Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

## The Joke The comic presents a single-panel proposal: "Any job that goes unappreciated should be expressed in units of weight." A university administrator is on the phone saying, "Hi, we need some

## The Joke A human asks an alien, "What do you mean humans are a meat race?" The alien explains that humans were designed to be a food-based organism (like a "Zomblar" food source). The human protes

## The Joke Two men, Steve and Ted, appear to be stranded in a snowstorm after a plane crash. Steve dramatically tells Ted that he does not think they are going to make it and makes Ted swear that if

## The Joke A single-panel comic shows what appears to be a graduate school interview or academic advising session. An older, bearded professor looks at a young student and says, "Oh, you like beetle

## The Joke A woman romantically quotes the famous Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." There is a pause, and then she asks, "Are you counting in your head?"

## The Joke A group of world leaders announce that global warming has gotten out of control and that the people and governments of the world have united. They declare it is time to release their spec

## The Joke In the top panel, two nerdy-looking parents are telling their child a sweet origin story: they explain that they were two nerdy parents who wanted to create a little nerdy kid, and that i

## The Joke A programmer explains the "rubber duck method" of debugging: when you are stuck on a coding problem, you explain it to a rubber duck, and just by the act of verbalizing your problem to it

## The Joke A mother sits her daughter down for "the sex talk," but instead of covering the usual topics like reproduction, birth control, or safety, she launches into a brutally honest lecture about

## The Joke A character explains the premise of the Philip K. Dick story "The Minority Report," in which clairvoyant beings can detect crimes before they happen, allowing police to arrest people pree

## The Joke A troll demands a toll from a traveler who wants to cross a bridge. When the traveler protests, the troll launches into a politically charged rant that mirrors real-world debates about in

## The Joke Two museum workers are discussing a practical problem: how to detect when physicists enter the museum. One of them proposes a simple solution: put up a sign advertising an "Interactive Da

## The Joke The comic is titled "Why I Could Never Be a Math Teacher." A student raises her hand and asks the classic student complaint: "Teacher! Will we ever use any of this algebra?" The teacher r

## The Joke The comic is set "shortly before the death of John Searle." A woman rushes to the bedside of the elderly, dying philosopher and blurts out a confession: "I have a confession. I am actuall

## The Joke A man catches a leprechaun who offers him one wish. Instead of wishing for something straightforward, the man wishes "to constantly experience a low-grade feeling of dread." The leprechau

## The Joke A woman cheerfully asks her colleague: "How is your work/life balance?" The colleague responds with hostile exasperation: "Eat shit, Cheryl. Do I look to you like I inhabit some fucking f

## The Joke A scientist explains p-values to a non-scientist. The explanation starts simply but quickly reveals that p-values are widely misunderstood even by scientists, are not the same as the prob

## The Joke The comic features a conversation between humans and an alien named Zorblax. The humans begin by listing the traits they believe make them special: culture, tool use, and so on. The alien

## The Joke A seeker climbs a mountain to ask a wise master how to achieve spiritual transcendence. The master''s answer is simply: "Magnets!" When the seeker questions this, asking if this is real t

## The Joke A character calculates the probability that their individual vote will decide an election and concludes it's essentially zero, so voting is irrational. Another character points out that i

## The Joke The comic discusses a philosophical concept it calls "The Star Trek Problem." A professor explains that in philosophy there is a thought experiment about teleportation: when a teleporter

## The Joke Two mathematicians discuss the confusing naming conventions in mathematics. One points out that "imaginary numbers" are not actually imaginary -- they are real mathematical objects that a

## The Joke The comic shows a man in a suit addressing an audience, dramatically reciting the famous final line of F. Scott Fitzgerald''s "The Great Gatsby": "So we beat on, boats against the current

## The Joke A guest at a party compliments the host on a fancy cheese platter, remarking on how hospitable she is. The host then launches into an unexpected sociological analysis: she explains that s

## The Joke The comic shows what appears to be a Girl Scout (or similar youth cookie seller) presenting a business proposition: she is prepared to deliver fourteen tons of coconut pinwheels on Februa

## The Joke The comic is presented as a news broadcast reporting on a crisis: a wave of child deaths has swept the nation because parents have begun choosing ever more polysyllabic (multi-syllable) n

## The Joke A man approaches another person with an overly elaborate pitch: "Excuse me, sir, would you be interested in wearing your moderate social views, inadequate personal hygiene, mundane intere

## The Joke The comic plays on the classic fantasy "hero''s journey" trope. A young man tells his father that adventure calls and he must leave their sheltered life of farming beets and being relentl

## The Joke The comic is titled "How to Pick Up a Linguist at a Bar" and shows a man delivering a pickup line to a woman: "If I told you that you have a beautiful body, according to the Sapir-Whorf h

## The Joke A man confidently declares to another man that "love isn't real" and that it is "a concept women invented so they could control men." This is a recognizable trope of bitter, misogynistic

## The Joke The comic opens with a woman saying she does not understand why people are afraid of math. A man responds by demonstrating subtraction: "You have a dollar. You spend it. Now you have no d

## The Joke The comic opens with a group of Vikings learning that "Gunnar is dead." They react with grief, but their mourning quickly turns practical in a distinctly Viking fashion. One says he wants

## The Joke A grandfather begins telling the classic Aesop fable of the Grasshopper and the Ants to a child. In the traditional story, the grasshopper plays his fiddle all summer while the ants work

## The Joke In the first panel, a woman passionately declares: "People who oppose genetically engineering new incredibly tall animals oppose progress itself." A man responds with the common idiom, "G

## The Joke The comic depicts a dental visit that escalates into an increasingly hostile and philosophical exchange. The dentist asks, "Have you been flossing regularly?" and the patient immediately

## The Joke The comic depicts a couple in bed (shown as white text on black panels to indicate darkness). One partner asks the other to "rare phonemes" while they make love. The other partner begins

## The Joke A man has a sudden existential realization: "I have come to realize this entire world is a fantasy. I am in a coma, and I have dreamt all of it." He gestures at everything around him -- t

## The Joke A newly arrived soul is greeted at the gates of heaven with "Welcome to heaven, loser." When the soul protests that this is mean, the heavenly gatekeeper (depicted as a large bearded figu

## The Joke A man excitedly announces to a woman that he has "discovered the secret to immortality." He explains that every moment in life is like a ripple on a pond -- it starts with you, then sprea

## The Joke A presenter at what appears to be a scientific or government briefing explains the premise: "Axiom: every person accumulates embarrassing teenage memories." She then proposes: "Axiom: any

## The Joke A man is explaining what he calls "Riemann's Quaternary Conjecture" to a woman. He states that if you take a number that is equal to four and add it to itself enough times, the result is

## The Joke The comic is a parody of superhero stories, specifically riffing on Batman-style comics. In the first panel, a Batman-like hero exclaims that "The Joker has taken over the moon!" -- a cla

## The Joke A father is sitting on the toilet, holding a roll of toilet paper, while his young toddler son stands nearby holding a stuffed animal. The father desperately calls out: "Watch me pee, chi

## The Joke A woman who appears to be a therapist or group leader addresses a group of people, telling them: "Okay everyone, now I want you to just visualize. Now worries. Think about all the little

## The Joke A child in bed calls out to their mother: "Mom! There's a monster under my bed!" The mother asks, "Where?" The child cheerfully responds: "About 12,700 kilometers down, depending on your

## The Joke The comic explores the idea of lasting legacy through a series of panels. It begins by noting that the oldest recorded joke is from Sumeria, circa 1900 BC. It then observes that something

## The Joke A newly elected president (referred to as "Madame President") is being briefed about her new role. The briefing escalates from mundane to increasingly absurd and sinister. First, she is t

## The Joke The comic presents a chart titled "Self-Destructive Beverage Selection: A Guide." It is a scatter plot with two axes: "Hatred for Self" on the x-axis and "Hatred for Others" on the y-axis

## The Joke A group of dolphins are having a conversation. One dolphin passionately argues that it is all a conspiracy: "We're not fish! We're mammals!" He insists that they are not meant to float ar

## The Joke In this single-panel comic, a demon in Hell is showing a bound man his punishment: another person sitting at a computer. The caption reads, "He's using software you're very familiar with,