Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic presents three panels comparing how different people approach gambling. A "Normal Person" happily exclaims "Hooray, gambling!" at a casino, blissfully unaware of the odds. A "Math Enthusias

This comic explores the ethical and philosophical implications of creating a temporary holographic duplicate of a person. A woman has created a holographic copy of her husband to keep her company (and

This comic features a daughter delivering an elaborate threat to her father. She announces that since she has "so much time on her hands," she has decided to become sexually active, starting with a bo

This comic is a genetics pun. A scientist is holding a paper that reads "CAT-GAG" and says "Of course," while another scientist looks on. The caption reads, "The gene sequence for hairballing was beau

This comic plays on a deliberate misunderstanding of the phrase "rough sex." In the first panel, a man asks a woman, "May I interest you in some rough sex?" In the next panel, captioned "Later...," th

This comic is part of SMBC's recurring "Bad Ass Activity" series, which humorously imagines applying action-movie tropes to mundane everyday situations. This installment is "#42: Using Catch-Phrases f

This comic takes the common dismissive advice "Stop being unhappy! There are people who have it worse than you!" and follows it to its absurd logical conclusion. The phrase is passed from person to pe

This comic explores a moment of existential crisis triggered by an innocent interaction. A wife asks her husband to bring their daughter Susie an apple juice popsicle because she is feeling sad. When

This comic presents a satirical sci-fi narrative about the invention of perfect humanoid robot companions. The story follows a society where people claimed to value the challenges of real relationship

This comic is about a teacher struggling to get her male algebra students to do their homework. She complains to her partner in bed, who suggests she "sleep on it." Later that night, he is shown writi

This comic satirizes a common anti-gay argument found on the internet. A blogger (depicted as a stereotypical basement-dwelling internet commenter) writes that you "can't believe in evolution AND beli

This single-panel comic satirizes the "fine-tuning argument" for the existence of God. A priest enthusiastically tells a child, "Just imagine how fine-tuned the universe is! Why, if there weren't just

This comic deconstructs the Batman mythos by having a petty criminal point out the class dynamics that Batman's origin story glosses over. When Batman confronts a crook and recounts his tragic backsto

This comic contrasts how people imagine arguments working versus how they actually play out. In the top panel, labeled "How arguments work in your head," one person calmly acknowledges the other's sup

This comic riffs on the classic "March of Progress" illustration showing human evolution from early primates to modern Homo sapiens. The sequence proceeds normally through the familiar evolutionary st

## The Joke Superman approaches an economist to ask how he can best use his incredible powers to help humanity. Instead of suggesting he fight crime or stop natural disasters, the economist explains

This comic imagines a realistic trajectory for Superman if society actually optimized his abilities. It begins with Superman fighting crime in the traditional way, but people quickly realize he could

This comic depicts a post-apocalyptic scenario where survivors worship an atomic bomb as a god, with a monument labeled "GOD" built around a nuclear warhead. A traveler questions this, pointing out th

This comic depicts the monotonous cycle of modern adult life. A figure is shown moving through a circular loop of repetitive activities: sitting at a desk working at a computer, driving a car, sitting

This comic tells the story of an alien first contact gone wrong. The Zorblaxians arrive on Earth claiming to be the chosen people of the "Multiverse Maker" and the center of the universe. Humans smugl

This comic presents a cosmic-scale joke about the nature of the universe. Two enormous, shadowy figures (implying beings of a higher-dimensional or divine nature) stand over what appears to be the uni

This comic satirizes academic hypocrisy around the concept of conspicuous consumption. Two academics discuss Thorstein Veblen's 1899 theory of "conspicuous consumption" -- the idea that people spend m

This comic, titled "Why I Worry About Extended Longevity," contrasts two eras of creative motivation. In the "Before" panel, a figure resembling Shakespeare labors over a manuscript, thinking "This wo

This comic is titled "Why Doctors Shouldn''t Study Philosophy." A doctor tells a patient, "The good news is you''ll die slowly over the next few weeks. The bad news is that you don''t contextualize th

This comic is captioned "What if Malthus had been an optimist?" and shows a man (styled as Thomas Malthus, the 18th-19th century economist famous for warning that population growth would outstrip food

This comic depicts the origin of religion in caveman-era terms. A bald, authoritative figure explains the afterlife to a group: "If good, when die, go to Meatland!" (depicted as a glorious pile of mea

This comic tells the story of a teacher who decides to punish her high school students for overusing their thesauruses by setting up a fake thesaurus website. The site looked legitimate but contained

This comic plays on the inspirational quote "Once you truly understand mathematics, you will see beauty everywhere." A woman reads this in a book and takes it to heart. The scene then jumps to "Later.

This comic presents a single panel with a teenager on the phone, clearly calling his father in a panic. The dialogue is a masterclass in transparent lying: "Hi, Dad, my... uh, FRIEND got his, uh, peni

This comic uses a visual metaphor to explain the problem of theodicy -- the philosophical challenge of reconciling the existence of evil and suffering with the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and

This comic satirizes the fear of replacing human doctors with medical analysis machines by comparing them to something people already use: the internet. A woman complains, "Ugh. They''re replacing hum

This comic depicts a mother delivering an extraordinarily cruel punishment to her son. She tells him, "Son, you have a lot of flaws to work on. So, I''ve made a list of them, and from now on, I''m goi

This comic presents a single-panel scene set in Hell, where a devil greets a newly arrived human soul. The devil says "Welcome to the afterlife, human!" but then immediately follows up with a resigned

This two-panel comic satirizes the hypocrisy of selectively applying skepticism. In the first panel, an older man scoffs at psychics, saying, "Pff. How can anyone believe psychics. They just say the v

This lengthy comic explores a thought experiment about time travel and democracy. A scientist visits the president ("Madam President") and reveals he has invented a tachyon receiver -- not a time mach

This comic explores a dystopian future where "everything is games" -- a satirical take on gamification. The premise begins optimistically: sociologists capitalize on the human preference for simple re

This comic takes the form of an observational experiment. Three scientists in lab coats stand behind a one-way mirror, watching a man sitting in a room watching reality TV. One says, "I can'''t believ

This comic imagines a future where the government intervenes in information technology. The narration explains that after several people died of starvation while online (a darkly humorous exaggeration

This single-panel comic plays with logical fallacies and absurd statistical reasoning. A banner at the top reads: "Fun fact: Anything that happened prior to 1945 can be made to look bad by referencing

This two-panel comic offers a darkly funny origin story. In the first panel, a couple lies in bed looking disgruntled. The woman thinks, "I hate having periods," while the man thinks, "I hate wearing

This comic features a priest making a provocative theological argument. The priest declares, "Why would I be anti-gay? God specifically says gay sex is preferable." His shocked companion stammers, "W-

This comic coins two humorous terms for geek relationship pitfalls, modeled after the astronomical terms "lunar eclipse" and "solar eclipse." The first panel defines a "Lunar Geeklipse" as "when a gee

This comic presents a graph plotting "Number of People Who View Environmentalism as an Ethical Concern" on the y-axis against "Time" on the x-axis. The curve rises sharply, peaks, and then drops preci

This comic is titled "Tensions Mount at the Theology Conference" and shows two clergymen in a heated exchange. One says: "Could God create yo mama so fat, even He couldn'''t lift her?!" The other cler

This comic depicts a baby floating alone in a void, progressively spiraling into an existential crisis. The baby monologues: "Oh, God! I'''m the only thing in reality. They'''re all dead. Not even dea

This comic is a semi-autobiographical strip in which the author (depicted as a red-bearded man, representing Zach Weinersmith) recounts his nephew reading his comics for the first time. The nephew'''s

This comic features a woman at a podium delivering a pseudo-logical argument about the ethics of murder and war. She reasons: if one person kills someone, 50% of the people involved are victims; if 99

This comic shows a mother talking to her young daughter Susie. The mother asks Susie to repeat a question she asked last week. Susie asks: "Why do tears come out of my eyes when I'''m sad?" The mother

This comic explores the concept of the "island of stability" in nuclear physics. Two scientists discuss whether they will ever create a stable superheavy element. One notes that it is strange that the

This comic pokes fun at the rivalry between scientific disciplines. In the first panel, a woman dismissively tells someone: "Pff! A chemist? Go back to your little beakers and tubes, sweetie. This is