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Xkcd's Long-running "Time" Comic: Work of Art Or Nerd Sniping?

Posted by Unknown on from the trolling-your-readers-for-fun-and-profit dept.

Fortran IV writes "Randall Munroe's xkcd webcomic has done some odd things before, but #1190, 'Time,' is something special. It's a time-lapse movie of two people building a sandcastle that's been updating just once an hour (twice an hour in the beginning) for well over a month (since March 25th), and after over a thousand frames shows no sign of ending; in a few days the number of frames will surpass the total number of xkcd comics. It's been mentioned in The Economist. Some of its readers have called it the One True Comic; others have called it a MMONS (Massively Multiplayer Online Nerd Sniping). It's sparked its own wiki, its own jargon (Timewaiters, newpix, Blitzgirling), and a thread on the xkcd user forum that runs to over 20,000 posts from 1100 distinct posters. Is 'Time' a fascinating work of art, a deep sociological experiment — or the longest-running shaggy-dog joke in history? Randall Munroe's not saying."

12 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. How is this interesting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I looked at it. Big black flat space with two stick figures. The Economist cares about this why?

    1. Re:How is this interesting? by tqk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I looked at it. Big black flat space with two stick figures.

      You got stick figures? All I get is the word "TIME" all alone by itself. Profound, or hungover?

      --
      "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
    2. Re:How is this interesting? by dicobalt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's about building something (a person's life to be specific) then time comes along and destroys it (death), like tides destroy sand castles. At least I assume that's what it's about, that might be too obvious though.

  2. I am on the only one with the reaction by redmid17 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't really care? I even like xkcd

  3. It Fits Right In by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every now and then, a graph or a chart or some insight appears in the xkcd lineup that seems somehow very different from what has gone before. I remember the day I brought up Time and was initially puzzled. I didn't get it. I moused over it and saw "Wait for it." and started staring at it intently. My mind started playing tricks on me and I thought I saw a pixel or two change, but after awhile I realized they hadn't. I checked back an hour later and the castle had changed a little, and I laughed at the notion that my experience with and interpretation of the comic had already changed with the passage of Time. I decided that that was one of the primary points. I like it.

    1. Re:It Fits Right In by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I forgot to mention - he had also done one not long before where you pan around on it exploring ( #1110 ) and after awhile you realize that it's huge. It would make sense that, having done a comic that plays with the concept of space in comics, he'd do one that plays with time.

  4. Re:Slow animation by femtobyte · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I bet this makes the people who look at it think a bit more than they would during the first two minutes of Fantasia. If your own mind is a barren wasteland, then I guess moving slowly is a waste --- but if you can bring something of your own mind to the work, so you don't need to be force-fed sound and color full-blast to make up for your own lack of creativity, the comic gets more interesting.

  5. really long science fiction short story by hamjudo · · Score: 1, Interesting
    The characters built some stuff on the beach, and now they are wandering around trying to figure out how their world works Their world does not work like our world.

    The form of story is unusual, in that one must use additional technology to follow it. Which the reading community developed very quickly. I use xkcd.aubronwood.com/.

  6. Re:you realize that art is a field of liberal arts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No, "the field of liberal arts" is a division of study in university environments. "Art" is a fundamental part of the way in which humans express themselves. The difference is subtle, just like hurricanes and clown make-up.

  7. Re:It display at least one thing by mrbester · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think of the Star Trek universe, in particular Picard explaining to characters in "First Contact" that as money is outmoded (apart for the stubbornly mercantile Ferengi situation) the utopia of self advancement for the betterment of all as a primary activity is pretty much a reality in the Federation.

    Then there is this, the dystopia, just a few hundred years early. GP can access all this accumulated knowledge and better themselves, maybe even the world, yet their view is so etiolated it seems like too much effort. Gene Roddenberry is spinning in space right now.

    Perhaps we ought to let it all go to hell and become servile chattels of a corporate controlled stagnated "society" because no one gives a flying fuck apart from getting their fix of kitten pictures.

    Sometimes I really despair of this world.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  8. No it's not. by denzacar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Art is both a process and the product of an attempt to encapsulate and transfer a human experience through a medium.

    Without audience, it's just masturbation.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  9. Re:Length by Patch86 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder idly if he has drawn every frame and they are now sat on a server waiting to be served up each hour, or if he's still drawing frames for it as it goes. Obviously he must have drawn them with at least some buffer space, but I wonder how much? A day? A week? If he's drawing them as he goes, is he going to keep it up forever?

    I don't want to get involved in any discussions about whether it's high art or low nerd sniping or whatnot, but you've got to hand it to that guy for dedication to the art of internet stick men. Between this one, the massive pannable one, and his excellent log-scale ones, he's a man who puts some serious effort into his website...