1656: It Begins

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It Begins

Title text: You can also try 'Yikes.'

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: First draft. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic encourages the reader to post random news stories on the Internet, under the line "It begins." This creates a sense of impending change, as well as making people wonder what, exactly, is being referred to. The title text instructs readers to try the line "Yikes!" instead. The first would also encourage people to theorize about what, exactly, is beginning. This can speedily lead to speculation, and other curious theories. It therefore qualifies as a form of nerd sniping, in a feedback loop, which may be either prevented or worsened by company when reading the line.

Some stories that might benefit especially from this are those relating to machine autonomy, animal attacks, disease, and so forth. This would call to mind various popular culture and/or scientific hypothetical scenarios.

Perhaps the comic's choice of article refers to the idea of an animal revolution.

Transcript

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Discussion

It Begins:

Oscar apologizes!

Did it work? :-) --Kynde (talk) 08:50, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

This brings the question how often would comment "It Begins" be labeled as offensive, for example racist or something ... and, unfortunately, that already begun years ago. -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:48, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

It has been quite a while since the last Protip, except for the pyramid pro tip in 1608: Hoverboard, it is almost 100 comics since the last real protip comic: 1565: Back Seat. --Kynde (talk) 09:08, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

This makes me think of the beginning of The Birds. I do not know if it is intended. -- InviPinkUnicorn (talk) 11:44, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

I think it unmistakably is a reference to the Hitchcock film, especially given the specific choice of seagulls. I changed the explanation, but left the other possibilities in. Miamiclay (talk) 22:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The bird's behavior is pretty normal, gulls break clam shells and such by dropping them on to the beach. Maybe it was a clam shell phone? 108.162.245.180 15:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion the explanation is missing one important use of "It begins": fearmongering. I follow a far-right website just to keep oriented (and sometimes entertained) about far-right political views, and the guy who runs the site typically runs at least one story a week with the title starting with "It begins:". Some examples: "It Begins… Obama Plays Race Card Against Trump – Attacks White Working Class", "It Begins… Obama’s HUD Launches Civil Rights Investigation on IL Town for Not Building Public Housing", "It Begins… Democrat Lawmaker Proposes $100 Tax on Every Gun", "It Begins… Outraged Flea Market Shopper Calls Cops Over Confederate Memorabilia", etc. etc. --RenniePet (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Missing reference?

The "in bed" meme, as detailed in 425:_Fortune_Cookies 198.41.235.233 21:55, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

It begins.o

Ryan says open GOP convention 'more likely' --108.162.214.143 21:19, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Can someone explain "Yikes" for a non-native english speaker? --162.158.114.219 03:01, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

1. To the above: "Yikes" is typically said in response to something scary, but not when the speaker is actually scared. It wouldn't be as strange as "It begins" for the news story in the comic, but might still be a bit excessive for such a minor thing. 2. A line from the article: "animals get sick of us always looking at our pokédexs." It was originally smart phones, but is the change meant to be or just vandalism? Sorry if this seems like a stupid question; I've never used the wiki before. 162.158.2.218 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

People have created text substitution browser plugins that also replace text within text fields, inspired by comics like 1288. As a resource for xkcd fans, we experience a large amount of accidental vandalism due to these browser plugins. Davidy²²[talk] 09:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a reference here to clickbait ads, like those on Facebook that show a picture of a celebrity (like The Rock), with captions like "He is gone" or "He will be missed", seemingly to imply that he has recently died. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 00:06, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Did no one here watch Babylon 5? Kosh says "And so, it begins" ominously before every episode! Nitpicking (talk) 04:45, 26 January 2022 (UTC)