Talk:2426: Animal Songs

Hi, I had a question about explain xkcd. On incomplete tags for the explanation, they most often say This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: created by ______ please mention here... On this comic, it says created by Dr Fauci in private. Or the MRNA one, thermal exhaust port. Who creates these names? Do people just make them up, or is there something else going on? RingTailedLemur (talk) 02:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Yep, you can add whatever ____ you want in there

108.162.215.50 02:30, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and Yes No, no, of course there's nothing diabolical going on behind the scenes.

(Check the progressive changes in the edit history for each comic page. It gets created/populated by the resident Bot, including the default Incomplete bit, and then (it has become customary) someone has a good idea for a topical rewording that they think is rather clever. And sometimes further people think they can be even cleverer, while editing or as sole purpose for an edit.)

...aaaand, of course I get edit-conflicted, but I thought this reply was clever enough to add anyway, so why not..? 172.69.55.134 02:38, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! I looked at the edit thingy and I saw it just says A BOT. RingTailedLemur (talk) 03:23, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

My all time favorite is the one I added on 2150: XKeyboarCD: “Created by a LEOPARD USING AN XKEYBOARCD” 172.68.132.157 03:50, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Is it known whether Dr. Fauci owns a cat?--Pere prlpz (talk) 08:57, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I just did a quick image search and didn't find a single picture of Dr. Fauci wearing a lab coat during a press conference. Maybe we should mention that in the explanation. Bischoff (talk) 09:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

This comic uses lowercase text which makes it feel like some of the really old comics.172.69.34.52 23:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it's intended to be sotto voce. Like, normally in text-format communications, switching to AllCaps can be taken as SHOUTING! Which is an interesting shift. But clearly he's singing 'to' his fish alone without any reason to broadcast the fact, and he only deliberately wishes his normally spoken words (in his response to the call) to be heard by anyone else. 108.162.229.18 00:50, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Lowercase glyphs for the XKCD font, anyone?

"government medical science guy^{[citation needed]}" is hilarious, please keep it. --Youforgotthisthing (talk) 20:05, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

"The comic shows him singing a made-up song to his pet fish in order to memorise his daily routine" … except that I don't find any indication that it's to help him memorize his daily routine. I considered it just like talking to our other pets (or infants), but with a tune applied. Talking gently, humming, singing, etc. is frequently used when working with animals or infants to keep them calm and reassured. But for this case, I think it is most likely to a form of self-talk, to get him mentally prepared to face the crowd. (or maybe singing is just something he likes to do, like all those people we see in musicals) 108.162.245.246 22:23, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Interesting how wear and there rhyme despite "there" not really being part of the song. bubblegum-talk|contribs 23:49, 20 February 2021 (UTC)