Xkcd/YMMV
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Read the alttext. Also check here and here Could it be that the Black Hat Guy is not an uncaring heartless monster, but rather someone who is unsure how to give and receive love and is frustrated with the world?
- Badass: Imagine if there was nothing holding her back.
- Creator Worship: Many of the more rabid fans believe Randall has the ability to read minds and they often try to emulate the wacky antics depicted in the comic.
- Draco in Leather Pants: Black Hat Guy has a lot of fans thinking his actions are cool, despite being a dangerous sociopath who would have gotten several life sentences and/or the death penalty in Real Life.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Black Hat Man's companion does not condone his participation in the My Lai massacre.
- Fan Disillusionment/HypeBacklash: The reasons the xkcdsucks blogs exist.
- Fan Dumb: The previously mentioned lack of existence of Malamanteau article didn't stop the xkcd fanbase from both trying to create it, and claiming that the article that never existed was actually destroyed in a response to the xkcd comic.
- Funny Aneurysm Moment: This strip is perhaps the fastest example of the trope happening in recent memory. (For the record, just days after the strip was put online, no less than twelve tornadoes touched down around the Dallas metropolitan area, causing quite a bit of damage.)
- Genius Bonus: All over the place.
- Even in biology more and more, although those tend to be more sober minded ones about cancer.
- Hate Dumb: There is a distinct hatedom that mostly seems to center around grumblings of "That asshole Randall thinks he's so smart, with his comics about fucking math, not smarter than me, fucker..."
- Harsher in Hindsight: Strip 401's comment on cancer may count.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: This strip is even funnier with the knowledge of the plot of the latest Ring movie.
- The Masochism Tango: Black Hat Guy and his girlfriend. He blew up her car, for Chrissakes. By moving the mines she had set up to blow up his car. She stole his hat. He likes his hat.
- Memetic Badass: Most notably, Summer Glau.
- Memetic Mutation
- On the forums, there's "Get out of my head Randall!", sometimes abbreviated to "GOoMHR!!"
- Also on the forums, a filter automatically replaces "LOL" with "This cheese is burning me!", so the posters started writing "The cheese is lukewarm today" if they weren't impressed with strip, or "My cheese was really burned today" for good ones.
- This strip inspired people to take similar photos.
- "It's better than Vista", partly thanks to Making xkcd Slightly Worse.
- Also, "I've never been so turned on in my life", "Meme Density", etc.
- Paranoia Fuel: Here. Also Here.
- An In-Universe example: Core
- Reference Overdosed: Many comics require the reader to know the reference to get the joke.
- Refuge in Audacity: He's cracked jokes at the expense of Anonymous, 4chan, and Encyclopedia Dramatica, collectives notorious for their Troll activities, hive mentalities and tendency to go way over the top in response to even being mentioned.
- Tastes Like Diabetes: a few (some say most) of the romance-based comics. Sometimes brutally, brutally subverted. Like in Strip 513.
- The Woobie: Don't tell me you don't want to give him a big hug and take him home.