Bun Alert
Bun Alert
[Beret Guy and Ponytail see a rabbit sitting in the grass; Beret Guy points to the bun.] Beret Guy: Bun alert! Ponytail: Oh, yeah! Cute! Beret Guy: Gotta document this. I'll notify everyone, send out a push alert. Ponytail: ...to who?
[Zoom in on Beret Guy and Ponytail; Beret Guy taps on his phone.] Beret Guy: Everyone subscribed to the alert system. Ponytail: Alert system? Beret Guy: Yeah! We built it over the last few years. It's pretty small. Still looking for investors. Ponytail: But... why are you alerting people about rabbits?
[Zoom out; Beret Guy puts away his phone, points at the bun.] Beret Guy: I mean...look at them. They're like loaves of bread that hop. Ponytail: I see. Beret Guy: People need to know.
[Zoom on Beret Guy in a frameless panel.] Beret Guy: They need to know: Beret Guy: There are buns.
[Ponytail walks off, Megan comes running towards Beret Guy with a phone in her hand.] Ponytail: Okay, uhh, I'm gonna go. Megan: I got the alert! Where's the bun? Is it small? Beret Guy: Extremely. Megan: Oh my God.

The comic opens with Beret Guy identifying a "bun", an informal term for a rabbit also used in 1682: Bun . The title text of that former comic specifically refers to sending out a "BUN ALERT" to friends and family with location and photographic evidence of the bun, so in this comic, that concept appears to have been elevated from a simple mass SMS/MMS message to a standalone application.
Upon seeing the bun, Beret Guy uses his phone to send an alert about the "Bun" with a push notification . He is still looking for investors, though such an app would likely not appeal to a wide market. In response to Ponytail 's confusion, he explains that bunnies are "like loaves of bread that hop" making a pun by comparing rabbits to bread, as "bun" can commonly refer to a small loaf of bread. Beret Guy is known to be fascinated with bakeries, as shown in the comics 434: xkcd Goes to the Airport , 442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel , or 452: Mission , so it makes sense that this sort of comparison occurs to him. It is known that the word "bun" is similar to the word "pun". Beret Guy has a history of misinterpreting statements and phrases (and often making said misinterpretations correct through some strange power of his), so it is not implausible that he actually genuinely thinks that these "buns" are bread products that somehow behave exactly like rabbits.
As Ponytail leaves, apparently to remove herself from the situation, Megan hurriedly approaches, excited to see the "bun". This serves as a punchline as, despite Ponytail appearing to be the voice of reason, it seems that Beret Guy's inane bun alert system has gathered a dedicated following after all.
Megan's question "Is it small?" and her amazement when she finds out that it is parallels the idea in 1682: Bun where the bun's size is said to be inversely correlated with its status; smaller buns such as the one in this comic are thought of as higher-ranking "king buns" by the characters in both strips. In real life, smaller rabbits are more likely to simply be young. It is also possible that she simply thinks smaller buns are cuter, which might have been the motivation for the whole bun-ranking system thing in the first place.
The title text refers to buns being crepuscular and nocturnal animals, meaning they are primarily active at twilight and night, respectively. This means that someone with the app would get a lot of notifications while they would most likely be asleep. Many smartphones have a "Do Not Disturb" mode that can be activated so that only select communications (i.e. direct calls) will actually set off the ringer/vibration, and all others will simply be added to the device's notification queue; such a function can be scheduled to automatically activate during the period when the user is asleep. The title text unironically points out a prime example of the need for such a function: if something is likely to notify your device late at night, then you should make sure that those notifications are silenced by the Do Not Disturb function.
The bun alert reappears in 1903: Bun Trend , where Beret Guy receives the alert.
[Beret Guy and Ponytail see a rabbit sitting in the grass; Beret Guy points to the bun.] Beret Guy: Bun alert! Ponytail: Oh, yeah! Cute! Beret Guy: Gotta document this. I'll notify everyone, send out a push alert. Ponytail: ...to who?
[Zoom in on Beret Guy and Ponytail; Beret Guy taps on his phone.] Beret Guy: Everyone subscribed to the alert system. Ponytail: Alert system? Beret Guy: Yeah! We built it over the last few years. It's pretty small. Still looking for investors. Ponytail: But... why are you alerting people about rabbits?
[Zoom out; Beret Guy puts away his phone, points at the bun.] Beret Guy: I mean...look at them. They're like loaves of bread that hop. Ponytail: I see. Beret Guy: People need to know.
[Zoom on Beret Guy in a frameless panel.] Beret Guy: They need to know: Beret Guy: There are buns.
[Ponytail walks off, Megan comes running towards Beret Guy with a phone in her hand.] Ponytail: Okay, uhh, I'm gonna go. Megan: I got the alert! Where's the bun? Is it small? Beret Guy: Extremely. Megan: Oh my God.
