Randall Munroe’s webcomic xkcd has plenty of sweet, goofy, and clever strips that appeal to anyone. I love silly ones like “Alternate Energy Revolution” – a mashup of War of the Worlds and Don Quixote – and the ambitious extra-large strips that show the scale of time and space or the dramatic impacts of climate change. But I often feel like I’m not getting as much out of the series as I could be.
My husband Kevin is a technical project manager, and he says there’s an xkcd for pretty much every problem that comes up in his work. His favorites are “Standards,” which demonstrates how the well-intentioned attempt to create unified standards tends to result in more fragmentation, and “Tasks,” which neatly explains how difficult it is to determine if a programming problem is easy or virtually impossible. But while most of Munroe’s highly specific humor doesn’t apply to me, there’s one strip that has lived rent-free in my head for 18 years.
“Duty Calls” shows a stick figure at their computer while their partner tries to get them to come to bed. They explain that they have to stay up because they’re doing something important. “Someone is wrong on the internet” and if they leave, they’ll just keep being wrong. If xkcd’s many strips about computer science and engineering regularly have applications for Kevin’s work, “Duty Calls” feels way too close to my own job.
Why Duty Calls is my favorite xkcd comic
There are far more emotional comics that evoke Randall’s relationship with his wife, particularly those dedicated to her cancer diagnosis. But “Duty Calls” feels very much like a gender-flipped version of my dynamic with Kevin, who has no social media presence and is horrified by the idea of sharing his own opinions on the internet. I argue about pop culture professionally, and sometimes that means my job requires reading the takes posted by the richest man in the world or a White House official and then sitting at my desk to explain why they’re wrong.
As “Duty Calls” points out, this is a ridiculous thing to do. People are wrong on the internet all the time, sometimes purposefully trying to provoke rage. I’ve tried to get better at ignoring posts sharing incorrect facts or opinions I disagree with, and often someone else will take on the responsibility of responding to them. Sometimes I just mention those infuriating comments to Kevin, who will quote “Someone is wrong on the internet” back at me as a reminder of how constant and unsurprising this problem is.
Maybe it’s for the best that I don’t resonate with all the jokes in xkcd. It’s not like Kevin wants to know what it’s like to stress out about estimating project lengths or argue about programming languages. The best xkcd jokes are the ones that get to a deep frustration and allow you to view them in a new, absurd light. My favorite is also a good reminder that it’s often best to just step away from your computer, stop arguing with people on the internet, and go to bed.
