Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke A professor-like figure explains to an audience: "People want to know what makes humans unique. But every animal is 'unique' by God's definition. Every animal can do something no other an

## The Joke An alien named Zorgax is being addressed by a group of humans. One person says, "What the hell is that, Zorgax? You guys keep getting into our learned-food bank. Come, but this time up, I

## The Joke A scientist is giving a presentation about how the brain processes stimuli and mood. He explains that visual signals take 10 milliseconds to process, sound is faster, but a complex though

## The Joke Two men are having a conversation about history. One says, "The Trojan War was fought over one woman? That's ridiculous." Another responds, "You got what, maybe a thousand ships back then

## The Joke A man approaches a woman who is working on a sculpture and asks what she is doing. She casually explains that she is "surgically acquiring art without the coldness of sculpture." When he

## The Joke A woman holds up an oak leaf and asks a man how he knows it is an oak leaf. He stumbles through a non-answer: "Well it's got an oaky-like... oaksome... oak...ness." He clearly recognizes

## The Joke A child asks their mother how they will find someone who is "as good as me" -- meaning a romantic partner who measures up to the child's high self-regard. The mother responds with cold ec

## The Joke A woman tells a group that before they go to bed, she needs them to know something: she is a "posthumous escalator." A man responds with what sounds like a confession of his own: "I willo

## The Joke The comic is split into two panels labeled "Before Kids" and "After Kids." In the "Before Kids" panel, a man stands in a grocery store aisle looking at frozen burritos with disdain, sayin

## The Joke A person asks their companion, "Are you ever embarrassed by the views and actions of past you?" The companion says "Of course." The first person then elaborates: "That's power! Present me

## The Joke The comic is titled "New Modes of Condescension for Modern Life" and presents a catalog of updated ways to be condescending. The first mode is "Presuming your opponent's perspective is re

## The Joke The comic opens with a classic "drug dealer" scenario: a shady figure in a trench coat and hat approaches a kid, asking "Hey kid, you wanna buy some drugs?" The kid responds with "What ki

## The Joke A person is pondering the cosmological observation that every part of the universe is rushing away from every other part (referring to the expansion of the universe and redshift). They as

## The Joke A scientist is frustrated with an AI system, declaring "This AI system is crap!" He explains that the AI keeps incorrectly classifying opinions as facts, lust as love, and even thinks tha

## The Joke A child asks their mother why women have bigger bottoms than men. The mother, apparently a biologist or someone with a flair for evolutionary storytelling, launches into an elaborate pseu

## The Joke An alien arrives on Earth in a dramatic fashion, crashing through a building and declaring that it lives every day like it might be its last. The comic then reveals the alien's backstory:

## The Joke A father lectures his child about how movies in the old days were straightforward: violent media simply had attractive people beating up villains whose main thing was villainy. He complai

## The Joke A witch curses a man, declaring he will be a frog until he finds true love's kiss. He protests, asking how he is supposed to do that as a frog. The witch helpfully suggests he try kissing

## The Joke Aliens have captured a "representative human" and are interrogating it for secrets about Earth. The human immediately starts spouting conspiracy theories: "The moon landing was fake! It w

## The Joke A group of people are debating what the ideal form of government is. One person suggests it should be "the one that brings the most happiness." Another points out that this depends on a l

## The Joke A child tells their father that they had a dream about a giant monster wolf chasing them. The father excitedly says he had the same dream. The child, being precocious, asks if in the fath

## The Joke A genie tells a person that they are forbidden from using their wishes to bring back the dead. The person then proposes a loophole: "That's fine. I gave a perfect duplicate of my dead bro

## The Joke In a dystopian setting, an authority figure (resembling a robot or armored enforcer) announces that all remaining mathematicians will be eliminated before they can "contaminate our kids w

## The Joke A scientist announces that they have discovered a possible signature for life on Venus -- specifically phosphine gas. Another person snickers ("*SNRK!*"), and when asked what is funny, th

## The Joke A person states that love is magic. When asked why, they give the reason: "Because it can create something from nothing." The conversation continues with another sincere-sounding reason:

## The Joke An angel approaches God and tells him about homeopathy, explaining the concept: "You dilute something in water and you get more of it." God, represented as a large golden disc (a common S

## The Joke A man at what appears to be a bar or social setting uses a pickup line on someone: "Hey girl... are you prolonged social isolation? ...Because you are making me crazy tonight!" The person

## The Joke The comic addresses the "demarcation problem" -- the philosophical question of how to distinguish between hard science and soft science. A character suggests a simple test: put the word "

## The Joke A self-driving car careens around a corner and realizes there are two old women and a baby in the road. It calculates the expected suffering: the baby, having many decades of expected lif

## The Joke A person asks why the field of artificial intelligence started during the reign of Freudianism. A bearded scientist-type responds defensively: "Well of course your machine can't think lik

## The Joke The comic's header reads: "Annoyance: People who use social justice language strictly for personal benefit." A man tells a woman: "Women make up 52% of the population but only 50% of our

## The Joke A man in an intimate setting tells a woman, "Baby, I could do you nonstop forever." She responds enthusiastically, "You absolute wild man!" The caption below reads: "The sexiest taboo to

## The Joke A woman is running a program for "unknown reasons" and tells her partner to "better turn me off and on." Her partner responds with a suggestive aside: "May does that work, though? You don

## The Joke Two dogs are talking in a forest. One dog argues passionately: "But if all boys are 'such a good boy' then the term is without meaning!" The dog is applying logical reasoning to the unive

## The Joke A person walks into a room and exclaims "Oh my god, this room smells like death and pigshit." The room's owner calmly explains, "This is my cheese room." In the final panel, the first per

## The Joke A man excitedly announces that they have discovered water on Ceres (the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt). A woman dismissively asks "Who cares?" He responds that one day they could grow

## The Joke The comic presents a list of "Space Missions to Capture the Public Imagination" -- ideas for space programs that would actually get people excited. The suggestions include: "Popping Europ

## The Joke A doctor holds up a newborn baby and announces "Congratulations, it's a girl!" The mother responds that she really does not want to saddle her child with a gender identity before they hav

## The Joke A woman asks a man, "Do you think time is real?" He responds confidently that of course it is -- "The arrow of time is obvious in comics because they always start with a setup and end wit

## The Joke A woman asks an elderly man, "Do you still miss Mom?" He replies, "Every day." He then delivers a poignant reflection on aging and memory: "When you get on in years, all you have is memor

## The Joke The comic is a lengthy multi-panel strip depicting an escalating series of events at what appears to be a geopolitical summit or debate. It begins with a leader declaring that "for too lo

## The Joke A man is praying: "Dear God... why do bad things happen to good people? Why do--" He is interrupted by an automated message: "Hello, you've reached God." The message continues with a phon

## The Joke An older man is watching children play video games and complains: "How do kids do it? They sit and play the same repetitive games for hours. Every stupid level is exactly the same, but th

## The Joke The comic opens with a discussion about self-driving cars and the classic trolley problem. One character points out that "trolley problems almost never come up for actual self-driving car

## The Joke The comic presents facts about dragonflies through a conversation between a mother and child. The first panel explains that dragonflies have four wings instead of two as a defense mechani

## The Joke The comic begins with a man saying he thinks women should form a single political monolith and take control of the government. A woman responds that women aren't all the same -- "how woul

## The Joke An alien arrives on Earth and addresses the people: "People of Earth! We come bearing matter-turn over 300,000 people at once or face mobilization!" Fifteen minutes later, a human diploma

## The Joke A frustrated man stands in what appears to be a board game store in Hell. He's ranting: "I don't get it. It's all just Candyland! Don't they have anything else? The whole damn store! The

## The Joke A passerby encounters a homeless-looking person on the street and asks: "You're homeless now? You used to be a world-class scientist! Do you need a job in my lab?" The scientist responds:

## The Joke The comic is an extended monologue about aging and perseverance, structured as a conversation. It begins with someone asking why adults are "all crazy" -- they can't sleep, they don't enj