570: New Car

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 23:04, 2 February 2013 by Alpha (talk | contribs) (Explanation)
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New Car
Somewhere out there is a company that has actually figured out how to enlarge penises, and it's helpless to reach potential customers.
Title text: Somewhere out there is a company that has actually figured out how to enlarge penises, and it's helpless to reach potential customers.

Explanation

A well-known type of Internet scam tries to trick the reader into thinking that they've won a prize, often in the form of an annoying flashy ad banner (e.g. "You're our 100,000th visitor! Click here to claim a free Ferrari!"). In the comic, the guy with the car really did have a fancy car to give out, but the winner didn't claim it, believing it to be a scam. It's a bit like the boy who cried wolf — given enough lies, and the truth will look like a lie.

The title text refers to another type of scam, advertising fake "male enhancement" drugs. Randall suggests that if such a drug really did exist, it would be very difficult to advertise effectively, since most people would assume it was a scam.

Transcript

Cueball: When'd you get the car?
Friend: It's the darndest thing. We bought it as a prize for the 100,000,000th visitor to our website.
Cueball: And they didn't want it?
Friend: Apparently.
Cueball: Maybe they didn't see the notice.
Friend: It was flashing and everything!
Cueball: How bizarre.


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Discussion

This is the first explanation I've contributed. Feedback is welcome. gijobarts (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


There is a community portal discussion of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since the one in the car is the most interesting of these two Cueball I have renamed in the transcript (and added explanation) so he is called Cueball, so it may be OK to keep him listed as Cueball. But since the other guy also looks like Cueball and they have about the same amount of lines this is one of the comics where there is no special reason to say one is Cueball and the other not...--Kynde (talk) 11:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

im not brave enough to do this, but someone should change the "here" in the clickbait example message from random page into the dont stuff beans up your nose uh huh page172.69.62.67 13:40, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Nvm, I did it >:] 172.70.110.65 18:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC)Bumpf (I'm pretty sure the IP i'm responding to is me from a year ago)