Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic is another dark-panel bedroom scene (similar in format to "juice-2"), with only speech bubbles visible. One person says: "I AM attracted to you, but could you try to be more... uncanny?" T

This comic shows two cats standing on a bed where a person is sleeping. One cat says: "The human is doing that thing where it stops moving all night again." The other cat responds: "Let's sing until

This comic features a conversation between two characters about the prospect of a new Cold War. In the first panel, one character enthusiastically says "Oh man! New Cold War!" and rattles off the sup

This comic satirizes the tech industry's approach to disruption by applying startup and financial market logic to... melon farming. It opens with a graph showing declining melon sales and someone lam

This comic subverts the classic fairy tale trope of a magical fairy visiting a child. A girl exclaims "Oh! A fairy!" but the fairy immediately delivers a string of bad news: "Yes, but unfortunately I'

This comic depicts aliens trying to be hospitable to a human captive. The aliens announce: "Human! We wish to make your environment more accommodating." They explain that they understand humanity's fa

This comic presents a darkly humorous take on the Fermi Paradox — the question of why, given the vast size and age of the universe, we haven't detected signs of alien civilizations. A scientist expla

This comic is a single-panel Halloween joke. A small trick-or-treating girl wearing a "Ghost" t-shirt stands at the door of an older man. Instead of the usual "trick or treat" routine, she says: "I kn

This comic spoofs ghost story tropes and supernatural folklore. A narrator describes a classic haunted-river story: "And so, her ghost haunts the river still, in her wedding veil, looking for her drow

This comic contrasts two types of artists' reactions to AI-generated art. The top panel is labeled "Artists who draw elaborate paintings for a living," and shows an artist at a computer saying: "AI ca

This comic features a conversation between a human and a robot about whether artificial beings like robots can appreciate mythology and storytelling. The human asks the robot whether "artificial bein

This comic features aliens discussing human biology and attractiveness. An alien says "Steve! Behold! We have created this ideal female!" and another asks "Wait, why does she have three boobs?" The re

This is not a typical SMBC comic strip but rather a long-form promotional comic in which Zach Weinersmith announces his children's book "Bea Wolf," a collaboration with illustrator Boulet. The comic

This comic contrasts the experience of reading articles online versus watching ads online. In the top panel, labeled "Reading articles online," a person reads a tablet that says "Why gender is obsolet

This comic imagines a world where the push for "plain language" in professional settings has been taken to an absurd extreme. The building is labeled "Caldwell County Center for Putting a Camera Up Yo

This comic plays on the common sentimental question, "How would you like to go when you die?" A woman asks a man this question, and he gives what initially sounds like a touching answer: "Surrounded b

This comic riffs on the classic logical paradox known as the Liar's Paradox: "This statement is false." A professor presents this to a class, noting that it was historically considered a paradox — if

This comic features a child asking her mother a series of increasingly pointed questions about adult competence. It begins innocently: "Mom, adults are in charge of the world, right?" and "That means

This comic depicts a man being confronted by someone who says: "Yeah? You're gonna give up fried foods and soda for a month, are you? Because last time you said that, I made 30 grand short-selling."

This comic is about the frustration students feel when learning trigonometry, specifically the sheer number of trig identities they must memorize. A student bursts in yelling "Professor, you son of a

This comic presents a scientist explaining to an audience (possibly government officials or investors) that for about 4 trillion dollars, we could construct an interstellar-scale laser system powerful

This comic is a computer science and tabletop gaming crossover joke. A mother tells her kids: "Kids, I'm afraid this year we can only afford Dungeons XOR Dragons." The caption reads: "Often forgotten

This comic depicts two men outdoors in autumn. One exclaims about a falling leaf, saying "Look! A leaf fell! It's wonderful!" The other responds that he's "fully committing to fall culture" and that "

This comic takes place at the gates of Heaven. Saint Peter welcomes Ernest Hemingway and warns him: "I have to tell you, this will be the longest debrief in all of history, because of the John Donne c

This comic imagines a mundane but unsettling consequence of advanced robotics. A bearded man is eating from a bowl using what appear to be chopsticks fitted with tiny articulated robotic hands. A woma

This comic takes place in a classroom setting where a teacher explains that "the fundamental concept in all of biology is evolution by natural selection." A student asks, "You mean survival of the fit

This comic presents a philosophical conversation about artificial intelligence and irony. One character asks whether AI will take over all human work, leaving us free to pursue our interests. Another

This comic plays on the phrase "red flag" in the context of dating. In the first panel, a man at a bar tells a woman, "You know, if I were on top, my hands would be free." This sounds like a sexual in

This comic is set in a university classroom. A student raises their hand and asks, "Professor, will we never use this in real life?" The professor enthusiastically responds: "Of course!" The caption

This comic shows a man on the phone with what appears to be a hotel front desk, methodically describing the entire supply chain and production process required to make M&M-style candy. He requests far

This comic depicts a job interview. The interviewer asks, "So, what makes you want to work here?" The candidate begins, "Well, I've always had an interest in..." but is cut off by the next panel, whic

This comic shows two people on a picnic blanket outdoors. One says "Hmm, plans overhead." The other responds with a lengthy, convoluted reassurance: "Well, the good thing is that if it considers us al

This comic features Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century philosopher famous for his categorical imperative and deontological ethics. A person approaches Kant and says, "Hey Immanuel Kant! I really like you

This comic shows a man marveling at a woman's computer file-naming discipline. He says: "Wow. You're the only person I know who puts the word 'final' in a document exactly when it's the final version.

This comic plays on the awkward parenting moment of a child witnessing animals mating at the zoo. A child asks their mother, "Mommy, what are those monkeys doing to each other?" The mother deflects wi

This comic satirizes a certain brand of performative masculinity that rejects grooming and hygiene in the name of rugged manliness. A man announces that with his "newfound sense of masculine identity,

This comic imagines a machine — depicted as a small robot on a podium — that has been designed as a "product idea" described in the caption: "Machine that predicts how many reaction emoji your funeral

This comic uses the recurring SMBC format of a student seeking wisdom from a "wise master" on a mountaintop. The student asks how to achieve internal peace. The master gives the classic spiritual answ

This comic addresses the common claim that people become more conservative as they age. A father figure tells a child: "Kid, you think all the stuff now, but you'll get more conservative when you grow

This comic presents a playful take on the "interesting number paradox," a well-known puzzle in recreational mathematics. One character poses the question: "Did you know it's impossible to have an unin

This comic features another mountaintop guru scenario, where the master is asked whether there is "a single human story that we emanate in all of our myths." The master confirms: "Yes, my son. It is a

This comic reimagines cosmology from the perspective of bacteria living in a bowl of soup. A bacterium asks the fundamental cosmological question: "Yes, but WHY did the soup start at such low entropy?

This comic tackles the Silicon Valley fantasy of eliminating politics through technology. A tech entrepreneur pitches the idea that "in the future, people will not be bound by politics" — instead, the

This single-panel comic shows a boss confronting an employee named Mr. Jenkins, who has apparently "built an isolated lakeside cabin in the basement of this building, at which you've been contemplatin

This comic satirizes the AI alignment problem -- the challenge of ensuring artificial intelligence systems behave in ways that are beneficial to humanity. In the comic, a scientist explains her solut

This comic jokes about the intersection of academic research and religious authority. A scientist says, "I'm not sure if I agree with you about tyrosine hydroxylase activity." The other person (weari

This comic imagines a linguist's version of the Tower of Babel myth from the Bible. A man stands at a podium reciting scripture-like text: "And the Lord spake, saying 'Behold, now I have made grammar

This comic satirizes longtermism -- the philosophical view (associated with effective altruism) that we should prioritize the welfare of people in the far distant future. In the first panel, a longte

This comic explores how people conflate their emotional state with objective reality. In the first panel, a woman observes, "Have you noticed that people are really grumpy and pessimistic these days?

This comic is a graph joke about smartphones and bathroom habits. The graph shows a timeline with "Time" on the x-axis and an unlabeled y-axis (implying social awkwardness). Three points are marked: