2013-06-18
Explanation
In this comic, a father (wearing glasses and a cap) is talking to his two young children about Ouija boards. He dismisses them with an unexpected argument: "Yeah, right. If those things really worked, by now all you'''d ever get would be '''DESTROY MY PORN BEFORE ANYONE FINDS IT!'''" The caption below reads: "Dad managed to ruin Ouija boards forever." The children look uncomfortable and disturbed.
The joke takes a skeptical stance on Ouija boards but arrives at its skepticism through a hilariously crude route. Rather than debunking Ouija boards with scientific arguments about the ideomotor effect or the lack of evidence for supernatural communication, the father points out a practical absurdity: if the dead could really communicate through Ouija boards, the overwhelming majority of messages would be desperate requests to destroy their hidden pornography collections before living relatives discover them. It is a darkly logical argument -- nearly everyone has something embarrassing they would want destroyed after death, and if spirits could communicate, that would presumably be their top priority.
In the votey, a young man says, "God I can'''t wait to be a parent." This suggests that the prospect of being able to traumatize and embarrass one'''s children with inappropriate observations like this is actually an appealing part of parenthood -- a sentiment many real parents would recognize and find amusing.