Footnote
- This article is about the text at the bottom of xkcd.com. For comics featuring footnotes, see Category:Footnotes.
The footnote on xkcd is displayed beneath Randall's list of "Comics I enjoy". It's intentionally set to a very tiny font size, which makes it hard to read without zooming in. It states:
Here is a zoomed-in version:
The text gives questionable advice on how to view xkcd.com. Using a discontinued browser on an Apple computer released in 1986 with a screen resolution one pixel tall would be impossible.[citation needed]
History[edit]
There have been two major footnotes displayed over the course of the site's history, with a gap of 22 days without any footnotes after the removal of the original footnote.
Original footnote[edit]
The original footnote was added between April 6th, 2007 and May 3rd, 2007. According to this Blag post, it was as reference to random billboards appearing in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. They were a viral marketing campaign by the Ask Jeeves search engine to drive publicity around their new search algorithm. Randall thought the sort of people who would be curious enough to go to Google and type them in are probably the sort of people who would like xkcd, so he added the footnote to his website to attract more fans.
It’s clearly a viral marketing campaign and seems to be by Ask.com. I like puzzles like this, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to go anywhere — if you Google it, you just get blogs talking about the odd billboards. That’s not really very much fun.
It occurs to me that the sort of people who would be curious enough to go to Google and type them in are probably the sort of people who would like xkcd, so maybe we should create a twist in the puzzle. For those of you who have blogs or other sites, feel free to create links to xkcd.com with those billboard lines as the link text. I put the phrases at the bottom of xkcd.com so it won’t be filtered out as a Googlebomb.
- We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
- The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
- This is not the algorithm. This is close.
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The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
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The algorithm killed Jeeves.
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The algorithm is banned in China.
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The algorithm is from Jersey.
Bitcoin addresses[edit]
- Main article: Bitcoin address
Randall added a Bitcoin address (a string of alphanumeric characters) to the original footnote between February 18th, 2013 and February 24, 2013 and changed it many times over time. Randall also had a page at xkcd.com/bitcoin, which listed other Bitcoin addresses. The following footnote only mentions the first address used, but you can view a list of all addresses here.
- BTC 14FHqYSgAi39CEJksUJJsK8JzJzyqFpLVk
- We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
- The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
- This is not the algorithm. This is close.
Footnote removed[edit]
The old footnote was removed entirely, along with the warning above it, on September 12th, 2016, when 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline was the frontpage comic. It was probably removed to not scare potential new fans away, given the popularity of the comic. For 22 days, from September 12th, 2016 until October 4th, 2016, there was no footnote on xkcd.com.
Current footnote[edit]
The most recent footnote was added either on October 4th, 2016 or on October 5th, 2016 and has remained on the site ever since. It states: