A man and woman stare in contemplation at a quarter moon and the woman makes a remark about the incomprehensibility of humanity’s most notable extraplanetary achievement: sending a manned mission to the moon. The male, in an irreverent gesture, attempts to make a “geek recognition joke” in which a non-sequitur line from a movie in pop culture (In this case, Obi Wan Kenobi’s (Alec Guiness) line from Star Wars Ep IV, “A New Hope”) is recited by rote. However, he is cut off by the female who counters this attempt at a humorous non-sequitur with her paraphrase from the same movie, this time emulating Darth Vader’s heavy-handed style of command. Comically, she seems even to be able to perform the “Force Choke” that was iconic to the character Darth Vader’s mystical repertoire, lifting and choking the subject with a paranormal grip and a menacing finger gesture.
This comic attempts to “double down” by interrupting a “geek recognition joke” with a more forceful “geek recognition joke”, including physical comedy and comic male-directed female violence. The Author may be attempting to compensate for the internet community’s general feeling that “geek recognition jokes” are passé by adding the additional twist of denigrating the practice while simultaneously demonstrating that the rebuker has superior ability at it.
Your Curator realizes this may be a difficult concept to understand, as it attempts to execute ironically on a normally unfashionable concept. To further elucidate the joke, your Curator has prepared some alternative dialogue formulations pulled from the same movie. Familiarity with the movie Star Wars is assumed. They follow a pattern concordant with (in order) the common XKCD themes of “irony”, “atheism”, and “self-reference”.
- Woman: It’s strange to state at the moon and think that people flew to it. How is that possible?
Man: I dunno. Maybe they “flew casu – *gack*”.
Woman: I find your lack of original conversation disturbing. - Woman: How can you look at the moon and its perfect alignment with the Earth and not believe in an Almighty Creator?
Man: Never. I’ll never turn to the Dark Side. You’ve failed, your high – *gack*
Woman: I find your lack of faith disturbing. - Woman: So you’re saying you just write about things geek recognize, using stick figures and graphs and junk, and that works?
Man: She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid. I’ve made a lot of special modifica – *gack*
Woman: I find your constant reliance on recognition jokes to be disturbing.
CURATOR’S NOTE: Observe the female character in the dominant and socially normalized position. In an unusual twist, she also has the ability to engage in geek culture fluently but evidently prefers not to.
