Message Boards
Message Boards
[Single panel showing a view of the "MopedPro" forum on a message board, with a caption below the panel.] Forum Tab: MopedPro Forum (Top Left) | (4 tabs with illegible writing on them. None of them appear to be selected) (Top Right)
NIN85 (posted December 5, 2000 - 13:01): So mad that my mom won't let me get a Vespa. I'm old enough for a moped license and they're really not that dangerous.
JULZ [new user] (posted September 23, 2020 - 17:05): At least she's not stopping you from getting an electric scooter you don't even need a license for
NIN85 (posted September 23, 2020 - 18:36): Okay, Julian, (a) you know we talked about this, and (b) how the heck did you find this thread
[Caption below the comic]: I love that message boards are now old enough for this to happen.

The joke of this comic lies in the dates of the forum posts and the (presumed) relation between the posters.
The initial post was made in 2000 by NIN85 who was, at the time, a teenaged girl (likely 14 or 15 years old given that her username ends in "85," implying she was born in 1985), complaining that her mother did not allow her to get a Vespa . Vespa is a brand of scooters and mopeds produced by the Italian manufacturer Piaggio. Most U.S. states require motorcycle licenses for any vehicle with an engine size over 50 cubic centimeters. Most Vespas are larger than this, although 49 CC models (classified as mopeds) do exist. Depending on the state, the minimum age to get a moped in the United States is 14, 15, or 16.
The reply was written in 2020 (twenty years later) by JULZ (or Julian), the presumed son of the now-adult NIN85, likely in his teenage years.  The "Z" may refer to "Generation Z", paralleling the "85." "JULZ" complains about his mother refusing to allow him to get an electric scooter, which doesn't require a license. He is implicitly pointing out the hypocrisy of his mother, as a fifteen-year-old, thinking that teenagers with scooters are perfectly reasonable, while as a thirtyfive-year-old, being against the idea.
The primary source of humor in this strip (made explicit in the caption) derives from the fact that the Internet has been in common use for so long that teenagers can now look up old posts that their parents made when they, themselves, were teenagers. The late 1990s to early 2000s was right around the time the average person would be expected to have access to the internet and use it regularly, which means that, as of 2020, that's been the case for around one human generation. This can be jarring for people who are still used to thinking of the Internet as a new technology. Noting how much time has passed since events that feel recent is a recurring theme in xkcd.
Of course, the basic premise of this exchange is nothing new. Teenagers have encountered (and been surprised by) the notion that their parents were once young for as long as there have been people. In the past, it's happened through finding old photographs, old videos, old diaries, or simply by hearing stories from their family and old friends. Young people are often shocked by what they learn, and accuse their parents of hypocrisy when they punish behavior that they once engaged in. Of course, this isn't true hypocrisy: we expect teenagers to grow and evolve, and develop mature, adult viewpoints. Parents naturally have both more understanding of dangers and lower tolerance for risk when dealing with their children. This strip points out that the internet has now existed for long enough (and preserves archives for long enough) that it's now become a potential medium for this whole dynamic. Part of the humor results from the unexpected situation that the child went to the trouble of tracking down his mother's old forum post, and that his mother is still active in the same niche forum 20 years later (as evidenced by her rapid response).
In the title text, the parent is apparently a moderator on that board now, or at least can quickly twist the ear of an actual mod. She has the thread locked (preventing further replies) and threatens banning the kid if he does not learn to post new threads, instead of dredging up dead threads from two decades ago. The act of reviving long-dead threads is often called "thread necromancy" or "necroing," and many forums (and users) frown upon it. It is seen as similar to bringing up a conversation from ages ago in real life. It often adds nothing new, and the original participants in the discussion may no longer be active or no longer interested in the topic. Some forums may actually encourage tagging onto existing but idle discussions (to add new or updated information) rather than repeatedly creating new threads, but that does not seem to be the case here.
Invoking the power of moderation could suggest that, in typical parental fashion, she's using her greater influence and social position to end the discussion, making clear that she's the one in charge.  "You'll be banned from this forum thread" could be seen as the Internet version of "as long as you live under my roof, you'll live by my rules".
[Single panel showing a view of the "MopedPro" forum on a message board, with a caption below the panel.] Forum Tab: MopedPro Forum (Top Left) | (4 tabs with illegible writing on them. None of them appear to be selected) (Top Right)
NIN85 (posted December 5, 2000 - 13:01): So mad that my mom won't let me get a Vespa. I'm old enough for a moped license and they're really not that dangerous.
JULZ [new user] (posted September 23, 2020 - 17:05): At least she's not stopping you from getting an electric scooter you don't even need a license for
NIN85 (posted September 23, 2020 - 18:36): Okay, Julian, (a) you know we talked about this, and (b) how the heck did you find this thread
[Caption below the comic]: I love that message boards are now old enough for this to happen.
