2012-06-18
Explanation
A friend tells the red-haired man that he has too much going on and that's why he's stressed. The man dismisses this perfectly reasonable advice, saying he needs it stated by "an individual who is socially empowered to state the obvious." Later, he visits what appears to be a guru or wise man figure, who simply tells him to "Simplify." The man walks away smugly saying "Sooo... wiiise."
The joke is about the common human tendency to dismiss straightforward, common-sense advice when it comes from ordinary people, but to treat the exact same advice as profound wisdom when it comes from someone perceived as an authority figure -- a guru, a spiritual leader, or an expert. The friend's blunt "you have too much shit going on" is functionally identical to the guru's "simplify," but the man only accepts it when it's delivered with gravitas by someone he considers worthy of dispensing truisms. This satirizes the self-help industry and the broader human bias toward credentialism: we often evaluate the messenger rather than the message, seeking validation through authority rather than engaging with the substance of the advice itself.