I’m a few days behind in my xkcd reading, which explains why I haven’t mentioned this before.
It’s the tool tip that caught my attention, though:
A solid red area with two white lines means that you have been infected with the anti-coronavirus, COVID+19. which will cure anyone you have close contact with.
Conspiracy theorists love those hidden messages, don’t they? After all, only those folks smart enough to find the messages will then learn “the truth.” It’s confirmation bias in action, isn’t it? And what’s better than a tool tip that requires the cursor to be hovering over a cartoon and goes away when you move your cursor? Add in the context of COVID, which has a rich environment of conspiracy theories, all quite ridiculous – a redundant remark, I’m sure – and this tool tip just seems to scream MISINTERPRET ME! QUICK!
Maybe it’s already happened. I refuse to go look. I haven’t seen it mentioned, yet, in The Morning Heresy, which is a good source for pointers to conspiracy theory madness.