1 [caption]: xkcq A webcomic of recursion, self-reference, completeness, consistency, and recursion
1 [caption]: How Randall Munroe gets stuff done - Step 1: The idea.
1 Randall Munroe: Massively Multiplayer Solitaire! You can login and play, or you can find a game in progress and send comments like "Move the red nine there!" And you can't turn this kibitzing off!
2 [caption]: Step 2: Publish comic.
2 Randall Munroe: And it's recursive too.
3 [caption]: Step 3: Sit back and wait.
3 Randall Munroe: 45 minutes? Man, the fans are slow today.

I am fully aware of the hypocrisy of this strip.

But seriously, I expect if Randall were to publish a strip in which the idea of World Peace was mentioned, millions of geeks around the world would have it achieved within a few hours.

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2024-09-22 Rerun commentary: There was a phase when anything that Randall mentioned in xckd would immediately trigger hundreds of fans to edit Wikipedia and add into the article for that thing the fact that it had been mentioned in xkcd.

For example, if a new xkcd strip mentioned the Pizza theorem, then within minutes the Wikipedia article would have been edited to include a section headed "In popular culture", with a statement that:

The pizza theorem was mentioned in the xkcd comic "Haha, Funny Pizza Thing" published on 13 June, 2020.

It was to the ongoing annoyance of serious Wikipedia editors to have to deal with this, removing the reference multiple times as more fans would arrive and re-add similar statements.

It's fine to be a fan of stuff, but don't be jerk about it.