Defensive Profile
Defensive Profile
[A profile on an unknown social media site is displayed. The profile picture is a close-up image of Megan. The profile reads:] I speak my mind and don’t care who I offend. No filter.
[In the next panel, the text is highlighted, and a context menu has appeared. There is a mouse pointer on the option "View translation".] Copy Select all View translation [selected] Print
[In the last panel, the profile text is updated:] I don’t understand why people keep getting mad at me and I’m using this pep talk to convince myself that’s okay.

This comic demonstrates a theoretical feature which provides more honest interpretations of social media profiles. We see a profile for a person who says they have “no filters” and has no qualms about offending or upsetting anybody with their seemingly radical views. But the “translation” of the description reveals that it is a vastly insecure person who seems to have the problem of saying the wrong thing every time and so their profile description is a way for them to justify their comments.
The title text continues, with the aggressive “NO DRAMA ZONE” turning out to mean that the user is merely trying to keep any offended or genuinely upset comments away from their page because they simply have no idea how to emotionally handle hurting someone’s feelings.
Randall previously demonstrated another theoretical feature to address passive-aggressive behavior in 1085: ContextBot . And show Cueball having the same feeling in 1984: Misinterpretation .
The comic’s feature may be based on the context menu option of the Google Chrome web browser to have a foreign language webpage translated to the user’s selected native language. However, in Google Chrome, the user may only translate the entire page, while in this comic the user may also select some text and have only the selected part translated. Also, Google Chrome uses Google Translate for translation by default, which cannot read minds like in the comic yet (though it might be able to someday, given how much information Google has control over). However, if one uses the official Google Translate extension for Google Chrome, one may actually translate only the selected text. It is possible then that it is instead the extension which inspired the comic’s feature.
This comic not only illustrates such a feature, but implies that the “translated” thoughts are what’s actually going on behind posts of these types on social media, as if Randall can actually read those people’s minds somehow. If this implication is the intent of the comic, then Randall thinks that people who have “no filter” are actually insecure and that people who want “NO DRAMA” are actually afraid of upset comments. Alternatively, Randall hates people who post such things in their profiles, and therefore wants to belittle them in this comic as actually being insecure, rather than being as confident as their aggressive behavior implies. This explanation is corroborated by notable news near the comic’s publishing time (see below).
The style of the profile showcased in the comic resembles the profiles of the popular social media website Twitter, which while the user is logged in, shows the user’s own profile on the left side of the page in a similar style to the comic, with their picture on the left side of their name, their Twitter handle under their name (which explains the extra line of text under what is presumably the name) and their “bio” right below those. The Twitter “bio” is a space usually used for the user to explain who they are. Common details about a person which are included in their “bio” are their profession, their personal interests and the products they have for sale. Some people also write about their personality, such as the one in the comic, which is quite outspoken and frank about her opinions.
The title of this comic is “Defensive Profile”. “Defensive” is the opposite of “offensive”, which is a word that might be used to describe the contents of profiles which display such a warning as in the comic. However, the feature reveals the warnings to actually be defenses against behaviors that deeply bother the profile owner. The profile is thus proved to actually be “defensive” instead of “offensive”, at least regarding the warning text.
[A profile on an unknown social media site is displayed. The profile picture is a close-up image of Megan. The profile reads:] I speak my mind and don’t care who I offend. No filter.
[In the next panel, the text is highlighted, and a context menu has appeared. There is a mouse pointer on the option "View translation".] Copy Select all View translation [selected] Print
[In the last panel, the profile text is updated:] I don’t understand why people keep getting mad at me and I’m using this pep talk to convince myself that’s okay.
