2013-04-19
Explanation
This comic riffs on the well-known aphorism often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." The comic presents three tiers of conversationalists. In the first panel (green background), two figures are labeled as "interesting people" who "talk about ideas," shown with abstract graphs and data in their speech bubbles. In the second panel (yellow background), "boring people talk about other people," shown gossiping about stick-figure acquaintances. The third panel (red background) introduces a new, lower tier not found in the original quote: "intolerable people talk about what they drank last night," with both figures recounting long lists of alcoholic beverages.
The humor works on two levels. First, it takes a familiar highbrow quote and extends it downward with a relatable jab at people who recount their drinking exploits in tedious detail. Second, the comic itself is somewhat self-aware, since complaining about boring conversationalists is itself a form of talking about other people, which by the comics own logic makes you merely "boring" rather than "interesting."
The votey panel shows a woman telling an older man "I cant believe how stodgy youve become," to which he replies "Brace yourself," suggesting that the person expressing these judgmental tiers of conversation is aware they sound like a curmudgeon and is about to double down on it anyway.