9/26/07


42.39561-71.13051.

To the average person, these numbers mean nothing. But to fans of the comic strip xkcd, these numbers indicated a place where dreams could come true. Following the coordinates indicated in the comic, possibly up to 1000 fans swarmed the Rev. Thomas J. Williams Park in Cambridge Sunday, eager to see what would occur.

They came from Boston schools such as MIT, Harvard, Emerson, and Tufts, as well from Canada, Australia, Russia, and the UK, just to see what would happen.

In the original comic strip, called Dream Girl, the coordinates, as well as a date and time, were given by a mysterious girl in a dream. The boy who received the coordinates followed the numbers to the specified spot, only to realize "wanting something doesn't make it real."

But something real did happen to the hundreds of people who were present at the specified time. After the 20-second countdown, Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, stepped forward. He gave a short speech, saying, "I don't know, maybe wanting something does make it real." Fans were then able to sign an enlarged, and altered version of the comic. Munroe removed the last line, allowing participants to create their own endings.

Media Credit: Brian Moore Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd

Munroe, 23, began posting xkcd, "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," in May 2005. A former NASA roboticist, he now lives in the Cambridge-Somerville area, and works on xkcd full-time. When asked about the idea behind the coordinates, he said, "It was basically like if I had seen a comic like that, I would travel anywhere…Random numbers hidden in this comic? I'll go there. And so, I was like, it depends, are there going to be other people like me? Apparently."

Sean Nichols, a graduate student from the University of Calgary, bought his plane tickets nearly six months in advance, only days after the Dream Girl comic debuted. "I had no real expectations one way or the other," Nichols said. "I just sort of figured, well, it could be a lot of antisocial people standing around sort of looking at each other, or it could be a lot of interesting interaction. And luckily, it seems to be the latter."

Though Munroe had not organized any activities, the participants found multiple ways to entertain themselves and connect with others. Several people were attempting to vertically extend tape measures without bending, a reference to the Tape Measure comic strip. Some used colorful chalk to scrawl computer code on the sidewalk.

Two creative fans even put together a poster of 100 possible conversation topics, while others simply climbed the jungle gym or used the swings. A webcam taped to the swingset broadcast the event online for those who were not able to attend the meetup.

However, the biggest crowd in the park was always around Munroe.

Media Credit: Lily Yuhas A costumed fan reads the enlarged comic and fan-created ending

He handled his fans graciously, answering the same questions repeatedly, posing for photographs, and autographing anything passed his way-- laptops, iPhones, and a Nintendo DS, as well as a guitar-shaped controller for the popular video game Guitar Hero.

Munroe said, "I was going back and trying to find precedents for this…[but] I can't really find anything [like this]. So I don't know what to call it. An xkcd, maybe."

Paul McCann, a student from Brown University, described the meetup as the result of the power of the Internet. "It's a very interesting place…There are some very interesting people, and they don't usually go out on the streets, but we managed to do it this time. We can't do this too often, I suppose. It's probably better for humanity that way. But there you go."

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