2011-06-22
Explanation
This comic imagines a future where the government intervenes in information technology. The narration explains that after several people died of starvation while online (a darkly humorous exaggeration of internet addiction), the government stepped in. An official announces: "Humanity is inundated with too much information! Therefore, we'''ve mandated a limit on memory storage density set at the level obtained in 1982." This effectively forces society back to floppy-disk-era data capacity.
The comic then explores the consequences through the lens of community life. The narration notes "it was a loss for art and science, but a gain for community solidarity." A cheerful mailman-like figure -- the "internet man" -- delivers data personally to families: "For Mommy, we have black and white plant photos. Susie, here'''s your kitty video. Bobby, you got 3,000 experience points today -- your mage is now level 34." The humor comes from reducing the vast, impersonal internet into a quaint, small-town delivery service, as if internet content were parceled out like milk bottles.
The final section reveals that this arrangement is "not without its downsides." A man nervously asks the internet delivery man, "You uh... you have any, uh... data for Daddy?" -- clearly trying to discreetly request pornography. The delivery man responds flatly, "You need help, Hank," and the man protests, "Old internet never judged me!" The votey panel shows a floppy disk labeled "2 Bit Whores," a pun on both the low-capacity storage format and the implied adult content. The comic satirizes our relationship with the internet by imagining what it would look like if bandwidth were physically constrained, revealing both the community benefits and the awkward personal costs of losing digital anonymity.