Misinterpretation
Misinterpretation
[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at a desk in front of a laptop with his hands raised above the keyboard. An off-panel person replies to his remarks.] Cueball: Ugh, people are mad at me again because they don't read carefully. Cueball: I'm being perfectly clear. It's not my fault if everyone misinterprets what I say. Off-panel person: Wow, sounds like you're great at communicating, an activity that famously involves just one person.

Cueball is complaining that people are mad at him again because of a misinterpretation of his statements. This is referenced by the comic's title. He complains that since (he believes) he is being perfectly clear, it cannot be his fault that everyone misinterprets him. The off-screen voice sarcastically agrees that communication is an activity that only involves one person; in fact, of course, it famously involves at least two .
Cueball speaks as though his communications are complete and perfect once he has finished making them. The reality is that communication can't be considered complete until the message has also been received and understood. Cueball is failing to take into account the need for partnership between sender and receiver, and doesn't realise that the problem may well be in the way he carries out his side of the transaction rather than in the way everybody else is carrying out theirs.
In the title text, Cueball then answers that he cannot possibly account for the many possible interpretations which the message, potentially reaching the whole world, could acquire. This is an example of the Nirvana fallacy . Cueball's idealized solution is to consider how every person on Earth would interpret the message, so Cueball rejects doing anything less as insufficient; however, actually figuring out how every person on Earth would interpret the message is unfeasible, so Cueball doesn't do that either. The reply comes once again sarcastically, deriding his point and saying that a middle ground between taking up such an effort and entirely avoiding it must be reached.
This avoidance is phrased using a simile as “covering your eyes and ears and yelling logically correct statements into the void”, implying that no one would understand the logical sentences (thus the void), and would instead read them more naturally – and also that ignoring the appalled reaction of listeners to their own interpretation of the sentences is similar to covering your eyes and ears. This action makes communication more difficult through the popular [ citation needed ] means of speech, text and sign language. If the hands are occupied with covering either part, then Braille communication is also impossible. Therefore, the action of “covering your eyes and ears” is a metaphor for deliberately making it more difficult to communicate with oneself. The simile might also mean that Cueball subconsciously rejects criticism as it would hurt his ego.
It is clear that Cueball is acting as a straw man to further Randall's point, and the off-panel character is portrayed as the (sarcastic) voice of reason.
Randall returns to a recurring theme in his comics, regarding, in contexts of communication, the responsibility of the speaker for how they are interpreted. Having gradually gotten less subtle, this theme is now laid bare, there being no joke other than the sarcasm. What follows is a chronological history of this theme.
This theme is part of the larger category of comics about social interactions .
[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at a desk in front of a laptop with his hands raised above the keyboard. An off-panel person replies to his remarks.] Cueball: Ugh, people are mad at me again because they don't read carefully. Cueball: I'm being perfectly clear. It's not my fault if everyone misinterprets what I say. Off-panel person: Wow, sounds like you're great at communicating, an activity that famously involves just one person.
