Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke The comic is split into two parallel scenes. In the top panel, a large rat-like creature is at some kind of lever or device, and a speech bubble says something like "Isn't it amazing? It

## The Joke In the first panel, a man arrives at a hospital carrying something and says, "I'm here to drop off that stool sample you requested." This sets up a normal medical scenario -- doctors ofte

## The Joke The comic presents a series of increasingly specific and bizarre descriptions of "the strangest people," each delivered as a factual-sounding observation. It begins with a relatively norm

## The Joke The comic opens with a character declaring that she has arrived at her philosophical views through pure logic, and that those views are "not especially pleasant." She then proceeds to lay

## The Joke A child expresses amazement at understanding a concept about aging: that as you get older, each year feels shorter because it represents a smaller fraction of your total life experience.

## The Joke A character proudly announces they've "done their own research" on a topic. The next panel reveals that their "research" consisted of reading a few blog posts and watching some YouTube vi

## The Joke A father observes to his daughter that it seems like most people develop gender and gender politics as they age. The daughter asks whether he is "just particularly thoughtful" or whether

## The Joke The comic is titled "Never Marry a Sociologist" and shows an elderly couple sitting together. The wife, a sociologist, turns to her husband and asks whether he was faithful and kind to he

## The Joke A woman announces that she wants to be judgmental of parents who spend too much time on social media, but then admits that the data on the topic probably leads to the conclusion that pare

## The Joke A boss in a suit cheerfully asks an employee, "Hey! Wanna play ''you''re fired'' tag?" The confused employee barely gets out a "What?" before the boss tags him and declares "Tag! You''re

## The Joke A professor explains that some scientific fields are driven by creativity and genius, while others are more influenced by personal charisma and attractiveness. He gives several examples:

## The Joke The comic begins with a straightforward explanation of the Monty Hall Problem: you pick a door, the host reveals a goat behind one of the other doors, and you must decide whether to switc

## The Joke The comic presents a series of panels showing a person at different ages reading a newspaper and reacting to the story of Ebenezer Scrooge from "A Christmas Carol" with increasingly nuanc

## The Joke A menacing figure (possibly a ghost or monster) announces to a woman: "I killed your husband and I''m wearing his skin! Now you have to love me!" The woman, rather than being horrified, r

## The Joke A nun is teaching a group of children the uplifting religious saying, "Remember kids, every day is a gift from God!" This is a common inspirational phrase meant to encourage gratitude for

## The Joke A mathematician shares a well-known joke within the math community: "A mathematician is a machine that turns coffee into theorems." This is a real and famous quote widely attributed to th

## The Joke A man named Raymond is sitting on his couch eating snacks when Death (the Grim Reaper) appears. Raymond asks if Death is there because of his unhealthy and sedentary lifestyle. Death says

## The Joke Two fish are talking underwater. One asks, "Hey, Frank! Wanna evolve to walk on land?" and Frank replies, "Sure!" In the next panel, they have evolved into primitive land animals and are

## The Joke A professor is teaching a class about logic puzzles, noting that they are "a little different among political philosophers." He presents the classic logic puzzle setup: "You arrive at a m

## The Joke A woman announces that she subscribes to a philosophy called "Evil Utilitarianism." She explains that evil utilitarians locate the most viscerally repugnant conclusions of happiness maxim

## The Joke A man excitedly tells his coworkers about a magician who put himself in a cage made of ice for three days without any food or water, presenting it as an impressive feat. Another coworker

## The Joke An alien probe arrives as a messenger, announcing it will shortly self-destruct. It delivers a cosmic truth: all sufficiently advanced species throughout the universe self-destructed once

## The Joke Two people are looking into a doorway at an empty room containing only a table with a complete set of Martin Gardner puzzles. One person explains the setup: the nearest water is all the w

## The Joke The comic retells the classic "wheat and chessboard" legend: a wise man offers a king one wish -- a single grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard, two on the next, four on the

## The Joke A professor-like figure stands at what appears to be a lecture podium and presents a pseudo-scientific theory: if any civilization discovers a free energy source and creates sex robots, i

## The Joke The comic compares how math is taught versus how it could be taught. Current math education is presented as a soul-crushing sequence of memorized procedures that kills any natural curiosi

## The Joke A figure wearing a hockey mask (reminiscent of Jason Voorhees from the "Friday the 13th" horror franchise) stands holding a large machete. Behind him, two people are tied up. The masked f

## The Joke In the first panel, a person asks their partner, "Do you think truth is beauty and beauty is truth?" In the second panel, the partner confesses that he once ran out of bowls, did not want

## The Joke A woman announces she is going on a diet starting tomorrow, so today is her last day to eat what she wants. She then performs a series of increasingly absurd calculations: she figures she

## The Joke A math professor stands at a chalkboard covered in complex integral equations involving vector calculus (triple integrals, surface integrals, divergence, and gradient operators). He annou

## The Joke The comic presents two graphs. The first graph shows population growing over time, with a pie chart overlay breaking the population into two segments: a large portion labeled "Basically o

## The Joke This long-form comic is a parody of "The Talk" -- the classic awkward conversation parents have with their children about sex. However, in this version, drawn in a detailed, collaborative

## The Joke The caption reads: "Fun fact: It's possible to make a pantsless mathematician cry using a single letter." The scene shows what appears to be a romantic or intimate moment between two peop

## The Joke The comic is a multi-panel conversation between two characters (who resemble classical Greek or biblical figures). One character complains that God made math annoying because all the inte

## The Joke The comic is a multi-panel discussion among several people about the decline of heroes in modern society. One character observes that "all the great heroes come from an age when people us

## The Joke A person is whispering to the person next to them in what appears to be a line or row of people seated together: "I'm going to kill you tonight. This isn't part of the game we're playing.

## The Joke A child excitedly announces that Billy Walmart (a play on Walmart stores) has opened a branch that gives big discounts on "horrible, accursed products." Another character is skeptical, no

## The Joke The comic depicts a family of numbers. The number 3 (the mother) announces to the number 1 (the father) that their son, the number 2, has come home from the war but has "become irrational

## The Joke A man is reflecting on the nature of death, articulating a philosophical argument. He says he is incapable of conceiving of himself as dead -- whenever he imagines it, he thinks of himsel

## The Joke The comic presents a mock advertisement for "next year is fast food ice cream novelties," listing a series of increasingly absurd and horrifying product names. The items include: Mint Cho

## The Joke The comic is a conversation between two characters about the "Christmas creep" phenomenon -- the tendency for Christmas-related commercial activity to start earlier and earlier each year.

## The Joke The comic is titled "Funtime Activity: Thinking of ways well-established theories could be proven false." It presents three panels, each showing an absurd scenario in which a well-known s

## The Joke A man lies on his deathbed surrounded by his family. He begins what appears to be a heartfelt farewell, saying "Before I die... I want you to know... I couldn't have asked for a better fa

## The Joke The comic presents "Law of Social Media #29," which states: "If you post a paradox, no matter how old and intractable, someone will act like the answer is obvious." The example given is t

## The Joke The comic presents a grid titled "Media and Social Class: A Guide." It is a 3x3 matrix where the columns represent the audience (poor or rich) and the rows represent the performers/creato

## The Joke A character explains to another person that Nassim Taleb wrote a famous book called "The Black Swan." The concept is that seemingly impossible or highly unlikely things happen pretty freq

## The Joke A woman is crying for help from a villain, and a superhero called "The Utilitarian" arrives to save the day. Instead of simply defeating the villain and rescuing the woman, The Utilitaria

## The Joke A child runs to his father screaming "DAAAAD!" and asks "What is it, Billy?" The child voices an existential worry: "What if the world is too complicated to assign blame to any particular

## The Joke An alien visits Earth and announces itself as the leader of humanity, saying it has come from across the galaxy and wants to know how the human species would solve an ethical conundrum. T

## The Joke A group of people are discussing how robots are getting better than humans at everything -- chess, Go, stock picking. Someone suggests that someone should design a game just so that human