One of the nice things about the Internet is you can do a comic that's just for Ph.D. students, or for truck drivers, and you get to reach all of them without having to satisfy the other 99%.
Interpretation
The Internet allows niche creators to reach specific audiences without compromising their work.
Randall Munroe's quote highlights the unique advantage of the Internet: the ability for creators, such as comic artists, to produce content that speaks directly to specialized groups, like Ph.D. students or truck drivers, without the need to appeal to a broader audience. This specificity allows for a more authentic expression of creativity that caters to particular interests, demonstrating how digital platforms democratize access to creative works.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the freedom of expression in digital art.
I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting.
A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them.
News networks giving a greater voice to viewers because the social web is so popular are like a chef on the Titanic who, seeing the looming iceberg and fleeing customers, figures ice is the future and starts making snow cones.
Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.
Things are rarely just crazy enough to work, but they're frequently just crazy enough to fail hilariously.
I read comics and I did science, and never really put them together until I accidentally found myself in the middle of one.
In contrast to the written account-which, depending on its complexity of thought, reference, and vocabulary, is pitched at a larger or smaller readership-a photograph has only one language and is destined potentially for all.
We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.
The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language.
I believe in the city as a natural human environment, but we must humanize it. It's art that will re-define public space in the 21st Century. We can make our cities diverse, inspirational places by putting art, dance and performance in all its forms into the matrix of street life.
I never wanted to be called an artist. I wanted to be called a photographer.
If you're writing a detective novel or horror or sci-fi, you want to expand or reinvigorate the genre in your own little way.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.