipedia Talk Pages}}
+
; [https://www.everquest.com/‎ EQ]
 +
: ''EverQuest'', another important early MMORPG, started 1999. UO and EQ have declined significantly since then; for a while, they were each the iconic MMORPG, but that role has been taken over by...
  
−
: Refer to the pages where Wikipedia editors ostensibly discuss how to improve articles.
+
; [https://www.warcraft.com/‎ WoW]
 +
: ''World of Warcraft'', an MMORPG launched in 2004, again based on a previously-existing RPG series, and by far the largest and most iconic at the time of this comic's creation. A few others have attempted to challenge it since.
  
−
; {{w|Wikia}}
+
; [https://www.runescape.com/‎ Runescape]
 +
: Free-to-play fantasy MMORPG; the largest in existence.
  
−
: Later Fandom, is a website offering free-of-charge wiki hosting, using a variant of Wikimedia's MediaWiki, allowing users to create user-editable encyclopedias of just about any subject matter, although it has more recently introduced an entertainment blog named "Fandom powered by Wikia" and eventually adopted that branding for the wiki farm as well.
+
; [https://www.finalfantasyxi.com/ FFXI]
 +
: ''Final Fantasy XI'', the eleventh installment in the ''Final Fantasy'' series of video games, and the first to be a MMORPG. It didn't really take off until after this comic was made.
  
−
; {{w|StumbleUpon}}
+
; [https://www.lineage.com/‎ Lineage]
 +
: 1998 MMORPG. Particularly popular in South Korea, a country with somewhat of a cultural obsession with video games.
  
−
: A website-sharing service, it shut down in 2018.
+
; [https://secondlife.com Second Life]
 +
: A virtual world, noted for largely working from user-generated content, which can be sold by users for real money. See {{w|Second Life}}. ''Third Life'' is a joke based on Second Life — if it existed, it would presumably be a game people play to escape Second Life, which they play to escape their first, real life.
  
−
; {{w|Delicious (website)|Delicious}}
+
----
−
 
+
=== Title text===
−
: A bookmarking and bookmark-sharing service.
+
The title text references [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dont-worry-im-from-the-internet the 2005 meme] "Don't worry, I'm from the Internet" - a catchphrase that originated from photos of cosplayers which spread on message boards and social media. While that phrase was originally used jokingly, Randall expresses a (genuine?) hope for a future where online communities are taken as legitimately as physical ones. This connects to the comic's detailed geographic mapping of online spaces - suggesting that just as you might ask someone "what part?" when they say they're from America or Europe, someday saying you're "from the Internet" would prompt the same genuine follow-up question about which specific online community you call home.
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Digg}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere, but now has been sold and restarted as an aggregator of news stories. The lifeboats refer to the mass exodus of users from Digg to rival news aggregator Reddit that occurred after Digg's glitchy and unpopular "v4" redesign in August 2010.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Slashdot}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Labeled "/." on the map, is a technical news site.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|MetaFilter}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Labeled "MeFi" on the map, is a long-running community blog.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Fark}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A community website that allows members to comment on news articles from other sites.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|YTMND}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!" It's also a community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated).
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Free Republic}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A right-wing conservative activist forum.
 
−
 
 
−
===Skype Region===
 
−
The Skype Region refers to different IM, or Instant Messaging services, that enable almost-real-time text chatting between multiple people.  These often allow services like voice chat and even video calls.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Skype}}
 
−
 
 
−
: According to Randall, Skype is the most popular of these among the internet. It has many features to allow peer-to-peer voice chats, as well as allowing calls to be made at a price to actual phones.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|AIM}}
 
−
 
 
−
: AOL Instant Messenger is a chat client created by AOL.
 
−
 
 
−
; GG
 
−
 
 
−
: {{w|Gadu-Gadu}} is an instant messenger client popular in Poland.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Yahoo Messenger}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an instant messenger client by Yahoo.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Google Talk}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A voice/video chatting service from Google (that Google has been replacing with Hangouts). Google Talk also has an invasion fleet at its shores.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|ICQ}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an older messaging service, albeit with an 18+ requirement (despite pornography not being the point of ICQ).
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Windows Live Messenger}}
 
−
 
 
−
: "MSN", was the messaging service of Microsoft before Microsoft bought Skype. MSN was useful in that people could draw and send pictures to other chatters.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Usenet}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This was one of the original ways to communicate on the internet, though people can download (copyrighted) files through the service. Since it is still in use by some, it gets the tag "Still Around!" on the map.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|IRC}} Isles
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to the ancestor of Internet-powered chatting. People would have connected to a server and spoke publicly. IRC is still in use (as of 2014), notably in getting help from other users. One of those isles is #xkcd which is an IRC community around [[xkcd]].
 
−
 
 
−
===Bay of Drama===
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|FanFiction.net}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A website where people can submit their fanfiction (stories by fans written about other peoples' media, normally that about popular media). The website tends to have people that are not helpful to those who legitimately want critique of their own stories.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Xanga}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A blogging service that, while popular at its time, lost out to...
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|LiveJournal}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This was the most popular blogging service before Tumblr.
 
−
 
 
−
; ONYD
 
−
 
 
−
: Reference to {{w|Oh No You Didn't}}, which is explained in the Blogosphere region.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Dreamwidth}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A LiveJournal fork emphasizing its open-source nature.
 
−
 
 
−
===Blogosphere===
 
−
The Blogosphere region contains several general {{w|blog}} topics.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|photo blog|Photo Blogs}}
 
−
 
 
−
: These are commonly used to chronicle the lives of the authors through photographs.
 
−
 
 
−
; Diary Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
: These are another popular use of blogs (and, in fact, the original use) where authors write commentary about their lives.
 
−
 
 
−
; Bay of Grammar Pedantry
 
−
 
 
−
: This deals with the fact that, whether due to a lack of proper education, a habit of using "chat-speak" in the text-limited SMS and MMS, or simply due to the (generally) more relaxed nature of the Internet, blog authors tend to write with horrible composition, a point of annoyment to a lot of other people due to the subsequent increased difficulty of reading the horribly-written material.
 
−
 
 
−
; Fandom Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
: These are blogs created by a "{{w|fandom}}" which is a community of fans. A fandom blog deals with the subject matter of the respective fandom.
 
−
 
 
−
; Sea of Zero (0) Comments
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to blogs that get very little attention and therefore have no comments.
 
−
 
 
−
; SpamBlog Straits
 
−
 
 
−
: References spammers who use blogs to increase the number of links to their site to try to game search engines.
 
−
 
 
−
; OffTopic.com
 
−
 
 
−
: A general interest forum that refers to itself as "the largest general discussion forum on the internet."
 
−
 
 
−
; Blog Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
: These can refer to blogs that talk about the matter about blogging itself, though they can also refer to blogs which authors use in talking about blogging.
 
−
 
 
−
Many more straightforward blogs, including:
 
−
 
 
−
* Writing/Poetry
 
−
 
 
−
* Gossip Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Political Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Music Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Tech Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Business Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Corporate Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Religious Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
* Miscellaneous Blogs
 
−
 
 
−
===Blogosphere (Core Region)===
 
−
Gossip Blogs. Each blog below focuses on gossip surrounding celebrities and other well-known persons.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Jezebel}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A liberally feminist blog, hosted by Gawker.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|deadline.com|Deadline}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an online entertainment news magazine.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|TMZ}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A celebrity news website.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Gawker}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A blog that is the host of other blogs.
 
−
 
 
−
; LJ Oh No They Didn't
 
−
 
 
−
: LiveJournal {{w|Oh No They Didn't}} - Oh No They Didn't, also known as ONTD, is the largest community on LiveJournal with over 100,000 members. The community focuses on celebrity gossip and pop culture with most of its posts aggregated from other gossip blogs.
 
−
 
 
−
; Doucheblog
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to blogs that were once insightful but that spiraled into long rants due to relationship changes of their authors.
 
−
 
 
−
; Isle of Mockery
 
−
 
 
−
: A reference to the fact that some of what these blogs do is mock celebrities or other for doing or saying stupid things on camera.
 
−
 
 
−
Liberal Blogs. Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "liberal" or "progressive" slant.  These blogs tend to lean for the Democratic party.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Huffington Post}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A news blog.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Paul Krugman}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an American economist who considers himself a liberal.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Daily Beast}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A news and opinion website focusing on politics and pop culture.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Talking Points Memo|TPM}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A political journal run by Josh Marshall.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Ezra Klein}}
 
−
 
 
−
: He used to have his own site at the Washington Post, but is now the editor of [Vox.com].
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Think Progress}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A political news blog.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Daily Kos|Kos}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Another political blog.
 
−
 
 
−
Bay of Flame:
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Politics Daily}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A political journalism website launched by AOL.
 
−
 
 
−
; CNN Political Ticker
 
−
 
 
−
: This is CNN's political blog.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Mediaite}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|NY Times}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is one of the most famous newspapers, thus the comparatively large size of its island.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|The Talk}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A talk show on CBS that discusses the latest headlines "through the eyes of mothers."
 
−
 
 
−
; Libertarian Isle
 
−
 
 
−
: Shaped like a {{w|Nolan Chart}}.
 
−
 
 
−
Conservative Blogs:
 
−
Each blog below focuses on American political news with a "conservative" or Republican slant.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Pajamas Media}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A media company and operator of conservative news.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Michelle Malkin}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A conservative blogger, political commentator, and author.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Hot Air}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A news blog founded by Michelle Malkin.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|RedState|Red State}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A political blog.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|American Thinker}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A daily online magazine focused on politics.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Townhall}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A web publication and print magazine.
 
−
 
 
−
Tech blogs:
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Boy Genius Report}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A weblog that focuses on technology and consumer gadgets.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Gizmodo}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A news and opinion blog, hosted by Gawker, that talks about life's more technological matters.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Engadget}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Another technology-oriented, albeit independent, blog.
 
−
 
 
−
; Crunchgear
 
−
 
 
−
: A blog that reviews gadgets and other hardware.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Techcrunch}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an online publisher of technology industry news.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Joystiq}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A news and opinion blog that focuses on gaming.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Kotaku}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Another gaming-oriented news/opinion blog, the main difference being that Kotaku is owned by Gawker.
 
−
 
 
−
Assorted:
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|BoingBoing}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is "i blog about wonderful things", the topics being quite random.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Lifehacker}}
 
−
 
 
−
: Another Gawker blog, is a blog that teaches people how to simplify their lives through 'lifehacking', that is, using their resources in creative wayss. While the subject matter is life in general, there is a significant technological slant.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Deadspin}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A sports and sports gossip blog founded by Will Leitch. It has since been acquired by Gawker
 
−
 
 
−
; Meatorama
 
−
 
 
−
: A blog that talks about cooking meat.
 
−
 
 
−
===QQ Region===
 
−
 
 
−
; Baidu Baike
 
−
 
 
−
: "Baidu Encyclopedia" and "Interactive Encyclopedia" are two Chinese online encyclopedias. Baidu Baike is powered by the same company as Baidu, the search engine popular in China.
 
−
 
 
−
; The Ma Le Ge Bi and The Grass Mud Horse Bay
 
−
 
 
−
: These refer to the {{w|Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures}}.
 
−
 
 
−
; The Location of Jia Junpeng
 
−
 
 
−
: This refers to the Internet meme of {{w|Jia Junpeng}} in 2009 in China.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Tencent QQ}}
 
−
 
 
−
: A Chinese instant messaging program. In English communities "QQ" has several more common definitions. It can be an {{w|emoticon}}, representing a face with two large, crying eyes, or a synonym for "rage quit", in which a video game player quits the game out of sheer frustration. It originated in ''Warcraft II'' multiplayer, where pressing Ctrl+Q+Q would quit the game, and became more widely known in ''World of Warcraft''. These definitions are commonly combined, usually to mock the "rage quitter".
 
−
 
 
−
; River Crabs
 
−
 
 
−
: River Crabs is a {{w|Euphemisms for Internet censorship in China|euphemism for internet censorship in China}}. The Gulf of China refers to how sites in the region are based in People's Republic of China ("Red China").
 
−
 
 
−
; The Great Firewall
 
−
 
 
−
: Refers to {{w|The Great Firewall of China}}, a pun on {{w|The Great Wall of China}}. Similar to how The Great Wall of China was meant to keep intruding nations out of the then-capital of the city, The Great Firewall of China is meant to keep visitors from visiting censored websites. Oddly other Chinese websites (Qzone, Renren etc.) are not enclosed in this zone. It also resembles the {{w|Nine-Dash Line}} commonly drawn on Chinese maps that indicates a vague territorial claim.
 
−
 
 
−
===Forums Islands===
 
−
Forums are websites where one person post a topic to which other people can discuss. While the map has a zoomed in version, this article shall discuss the two bigger islands, first.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.2ch.net 2channel]
 
−
 
 
−
: A Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for 4chan.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.craigslist.org/about/sites Craigslist]
 
−
 
 
−
: A classified advertisement website with sections devoted to just about everything... which formerly included prostitution services, hence The Former Site of Adult Services
 
−
 
 
−
In the zoomed-in map, there is the following:
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.4chan.org/ 4chan.org]
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an {{w|imageboard}} in which people can upload pictures while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as '''/b/''', is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. This is why Randall's incarnation of 4chan is roughly shaped like a penis.
 
−
 
 
−
; 420chan and 7chan
 
−
 
 
−
: Other imageboards in the style of 4chan. Their relative lack of popularity and derivative nature leads a lot of 4chan users to mock them, hence, their position on Randall's map suggests that they're mere wads of semen.
 
−
 
 
−
; Encyclopedia Dramatica
 
−
 
 
−
: Labeled ED on the map, is a wiki site dedicated to chronicling internet memes and other noteworthy sites, events, people, and anything else that catches their attention, generally in a very satirical manner. The site is heavily populated by 4chan users. Many people are offended by the articles and talks that go on in the wiki and forum, which is perhaps the reason that it appears to be represented as a wad of sperm. The image of sperm also makes sense since ED is used as a messaging center for the group "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is represented in the map as part of the testicles of the 4chan island(see below at the gulf named Anonymous).
 
−
 
 
−
; Tunnel to Habbo
 
−
 
 
−
: A reference to [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pools-closed the 2006 Habbo Hotel Raids], in which hundreds of 4chan Anons simultaneously logged onto Habbo Hotel and proceeded to be as obnoxious as possible, standing in formations of swastikas and penises or body-blocking the swimming pools.
 
−
 
 
−
; {{w|Catbus}} Route
 
−
 
 
−
: This is likely a reference to {{w|Lolcat}}s in general.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.ebaumsworld.com/ eBaum's World]
 
−
 
 
−
: A media-hosting website founded by Eric Bauman. The site has lost a lot of traffic after (quite valid) accusations of stolen content.
 
−
 
 
−
; The gulf labeled {{w|Anonymous (group)|Anonymous}}
 
−
 
 
−
: This is most likely a reference to the leaderless, anonymous international network called "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]" which is composed of (mainly)  anarchic activist hackers. Anonymous  was created on the /b/ messaging board of 4chan, hence why the bay of Anonymous is on the coast of /b/. Also, the fact that the bay is in the "testicles"(/b/) of the 4chan island "penis" is referring to how Anonymous was created on 4chan, in the same way that sperm is created in the testicles of a penis, possibly a subtle jab at the group.
 
−
 
 
−
To the south and east is an archipelago of islands representing various regional and special-interest forums. Moving clockwise from 4chan island is
 
−
 
 
−
; Storm 2K
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an online website hosting information on tropical cyclones and tools for tracking them, and has a forum with multiple categories and threads for discussion on tropical cyclones, as well as multiple tropical cyclone models and reconnaissance information.
 
−
 
 
−
; Skyscraper city
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an internet forum website for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts.
 
−
 
 
−
An island containing two websites related to women, namely
 
−
 
 
−
; Wizaz.pl
 
−
 
 
−
: A Polish website, presumably for women, with a forum filled with discussions mainly about beauty, health, women, hobbies, and fun.
 
−
 
 
−
; Baby and bump
 
−
 
 
−
: A self-described "pregnancy forum, baby and parenting community".
 
−
 
 
−
An island contaning:
 
−
 
 
−
; ForoCoches
 
−
 
 
−
: A very popular Spanish (as in from Spain) forum mainly about automobiles, but holds discussions on virtually any topic.
 
−
 
 
−
; Bodybuilding.com
 
−
 
 
−
: A website for bodybuilders. It contains a forum for general discussions on bodybuilding that includes topics such as supplements, exercises, and nutrition.
 
−
 
 
−
; Bokt.nl
 
−
 
 
−
: It calls itself the largest community on the topic of horses. A Dutch website, it holds topics about virtually anything involving horses.
 
−
 
 
−
; Cruise Critic
 
−
 
 
−
: A website with a large forum about cruises in general.
 
−
 
 
−
; Lay it low
 
−
 
 
−
: A website for discussing lowriding(changing a car so that its ground clearance go lower than the clearance of the original design from the manufacturer.
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.twoplustwo.com/ Two plus two]
 
−
 
 
−
: A poker & gambling forum
 
−
 
 
−
An island containing:
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.facethejury.us/ Face the jury]
 
−
 
 
−
: This is an online forum, originally founded for users to upload pictures of themselves to be judged by other users
 
−
 
 
−
A smaller nearby island is Datalounge
 
−
 
 
−
An island containing gaming-related sites:
 
−
 
 
−
* D2JSP
 
−
 
 
−
* EA UK
 
−
 
 
−
* Gametrailers
 
−
 
 
−
Smaller islands next to the D2JSP island are
 
−
 
 
−
* Steam powered
 
−
 
 
−
* World of players
 
−
 
 
−
* Nedgaf
 
−
 
 
−
* Overclock
 
−
 
 
−
A smaller island of regional and special-interest forums:
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://digitalspy.com/ Digital Spy]
 
−
 
 
−
: A British media and entertainment news service
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.onliner.by/ onliner.by]
 
−
 
 
−
: A Belarusian digital technology forum
 
−
 
 
−
Zona Ford
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://lowyat.net/ lowyat]
 
−
 
 
−
: A large Malaysian technology forum
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.macrumors.com/ MacRumors]
 
−
 
 
−
: An Apple news and discussion site
 
−
 
 
−
Adjacent to this, an island labelled
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ Whirlpool Forums]
 
−
 
 
−
: A large Australian broadband and technology forum. The drawing reflects Australia being an island continent separated from other countries.
 
−
 
 
−
An island made up of several European forums:
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.jlaforums.com/ JLA Forums]
 
−
 
 
−
: JLA Forums
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.fok.nl/ fok.nl]
 
−
 
 
−
: A Dutch forum site that is one of the largest internet communities in the Netherlands
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ The Student Room]
 
−
 
 
−
: A British forum and wiki for secondary and tertiary students
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.boards.ie/ boards.ie]
 
−
 
 
−
: "Now Ye're talking", a popular Irish forum site
 
−
 
 
−
; [https://www.forum.hr/ forum.hr]
 
−
 
 
−
: A Croatian forum
 
−
 
 
−
; rus-chat
 
−
 
 
−
: Possibly a reference to [https://rus-chat.de/ rus-chat.de]
 
−
 
 
−
The largest single-site island is [https://www.somethingawful.com/ SomethingAwful], a website that is meant to showcase all things "awful". SomethingAwful also has a large trollbase, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the Let's Plays of [https://lparchive.org/Dangan-Ronpa/ Dangan Ronpa] and [https://danganronpa2mirror.tumblr.com/ Super Dangan Ronpa 2], which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games. (Note that, due to these Let's Plays being in a forums that frequently hides behind a "paywall" that requires a paid account before accessing, the links provided go to their mirrors.)
 
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
−
:'''Map of Online Communities'''
+
:[Hand-drawn fantasy style map with land and sea areas representing populations of online communities mostly using a sepia/old-vellum effect. Each area or item is labeled.]
−
:Size on map represents volume of Daily Social activity (posts, chat, etc). Based on data gathered over the Spring and Summer of 2010.
 
−
 
 
−
:[Two insets on the upper left-hand corner shows that this map is a tiny portion of the huge continent of Spoken Language, encompassing portions of the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones (SMS).]
 
−
 
 
−
:[The largest landmass on the map by far, which takes up nearly the entire northern half of the map is "Facebook" - with large states in the south-east of the country labeled 'Farmville' and 'Happy Farm'. There is a much smaller state to the west of these called 'Farm Town'. To the north of these states is a large swath of unremarkable land entitled 'Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.' This is directly north of the large Dopamine Sea.
 
−
 
 
−
:A peninsula on the south-west, just below the Plains of Awkwardly Public Family Interactions, houses many tiny states, such as MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Bebo, & Hi5. It is bordered on the south by Buzzword Bay, which contains several islands of varying sizes. Among these are YouTube and Twitter (the largest), which are separated by the Social Media Consultant Channel. To the south-east of Twitter, across the Sea of Protocol Confusion, is another, equally large island. Most of it is Skype, with the north having two largish states called AIM and Windows Live Messenger. On the south-west part of the island are two smaller states called GG and Yahoo Messenger.
 
−
 
 
−
:The Island of Skype is extremely close to, but separated by the Great Firewall (a dashed line), the large landmass of QQ. It's north shore is the Gulf of China and Grass Mud Horse Bay. Outside of these bays, over the Great Firewall are two islands called Craigslist and 2Channel.
 
−
 
 
−
:In the Dopamine Sea, off the southern shores of Farmville and Happy Farm, is MMO Isle. Its largest state is WoW, with Runescape, Lineage, Maple Story, Habbo, and the Mountains of Steam among its notable landmarks. To the southeast of the island is the Gulf of Lag, in which sits the CDC Games island, with Eve Online.
 
−
 
 
−
:To the east of Twitter is Troll Bay, with such islands as Reddit and Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicio.us, and Wikipedia Talk Pages. To their south are the IRC isles, of which one is the tiny island of #xkcd.
 
−
 
 
−
:East of these islands, and north of Skype island, is the Sea of Memes. In this sea, to the north of Craigslist and 2Channel, is an archipelago of tiny islands. There is an inset, labeled 'Forums.' (See below.)
 
−
 
 
−
:To the southwest of Twitter island, in the Sea of Opinions, are the blog islands. These lie south of the islands in Buzzword Bay, as well. The northernmost islands in this group are centered around the Bay of Drama, on which can be found Diary Blogs, Gossip Blogs, and Livejournal. Gossip Blogs share an island with Political, Music, and Tech Blogs. To the north of this island is a smaller island called Photo Blogs. South of Diary Blogs, and off the southwest coast of Music blogs is a smaller island called Fandom Blogs. South of Tech Blogs, off of which sprouts the small peninsula of Business Blogs, is the Spamblog Straits. On the other side of the straits is a large island made up of Miscellaneous Blogs, with two states demarcated as Religious Blogs and Blog Blogs. Southwest of the Blog Islands is the Sea of Zero (0) Comments.]
 
−
 
 
−
:[An inset of a group of islands in the sea of memes located on the lower right corner of the map, labeled 'Forums'. The largest by far is 4chan and /b/. Also found here are D2JSP, JLA Frums, Fan Forum, Something Awful, and many smaller ones, too numerous to list here.]
 
  
−
:[The northeastern third of Gossip/Political/Tech Blogs island is another inset labeled 'Blogosphere (Core)'. This can be found on the lower left corner of the map. Two peninsulas in Political Blogs bookend the Bay of Flame -- these are Liberal Blogs and Conservative Blogs. Between them lie several tiny islands such as Politics Daily, CNN Politcal Ticker, and Mediaite. Off the coast of Liberal Blogs lies the island of NYTimes, off the coast of Conservative Blogs is Libertarian Isle. Between the two lies The Talk. The northern peninsula of Tech Blogs contains places such as Gizmodo, Engadget, Joystiq, and Kotaku.]
+
:[Label in a box with a white-background and slightly irregular border, overlaid and barely fit within a convenient area of apparently featureless sea in a central upper region:]
 +
:Map of Online Communities and related points of interest
 +
:Geographic area represents estimated size of membership
  
−
:[Text found between the two insets, which are directly below the main map.]
+
:[Land Area Labels:]
−
:ABOUT THIS MAP
+
:The Icy North (Yahoo, Windows Live),
−
:Communities rise and fall, and total membership numbers are no longer a good measure of a community's current size and health. This updated map uses size to represent total social activity in a community -- that is, how much talking, playing, sharing, or other socializing happens there. This meant some comparing of apples and oranges, but I did my best and tried to be consistent.
+
:AOL,
 +
::Chat Rooms
 +
:Reunion dot com,
 +
:Classmates dot com,
 +
:E-harmony,
 +
:Friendster,
 +
:Faceparty,
 +
:Chasm,
 +
:Qwghlm,
 +
:Yahoo Games,
 +
:Mountains of Web 1.0,
 +
:The Lonely Island,
 +
:MySpace,
 +
:Attractive MySpace Pages,
 +
:The Series of Tubes,
 +
:Myspace Bands,
 +
:WOW,
 +
:Lineage,
 +
:Second Life,
 +
:Third Life,
 +
:UO,
 +
:EQ,
 +
:FFXI,
 +
:2channel,
 +
:4chan,
 +
:LJ,
 +
:Xanga,
 +
:Orkut,
 +
:Cyworld,
 +
:Blurty,
 +
:OK Cupid,
 +
:Facebook,
 +
:Piczo,
 +
:The Compass-Rose-Shaped Island,
 +
::Practicals (Noob)
 +
::Focus on Real Life (IRL)
 +
::Focus on Web (.com)
 +
::Intellectuals (π)
 +
:Broadcaster,
 +
:The Bit Torrent,
 +
:Flickr,
 +
:Last.fm,
 +
:DeviantArt,
 +
:Isle of Slash,
 +
:Numa,
 +
:Digg,
 +
:Fark,
 +
:Reddit,
 +
:Something Awful,
 +
:Your Base,
 +
:Soviet Russia,
 +
:/. [Slashdot],
 +
:Spaaarta (YTMND),
 +
:StumbleUpon,
 +
:Del.icio.us,
 +
:The Blogipelago,
 +
:Sulawesi,
 +
:Xu Jinglei,
 +
:Post Secret,
 +
:Technocrati,
 +
:[Hard to read label: Probably JWB, TWB, or TMZ]
 +
:BoingBoing,
 +
:Huffington Post,
 +
:Gays of Web 2.0,
 +
:The Wikipedia project,
 +
:MIT,
 +
:Engadget,
 +
:Gizmodo,
 +
:Usenet,
 +
:MAKE Blog,
 +
:IRC Isles,
 +
:Sourceforge.
  
−
:Estimates are based on the numbers I could find, but involved a great deal of guesswork, statistical inference, random sampling, nonrandom sampling, a 20,000-cell spreadsheet, emailing, cajoling, tea-leaf reading, goat sacrifices, and gut instinct (i.e. making things up).
+
:[Sea Area Labels:]
 +
:NOOB Sea,
 +
:Gulf of YouTube,
 +
:Bay of Angst,
 +
:Sea of Culture,
 +
:Ocean of Subculture,
 +
:P2P Shoals,
 +
:Straits of Web 2.0,
 +
:Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons,
 +
:Bay of Trolls,
 +
:Viral Straits,
 +
:Sea of Memes,
 +
:The Wet Sea
 +
:Item Labels: Shipwreck of the SS Howard Dean, Cory Doctrow's Balloon, Stallman's airship, Google's volcano fortress
  
−
:Sources of data include Google and Bing, Wikipedia, Alexa, Big-Boards.com, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Akismet, every website statistics page I could find, press releases, news articles, and individual site employees. Thanks in particular to folks at Last.fm, LiveJournal, Reddit, and the New York Times, as well as sysadmins at a number of sites who shared statistics on condition of anonymity.
+
:[Another label in a white box, set down in a convenient spot in the lower-left of the map:]
 +
:(Not a complete survey. Sizes based on the best figures I could find but involved some guesswork. Do not use for navigation.)
 +
:Spring 2007
  
 
==Trivia==
 
==Trivia==
−
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023117/https://store.xkcd.com/products/online-communities-poster available as a poster] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].
+
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125025438/https://store.xkcd.com/products/online-communities-2007-poster available as a poster] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
Line 1,063: Line 382:
 
[[Category:Comics with color]]
 
[[Category:Comics with color]]
 
[[Category:Large drawings]]
 
[[Category:Large drawings]]
 +
[[Category:Comics featuring Richard Stallman]]
 +
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
 
[[Category:Internet]]
 
[[Category:Internet]]
−
[[Category:Rickrolling]]
 
 
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
 
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]
−
[[Category:Sysadmins]]
+
[[Category:Volcanoes]]
−
[[Category:Disney]]
+
[[Category:Online Communities]]
 +
<!-- Google's Volcano Fortress -->

Latest revision as of 09:10, 29 September 2025

Online Communities
I'm waiting for the day when, if you tell someone 'I'm from the internet', instead of laughing they just ask 'oh, what part?'
Title text: I'm waiting for the day when, if you tell someone 'I'm from the internet', instead of laughing they just ask 'oh, what part?'
    A larger version of the image is available here.

    Explanation[edit]

    This is Randall's first map of online communities, with a successor at 802: Online Communities 2. As Randall says on the map, the area of each "country" is roughly proportional to its membership, at least in 2007. Geographic location means a bit more, however, as the compass rose-shaped island near the middle of the map points out. North-south corresponds to a spectrum from practical to intellectual, and east-west corresponds to one from web-focused to real-life-focused. The map also bears a slight resemblance to South East Asia. Each "country" is represented by size and related points of interest. We also have a "Sea of Memes" and a small "Straits of web 2.0".

    Compass Rose-shaped Island[edit]

    This is a joke located near the middle of the map, that nonetheless serves to organize the illustration. A Compass Rose —the name for the multi-pointed star that shows where North is on the map— appears on most maps; however, here, it's actually land that just coincidentally looks like a compass rose.

    The "points" of the island do, however, roughly organize the map. Left is "Focus on Real Life," labelled "IRL," an abbreviation for "In Real Life." Right is "Focus on Web," labelled ".com." Up is "Practicals," labelled "N," as in "North," but with small letters making it spell "Noob," slang for a "Newbie" or "New user" — a person less experienced with the internet, as many of the sites to the top of the map are ones infamous for having large numbers of largely computer-illiterate people. Down is "Intellectuals," labelled "π," an important constant in mathematics approximately equal to 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937511.

    The Icy North[edit]

    These are communities that were once major players, but now in a much reduced role. While some are still fairly large, they're somewhat relics of older times, hence the "Mountains of Web 1.0" that run through them — Web 1.0 is the first major generation of websites.

    Yahoo!
    Yahoo was the most popular search engine around 1998, but lost out to Google. It remains in business due to diversification (it now owns Tumblr, for instance).
    Windows Live
    Windows Live Messenger used to be a particularly major way for friends to communicate, now taken over by Skype and the like. Once a more-or-less ubiquitous branding, now used much less. https://home.live.com/ ‎is one remnant.
    AOL
    AOL was once a huge player in the internet service provider market, noted for sending out millions of floppy disks and CD-ROMs in the 1980s and '90s offering a month or so free internet service (followed by high fees and difficult cancellation). Notably, AOL was the first company to sign up large numbers of people to internet access throughout the year, whereas before then internet was mainly provided by colleges and universities, fundamentally changing internet culture (see Eternal September). This influx of new users or "Noobs" (short for "newbies") names the Noob Sea south of AOL. The Chat Rooms nearby were a selling feature of early ISPs — ways to communicate with other people from that ISP. They are largely dying now, but were a major selling point in the early days.
    Classmates.com and Reunion.com
    These are early sites that offered to help you find your former classmates from school, a role largely taken over by the big, more generalized social media sites. Classmates.com is probably best known by its memetic advertisement that said "She married him??!! And they've got 7 kids??"
    Friendster
    This was the first big social media site. It was later outpaced by Myspace and Facebook (see Social Media below). It has survived by rebranding itself as a social gaming site, now used primarily in Southeast Asia.
    Qwghlm
    A reference to The Baroque Cycle, a series of science fiction books by Neal Stephenson. In them, Qwghlm is a group of islands in the icy north. See http://baroquecycle.wikia.com/wiki/Qwghlm.
    Chasm
    A barely-readable note just below the "O" of "NORTH." This may simply be a reference to a lot of fantasy series containing a chasm. (For example, the One Ring is destroyed by flinging it into a fiery chasm in The Lord of the Rings.)

    Dating sites (Northwest coastal regions)[edit]

    E-Harmony, OkCupid, and MixerDates
    These are dating sites; the other, larger sites near them are mostly social media sites.
    The Lonely Island
    This label appears to be a joke: Surrounded by, but separate from dating sites and social media sites, it would be a rather lonely place. Possibly named after "Tol Eressëa" (Translation: The Lonely Island), a somewhat obscure location in J. R. R. Tolkien's books, but there are other possibilities.

    Social Media (West)[edit]

    These are sites mainly used to communicate with friends, such as Facebook and Myspace. The first large one was Friendster, but this has largely become a social gaming site primarily used in Southeast Asia, as discussed in The Icy North, above. Other social media sites listed are:

    Faceparty
    A UK social media site started in 1999.
    Myspace
    A social media site partially owned by Justin Timberlake. Started in 2003, and peaking around the time this comic was made, it nonetheless still remains popular for bands (hence "Myspace Bands" in the southwest). It was never known for having a particularly attractive web design (partly because users could extensively customize the look and feel of their profile pages), hence only a very small part of it labelled "Attractive Myspace Pages."
    Series of Tubes
    A reference to an internet meme. In 2006, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, while arguing for the end of "Net neutrality", a concept that keeps ISPs from favouring or charging more for high-speed access to sites, claimed that such regulation was needed because the Internet was "not a truck" you could just load up with as much as you want, but a "series of tubes." This was fairly accurate, but his arguments were poor and badly phrased, and his speech subsequently received widespread derision (originally from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show), and it became a running gag on the internet.
    Facebook
    Generally considered (at least in the West) the "modern" social media network, and the most popular. However, this comic is from 2007, and Facebook did not catch up to Myspace until 2008-2009.
    Orkut
    A social media network launched in 2004 by Google, it became hugely popular in Brazil, India, and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
    Xanga
    A blogging and social media site launched in 1998.
    LJ
    LiveJournal, a blogging site, more or less, but one that allows an internet forum-like structure where anyone, or selected people, can all start new posts on a community. Noted for a large number of teenagers, fanfic authors, and the like in its heyday, hence the "Bay of Angst" to its south.
    Blurty
    LiveJournal's software is Open Access, meaning anyone can use it to set up a site. Blurty is, according to Wikipedia, an 18+ general community using this software.
    Cyworld
    A South Korean social media site featuring avatars and "mini-rooms."

    The Blogipelago (Southwest)[edit]

    This is a portmanteau of blog and archipelago. Sulawesi is a real island in the Indonesian archipelago, implying that this region's similarity to Indonesia is probably intentional.

    Huffington Post
    The Huffington Post is a web-only news site, named after its founder, Arianna Huffington. It's noted for attracting notable people to do very good write-ups of politics and news, generally with a liberal slant, but also for having a medicine section that supports every sort of quackery and nonsense, including a regular column by Dana Ullman promoting homeopathy (see 765: Dilution).
    Shipwreck of the SS Howard Dean
    In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, Howard Dean raised funds mainly over the internet, and was doing very well, until a gaffe caused him to crash and burn just before the primaries began. See Howard Dean presidential campaign, 2004.
    Cory Doctrow's Balloon
    Reference to 239: Blagofaire.
    Boing Boing
    An occasional trend is for a smallish magazine to get a website, have the website become vastly more popular than its print edition, and become a successful website. Examples include Cracked.com, The Onion, and the subject of this label, Boing Boing. Boing Boing is a group blog covering technology, intellectual property, science fiction, and futurism.
    Technorati
    A site for searching blogs.
    Sulawesi
    As mentioned above, a real island that is part of the Indonesian archipelago.
    Xu Jinglei
    A Chinese actress. According to Wikipedia: "In mid-2006, her Chinese-language blog had the most incoming links of any blog in any language on the Internet, according to Technorati."
    PostSecret
    A website that people send postcards to, describing their secrets. Some are little secrets (like swigging milk directly from the jug or carton), some are old, deep-seated traumas, and some are just things that they could never admit to anyone publicly. Worth a look.
    The Wet Sea
    Perhaps a reference to a West Sea, but not sure what that would be. Maybe just a simple joke, as what else would a sea be but wet?
    TWB
    This is short for "Translators Without Borders," a charitable project that tries to translate necessary texts into the languages of the people who need them for free. This might be it, if it's meant to relate to Wikipedia, to the east of it. On the other hand,
    TMZ
    This is a major celebrity gossip blog, rated #15 in the "World's 50 most powerful blogs" by The Guardian, and, at time of writing, rating #11 in the Technorati top 100.

    Sea of Culture (Central region)[edit]

    Sites for sharing and showing off music and images, most focusing on self-created content.

    Gulf of YouTube
    YouTube is the definitive video website where people can upload videos with the purpose of public viewing, ranging from home movies through official music videos through Let's Plays of people playing video games to questionably-legal uploads of cartoons and films. Google has since purchased YouTube.
    Piczo
    Teen-oriented website that allowed one to make a profile and put up pictures. The site has been dead since late 2012, due to the rise of Facebook. See Piczo.
    Broadcaster
    Another dead site, almost lost to the web. Only a few scraps of information remain on the web. One of the rare scraps of remaining information indicates that it was a webcam broadcasting service that also allowed YouTube-like sharing of videos.
    The Bit Torrent and the P2P Shoals
    Reference to file sharing (passing around often copyright-infringing files, such as movies, CDs, and the like), often done with the BitTorrent protocol. A "Torrent" can also be a flood of water, hence it being used to name a river. "P2P" stands for "Peer-to-peer", the basis for the BitTorrent protocol.
    Flickr
    a website where people can upload and share photographs they took.
    LastFM
    A music website that uses a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler". Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they listen to and transfers ("scrobbles") the information to Last.fm's database via the music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.
    DeviantArt
    The largest art website, where people can upload, sell, and buy not only art itself, but also video, audio, Flash-work, and even skins (the original purpose of deviantArt). While many big-name/professional people and organizations have their works in deviantArt, the site is more infamous for the large amount of people who upload low-quality fan-art and fan-characters, most notably of media from Japan. Another point of infamy is the large amount of drama that can happen in the website.
    Straits of Web 2.0
    A strait is a narrow passage between two outcroppings. Web 2.0 is a term used to describe new internet architectures, which these programs and Wikipedia (the other side of the strait) are examples of. Gays of Web 2.0 is a pun: The opposite of a gay person (homosexual) is a straight person (heterosexual).

    User-created content and discussions (Southeast)[edit]

    Sites such as Wikipedia and chat programs such as IRC.

    Wikipedia
    The world's largest encyclopedia, collaboratively edited by its users. It's labelled as "The Wikipedia Project" (actually called Wikimedia), since Wikipedia has generalised to cover a number of separate web sites, though, at the time of this comic, none near the size of Wikipedia (excepting, possibly, Wikimedia Commons, which is partly an image repository for Wikipedia), perhaps explaining the small size of all the other vertexes of the "web."
    Usenet
    The predecessor of most modern forums. A set of discussion groups that dominated the early internet. It also predates the standard web architecture to some extent — there's no standard weblink for it, for instance. See Usenet.
    IRC isles
    IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, a simple, low-bandwidth program for chatting. Common uses include Dungeons and Dragons games and other geeky pursuits.
    SourceForge
    A code repository. Basically, a place for programmers to meet up and work together on a variety of free and open source projects. See sourceforge. Has become less respectable since this comic was created in 2007, due to allowing misleading advertisements intended to trick people into installing questionable software.
    MIT
    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most respected universities for Engineering, Robotics, and other such fields.
    Engadget
    A blog/online magazine, in multiple languages, reviewing tech products and commenting on technology news.
    Gizmodo
    A blog about technology and design.
    MakeBlog
    A blog highlighting bizarre and interesting do-it-yourself projects, often with a geeky theme.
    Google's Volcano Fortress
    A volcano fortress is one traditional dwelling place of evil geniuses in fiction, and Google has quietly taken over huge chunks of people's interaction with the web. Perhaps this provides some background for 254: Comic Fragment?
    Stallman's Airship
    A joke, perhaps in line with Cory Doctorow's Balloon (239: Blagofaire, also referenced in this strip). The Super Mario series of games also commonly contains bossfights in airships.

    Ocean of Subculture and Sea of Memes (East)[edit]

    Sites related to smaller internet communities, aka "subcultures" and internet memes. The "Viral Straits" references the idea of something "going viral," i.e. spreading quickly to huge numbers of people on the internet. These sites are often responsible for things going viral, and the memes listed are ones that went viral in the past.

    Sites[edit]

    2Channel
    A Japanese imageboard that was actually the original inspiration for...
    4Chan
    An imageboard in which people can upload pictures, while others comment on them. The website is infamous for its loose/often non-existent rules, incredibly vulgar userbase, source of new memes, and spawning of trolls. 4chan's random board, known internally as /b/, is almost constantly flooded with porn and image macros. The fact that 4chan is a very small island on this map (to the far right on the map - left of "dragons" in the sentence Here there be anthropomorphic dragons) made quite a fuss for Randall. And this caused the comic to be mentioned in FRUIT OPINIONS! on the Blag. Although this comic was one of the more controversial, it had nothing on the impact of 388: Fuck Grapefruit, which was the cause of the Blag entry as that became the most controversial comic written to that point (i.e. 2008): ...beating out comics about cunnilingus, the Obama endorsement, and my making 4chan tiny on the map of the internet. (See the grapefruit comic for more details).
    Reddit
    The once-self-described "front page of the Internet" in which users submit stories, photos, and videos, and the best are "up-voted" to the top of the page.
    Digg
    A former competitor to Reddit in the social-news sphere. It has since been sold after this comic was released and restarted as an aggregator of news stories.
    Fark
    A website that writes humorous commentary on various news reports, especially the strange, bizarre, or things from the political far-left and far-right.
    Something Awful
    A website that is meant to highlight "awful" things. SomethingAwful also has a large troll base, but they tend to be more honorable than the ones from Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. One example is there being a spotty holding of the no-furries rule in the forums. The forums themselves are famous because of the holding of the "Let's Plays" of Dangan Ronpa and Super Dangan Ronpa 2, which had cooked up public interest to the point of there being an English-language release of the games.
    Slashdot
    A news site for technology-related news stories, which are submitted by its users. The "Slashdot effect" is named after this site.
    YTMND
    A community in which users can create meme-type nonsense by playing music over an image (either static or animated). Its name is an acronym for "You're The Man Now, Dog!"
    Stumble Upon
    A website that attempts to develop a profile for users in order to recommend which websites they might enjoy.
    Del.icio.us
    Another image and website aggregator, linking to various things of interest. It uses tags to let people find specific types of content. Since this comic was released, this website they renamed as simply "Delicious".

    Memes and related[edit]

    Isle of Slash
    "Slash fiction" is a type of fanfiction that takes two male characters from another work of fiction and puts them in a plot where they have lots of sex with each other. Named because of a common way of writing pairings in fanfiction, "X/Y", with the / being pronounced "slash." Adding to this, "Isle of" sounds like "I love."
    Numa
    A reference to the viral video "Numa Numa," consisting of a man dancing and lip-syncing to the song "Dragostea din tei" (Romanian for "Love from the lindens").
    Your Base
    A reference to the "All your base are belong to us" meme, a line from the game Zero Wing, a game with a huge amount of hilariously badly translated Engrish dialogue. See 286: All Your Base for more discussion of the meme.
    Bay of Trolls
    Trolls are people who attempt to stir up controversy by intentionally saying statements meant to annoy others into responding. "Bay" can refer to both a sheltered port and to an animal's cry, so "Bay of Trolls" can be read as "Shelter for Trolls" or "Angry Shouting of Trolls." Given the communities surrounding it, both would make sense.
    Soviet Russia
    "In Soviet Russia" jokes are a style of joke commonly associated with -comedian Yakov Smirnoff, which has since become an internet meme. Example: "In America, you always find a party. In Russia, Party will always find you." — playing off of the idea that "Party" can also refer to the Communist Party. The meme version usually isn't as clever as that, though. See "in soviet russia."
    SPAAARTA
    As in, "THIS! IS! SPAAARTA!!!", a famously over-the-top line from the movie 300.

    MMORPGs and related games (Northeast by East)[edit]

    An area dedicated to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games), large-scale games with huge numbers of players put into the same world. The label "Here there be anthromorphic dragons" references a common marking on old maps ("Here there be dragons") but updates it to joke about the more humanoid dragons seen in many games, or again, how dragons, especilally anthropomorphic dragons, are very-very popular in the furry community.

    Yahoo Games
    A branch of Yahoo (see "The Icy North") dedicated to games (mainly boardgames).
    UO
    Ultima Online, one of the first MMORPGs, and the first to grow to any size. Based on the long-running Ultima RPG computer games. Started 1997.
    EQ
    EverQuest, another important early MMORPG, started 1999. UO and EQ have declined significantly since then; for a while, they were each the iconic MMORPG, but that role has been taken over by...
    WoW
    World of Warcraft, an MMORPG launched in 2004, again based on a previously-existing RPG series, and by far the largest and most iconic at the time of this comic's creation. A few others have attempted to challenge it since.
    Runescape
    Free-to-play fantasy MMORPG; the largest in existence.
    FFXI
    Final Fantasy XI, the eleventh installment in the Final Fantasy series of video games, and the first to be a MMORPG. It didn't really take off until after this comic was made.
    Lineage
    1998 MMORPG. Particularly popular in South Korea, a country with somewhat of a cultural obsession with video games.
    Second Life
    A virtual world, noted for largely working from user-generated content, which can be sold by users for real money. See Second Life. Third Life is a joke based on Second Life — if it existed, it would presumably be a game people play to escape Second Life, which they play to escape their first, real life.

    Title text[edit]

    The title text references the 2005 meme "Don't worry, I'm from the Internet" - a catchphrase that originated from photos of cosplayers which spread on message boards and social media. While that phrase was originally used jokingly, Randall expresses a (genuine?) hope for a future where online communities are taken as legitimately as physical ones. This connects to the comic's detailed geographic mapping of online spaces - suggesting that just as you might ask someone "what part?" when they say they're from America or Europe, someday saying you're "from the Internet" would prompt the same genuine follow-up question about which specific online community you call home.

    Transcript[edit]

    [Hand-drawn fantasy style map with land and sea areas representing populations of online communities mostly using a sepia/old-vellum effect. Each area or item is labeled.]
    [Label in a box with a white-background and slightly irregular border, overlaid and barely fit within a convenient area of apparently featureless sea in a central upper region:]
    Map of Online Communities and related points of interest
    Geographic area represents estimated size of membership
    [Land Area Labels:]
    The Icy North (Yahoo, Windows Live),
    AOL,
    Chat Rooms
    Reunion dot com,
    Classmates dot com,
    E-harmony,
    Friendster,
    Faceparty,
    Chasm,
    Qwghlm,
    Yahoo Games,
    Mountains of Web 1.0,
    The Lonely Island,
    MySpace,
    Attractive MySpace Pages,
    The Series of Tubes,
    Myspace Bands,
    WOW,
    Lineage,
    Second Life,
    Third Life,
    UO,
    EQ,
    FFXI,
    2channel,
    4chan,
    LJ,
    Xanga,
    Orkut,
    Cyworld,
    Blurty,
    OK Cupid,
    Facebook,
    Piczo,
    The Compass-Rose-Shaped Island,
    Practicals (Noob)
    Focus on Real Life (IRL)
    Focus on Web (.com)
    Intellectuals (π)
    Broadcaster,
    The Bit Torrent,
    Flickr,
    Last.fm,
    DeviantArt,
    Isle of Slash,
    Numa,
    Digg,
    Fark,
    Reddit,
    Something Awful,
    Your Base,
    Soviet Russia,
    /. [Slashdot],
    Spaaarta (YTMND),
    StumbleUpon,
    Del.icio.us,
    The Blogipelago,
    Sulawesi,
    Xu Jinglei,
    Post Secret,
    Technocrati,
    [Hard to read label: Probably JWB, TWB, or TMZ]
    BoingBoing,
    Huffington Post,
    Gays of Web 2.0,
    The Wikipedia project,
    MIT,
    Engadget,
    Gizmodo,
    Usenet,
    MAKE Blog,
    IRC Isles,
    Sourceforge.
    [Sea Area Labels:]
    NOOB Sea,
    Gulf of YouTube,
    Bay of Angst,
    Sea of Culture,
    Ocean of Subculture,
    P2P Shoals,
    Straits of Web 2.0,
    Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons,
    Bay of Trolls,
    Viral Straits,
    Sea of Memes,
    The Wet Sea
    Item Labels: Shipwreck of the SS Howard Dean, Cory Doctrow's Balloon, Stallman's airship, Google's volcano fortress
    [Another label in a white box, set down in a convenient spot in the lower-left of the map:]
    (Not a complete survey. Sizes based on the best figures I could find but involved some guesswork. Do not use for navigation.)
    Spring 2007

    Trivia[edit]

    This comic used to be available as a poster in the xkcd store before it was shut down.


    comment.png  Add comment      new topic.png  Create topic (use sparingly)     refresh discuss.png  Refresh 

    Discussion

    I'm gonna try and put together some sort of explanation at all for this one. A couple of things I could use help on in terms of location if people want to chip in: series of tubes within myspace; the Icy North; the islands bounded by the Ocean of Subculture, Sea of Memes, and P2P Shoals; and the location of some of the tiny islands around the map (e.g. why is the Lonely Island near friendster, Google's Volcano Fortress off the IRC Isles, etc.). Thanks in advance!! Amurfalcon (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

    I've found Googling some of the more obscure things and half-readable things helps a lot. It's how I got Xu Jinglei. 141.101.99.219 17:03, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

    The Lonely Island may be a reference to the comedy band of the same name. Shortly before this map was made they blew up after appearing on SNL. I do not know if this is relevant to its location on the map. CloverOtsworth (talk) 00:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

    bay of trolls

    Might this be a reference to bay of pigs? 173.245.48.135 03:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

    Possibly, but, well, it'd be rather speculative to include it, and there's lots of other "Bay of X" places, e.g. Bay of Fundy. 141.101.99.235 05:46, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
    Map of the Internet

    I don't know if or how much this art was inspired by this comic, but if you like 256 you'll love the Map of the Internet. — tbc (talk) 16:14, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

    "World of Warcraft ... based on a previously-existing RPG series" i'm not sure about this statement. The first thing that most people think about would be Warcraft but that's not an RPG series (they are strategy games) unless we are considering it so for the minimal RPG elements in Warcraft 3. Perhaps it's referencing an other series (maybe Diablo) or I'm missing something and since i'm far from an expert in either WOW or xkcd i'll let someone else decide if it should be changed (a possible minimal change would be changing "RPG series" to either "game series" or "video game series"). 188.114.111.125 07:49, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

    There's no explanation of the "anthropomorphic dragons" bit. I mean, I'm sure many of us know what it means (wink wonk), but some may be confused. 108.162.246.33 03:31, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

    Can someone remove that stray line break before "A larger version..."? It irks me and I don't know how to get rid of it. -- 625571b7-aa66-4f98-ac5c-92464cfb4ed8 (talk) 01:02, 19 March 2017 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

    what is a one-syllable way to say "practical" or "practicals"? New editor (talk) 07:05, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

    As a noun? I suppose "prop(s)" fits that ("a practical effect", as supposed to a special one, for something in a movie scene). Or "skill", in context of what a practical ability is. Or "test" (i.e. a "practical exam"), if you think "trial" is >1 syllable (I say 1.5!)... As a non-noun, never pluralised in any context I can think of and I'm short of 1-syllable answers, but I'm sure a visit to a dictionary+thesaurus site would help greatly. But I'm now wondering why anyone even asked this question here... Perhaps I need to reread the page for long-forgotten context? 172.70.162.5 09:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
    - addendum: Ahah! The compass rose! Lemme think more about the word. Or let others find your question, equipped with an innately more at hand answer... - 172.70.85.211 (talk) 09:54, 5 April 2022 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
    additional addendum: it refers to those who "can", maybe? The "Cans", with the Intellectuals opposite being more like the "Coulds", rather than dimetrically Cannots. The 1S limit is rather restrictive. Can't even role out "able(rs)", or the like. But I presume you have singly-short-style names for the othe three (or seven?) points of the rose... Have fun. Hope you get better ideas from the next editor! -- ~sameIP~~slightlylater~ 162.158.159.73 (talk) 10:08, 5 April 2022 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
    A couple of the explanations given for certain sites seem a little outdated, for example, yahoo no longer owns Tumblr and (I think?) Friendster is defunct now. 172.70.86.10 (talk) 10:26, 23 November 2022 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
          comment.png  Add comment
    Retrieved from "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=256:_Online_Communities&oldid=387667"