2013-03-02
Explanation
This comic presents a graph titled "'Rich' is Hard to Define" that plots wealth on the x-axis against "% of possessions that could tell stories" on the y-axis. The curve shows a bell-shaped distribution: at very low wealth, your possessions can't tell stories (you don't have many). The percentage peaks at moderate wealth and then declines again at high wealth levels.
The joke is an observational one about the character of possessions at different wealth levels. People with moderate means tend to own things with history -- a hand-me-down couch with a mysterious stain, a car that required creative repairs, a piece of furniture rescued from the side of the road. These are the possessions that "could tell stories." As wealth increases, people replace their quirky, lived-in belongings with pristine, new, characterless luxury items. A billionaire's possessions are flawless but boring -- a brand-new yacht doesn't have the narrative charm of a beat-up pickup truck that's been through three road trips and a fender bender.
The title "Rich is Hard to Define" works as a double meaning: it's hard to define "rich" economically, but the comic suggests an alternative metric -- perhaps true richness is having things with stories, which paradoxically peaks before you're conventionally wealthy.