Hairbun

Hairbun
Hairbun, as seen in 1253: Exoplanet Names
First appearance	337: Post Office Showdown
Appearances	87

A user disliked that this character was called Hair Bun Girl as she is clearly and adult. He proposed she should be renamed to Hairbun See here. Only two commented on this, but the user decided to chance it any way. It would be nice to have some more comments from other users if this was a good choice!

Hairbun is a stick figure character in xkcd. She is distinguished by her hair that is set up in a bun. But she can have several different hair styles and sometimes uses glasses see the gallery below. But the picture here is her most prevalent appearance.

Characteristics

Hairbun is a minor character in xkcd. She appeared two weeks in a row in the spring of 2015 and was recognized as a "new" character at that time, though she had been used several times prior to then.

She is not the same character from comic to comic. She is mainly just another woman that Randall can use when he wishes to give a woman a specific characteristic so to set her aside from the more commonly used women Megan and Ponytail. Often she is depicted together with both Megan and Ponytail proving this point. (Nine appearances as of February 2016: 703, 708, 1052, 1253, 1504, 1507, 1601, 1637 and 1645.)

• In her first appearance, 337: Post Office Showdown, she is drawn with glasses.
  • She also wears glasses in 1637: Salt Mine, 1110: Click and Drag, 1088: Five Years, 1052: Every Major's Terrible, 835: Tree and in 410: Math Paper
    • In 835: Tree she actually portrays Cueball's mother and/or the wife of another version of Cueball).
    • She wears sunglasses (as Trinity) in 566: Matrix Revisited.
    • In total up to Salt Mine she has used glasses eight times.
• Her first appearance without glasses was in her second appearance: 378: Real Programmers. And with the recent comics (past no. 1500) this is now her most prevalent appearance.
• In 572: Together a woman looking like Hairbun is obviously Megan who has turned old during the comic, so this is also not included here. But it could indicate that Randall often uses Hairbun to represent an older woman, as this was also the case in 586: Mission to Culture.
• Since she is a grown woman - she cannot be the small girls in 1519: Venus, 1584: Moments of Inspiration, 1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar, or 1659: Tire Swing.
• A character with a hair bun was also featured in 911: Magic School Bus, but she is drawn in color and with a dress and represents the fictive character Ms. Frizzle. She is thus not included as a Hairbun.
• She can, however, represent a real person:
  • This occurred when she represented Emily Dickinson in 788: The Carriage. In that comic Emily is drawn exactly as the standard version of Hairbun, and she is thus included.
    • This is similar to Cueball who also represents real persons from time to time.
  • In the book Thing Explainer she is used in the explanation for The pieces everything is made of (i.e the periodic table) to represent Marie Curie.
• In both 703: Honor Societies, 708: Sex Dice, 1520: Degree-Off, 1601: Isolation and in every instance of her in 1608: Hoverboard her hair looks somewhat different, curly and with some kind of pony tail, but since her main distinguishing characteristic is the hair bun, these comics are included here.
  • Her hair looks somewhat the same in 1645: Toasts, but without the ponytail appendage.
  • Six times in total with different hair. Never also with glasses though.
• This leaves 10 times (after 24 appearances) where she has looked like the picture used on this page.

Gallery

Since Hairbun is depicted in quite many different ways here is a gallery of some of these different appearances: