2011-06-15
Explanation
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 dead -- they never were. Because time is gone too." The baby continues, teetering between madness and self-preservation: "I'''m the only mind in all of reality. HAHAHA! No no don'''t give in... Stay sane. Madness is the unmaking of the self." Finally the baby cries out "Keep it together! Keep it to--" before being interrupted by a parent playing peek-a-boo, at which point the baby laughs joyfully: "HAHA HAHA HA!"
The joke reinterprets the game of peek-a-boo from the baby'''s perspective using the concept of object permanence. Developmental psychology tells us that very young babies lack object permanence -- when something disappears from view, it effectively ceases to exist for them. The comic takes this literally: when the parent hides their face, the baby experiences the total annihilation of the universe and everyone in it, plunging into cosmic existential horror. When the parent reappears, reality is restored and the baby is happy again.
The votey panel shows someone asking "Why do one-year-olds all have that faraway look?" -- implying that babies always appear to be staring into the distance because they are perpetually recovering from these traumatic episodes of perceived universal nonexistence.