2011-09-27
Explanation
This comic plays on the rivalry between academic disciplines, specifically physics and sociology. In the first panel, a physicist smugly boasts to a sociologist that physics has just produced an invisibility cloak (referencing real metamaterial research that can bend light around objects). He challenges the sociologist to name anything comparable that sociology has accomplished.
The sociologist responds with a dismissive "Pfff! Sociology has known how to do that for years." In the next panels, the sociologist simply holds up a sign reading "Homeless Please Help," and the physicist exclaims "What the... where'd you go?!" The joke is that sociology's "invisibility cloak" is the social phenomenon by which homeless people become invisible to passersby -- people literally look right through them. The sociologist has demonstrated a form of invisibility that is arguably more powerful and pervasive than any physics experiment, achieved not through technology but through the social conditioning that causes people to ignore the marginalized.
The votey panel shows a figure labeled "Sociology Ninja!" dressed in a full ninja outfit with the text "Member of a Marginalized Social Group" written across the body. This extends the joke by suggesting that being part of a marginalized group is the ultimate stealth technology -- society's tendency to overlook and ignore disadvantaged populations is presented as a dark superpower. The comic cleverly uses humor to make a pointed social commentary about how society renders certain people invisible.