2013-02-04
Explanation
This comic is titled "I Wish Celebrity Gossip Were More Scientific." It shows a TV news anchor delivering celebrity gossip rewritten in the language of physics and biology: "Today, photons were emitted from a sodium-vapor lamp and reflected off the genitalia of a high status human into a charged coupled device. Other humans are saying the high status human makes capricious reproductive choices."
The joke works by translating a tabloid celebrity scandal into strictly scientific terminology. The "sodium-vapor lamp" is a paparazzi camera flash, the "charged coupled device" is the camera'''s digital sensor (a CCD), the "genitalia of a high status human" refers to a nude celebrity photo, and "capricious reproductive choices" is a clinical way of describing promiscuity or a scandalous love life. When described this way, the gossip is revealed to be absurdly mundane at the physical level -- just photons bouncing off surfaces into a detector -- highlighting how trivial celebrity scandals really are when stripped of their social context.
The votey panel simply shows the anchor saying "Am I right?" in a self-satisfied way, playing on the trope of TV personalities seeking audience validation. It also works as a winking acknowledgment from Weinersmith to his science-loving audience, who would likely agree that reducing gossip to physics exposes its fundamental silliness.