Talking With A Hongkonger About Two Separate Online Spaces

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It was late evening time and I was having my final session of university for the week. It was a tutorial, and in it, the class discussed fandom in the online world. Partway through, we paired off with whoever was sitting beside us to investigate a particular fandom of our choice. As it turns out, I was sitting next to an international student from Hong Kong named Eddie and, inevitably, we ended up talking about more than just one fan group and instead it became a full-blown conversation about our own interests and, occasionally, how they were tangentially connected to online…stuff, whatever that stuff may be.

I first rambled on about a webcomic called XKCD. It started almost 15 years ago in 2005 and is authored by Randall Munroe, “a CNU graduate with a degree in physics…” (Munroe, N/A) who has also written several books like What If?, a book of ‘serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions’ (Munroe, 2017). His comic strips, usually published every other day, mix humour and surrealism, often with obscure references to both the scientific and the pop-cultural, while also “impart[ing] its…information and data visually – and memorably. Mainly by making you laugh…” (‘Interstellar Memes On XKCD’ 2013, p. 43) As a result, this has led to fan creations like Explain XKCD popping up, a website that explains every comic that Munroe has ever put out - often going into excruciating detail about each. Each comic usually comes with a discussion thread where people debate the meaning of different parts of the comic as well as how the explanation should be edited or structured. It’s a fascinating para-text…much like the one Eddie showed me called Fanpiece.

Like Explain XKCD, it’s a website where fans congregate to share information and their passion. But unlike Explain XKCD, it was much broader in scope, tackling everything from gaming to films to other activities like Basketball and the NBA (a particular favourite of Eddie’s). My attention was particularly caught by an article which described someone beating the game Resident Evil 4 with a 0% hit ratio. This meant they couldn’t use their gun but only the knife and a small selection of other weapons. However, the article was written in Chinese, the translation was poor and I had to follow it back to its original Kotaku source. Still, I have a great affinity for these sorts of ‘challenge runs’ in games. Eddie and I also chatted at length about eSports like Counter-Strike and how they were great spectator sports that still offered depth in its mechanics and tactics.

All in all, I was a bit surprised by how much we were able to talk about with very little pause or hesitation, considering the international boundaries between the two of us. Then again, it makes a lot of sense. Everyone may be different, but we're all weird in similar ways (for the most part), and that definitely applies to fandom and literature of all sorts.
 
(This was made for the university subject, BCM241)
 
References:

‘Interstellar Memes On XKCD’ 2013, Visualisation, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 42-43.

Munroe, R N/A, ‘XKCD - A Webcomic [About Page]’, XKCD, viewed 22nd September 2019, <https://xkcd.com/about/>.

Munroe, R 2017, ‘What If? [Landing Page]’, XKCD, viewed 22nd September 2019, <https://what-if.xkcd.com/book/>.

Plunkett, L 2019, ‘Resident Evil 4 Player Completes Game With 0 Per Cent Accuracy’, Kotaku, viewed 22nd September 2019, <https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/09/resident-evil-4-player-completes-game-with-0-accuracy/>.

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