xkcd.WTF!?

Explanation ➲

At the time of publishing, motorized scooters or e-scooters were very popular, especially with the rise of ride-share companies such as Lime and Bird that use apps allowing users to rent the scooters by the minute.

Cueball drives up to White Hat on his e-scooter. White Hat asks him for his thoughts on the scooter; he is interested as he has heard so much about them. However, instead of just waiting to hear Cueball's response, White Hat then goes on to list four opinions he has heard other people say about e-scooters:

1. Are they impractical and unsafe toys?
2. Or a last-mile transit revolution?
3. A low-carbon car replacement?
4. Or Silicon Valley sidewalk clutter?

When White Hat finally stops talking, Cueball tells him that he has given this a lot of thought and says he will give him his opinion on e-scooters. But instead of choosing an opinion from White Hat's list, or any logical opinion at all for that matter, Cueball starts making engine/vehicle sounds. This may indicate he doesn't care about any of White Hat's complicated opinions and is just excited about the fun of riding an e-scooter. In the last panel Cueball also makes "pew pew pew" sounds and other sounds from shooter-type video games, perhaps indicating that for him, riding a scooter is akin to the fun he gets from playing such video games.

Some people consider e-scooters as a "low-carbon car replacement", as they result in far less carbon emissions (and other pollution) per mile than automobiles (though there remains debate about the environmental costs of their manufacture). Additionally, e-scooters have been touted as a form of "last-mile transit" - bridging the gap between public transit networks and final destinations. However, others consider e-scooters a public nuisance, as users often leave them on the sidewalk haphazardly; hence the question about them being clutter. The comment about them being specifically "Silicon Valley" clutter is due to the expense, the city-infrastructure needed, and the high-tech nature of these devices. Many of the e-scooter companies are also from the Silicon Valley area. Scooters have also been seen as dangerous ("unsafe toys"), as many users do not wear helmets when riding e-scooters (though Cueball is seen with a helmet in the comic, although not wearing it) or ride them at high speed on sidewalks with many pedestrians. Some cities have gone so far as to ban e-scooters from their communities.

Cueball's response of making onomatopoeic sounds which mimic the e-scooter is humorous for two reasons. First, e-scooters are fun and may seem futuristic, like something from his childhood. This would bring out a youthful and childish joy children have when making engine noises when playing with toy cars. He is acting like a kid because riding a scooter makes him feel like one. The second reason this is funny is that the scooters, being battery-powered, are nearly silent. He is making the sounds a traditional motorized scooter makes to fill in the audible gap. The laser sounds have no obvious connection to the scooter, but fits in with the kinds of sound effects kids make when playing with toys, feeding into the joke that he isn't making a logical argument, but simply taking childlike joy in the experience.

The title text refers to Dean Kamen, an American inventor best known for founding the Segway company. At the time of the invention of the Segway, it was billed as a revolution in personal transit, with articles (and Kamen himself) speculating that future cities might be entirely rebuilt around it and similar personal transporters. The reality of the Segway didn't come close to living up to the hype, and it quickly became the subject of mockery, with the original Segway ultimately being discontinued. The text implies that Kamen might resent the fact that a similar (if less grandiose) vision has re-emerged and is once again being taken seriously, but without his invention. However, Segway actually manufactures scooters for e-scooter rental agency Lime.