2013-12-27
Explanation
The Joke
A young man asks his father, "Dad, how do I know if a girl really likes me or just wants me for my body?" The father suggests a test: perform a controlled experiment to eliminate one possibility, then accept what remains. The next panel is labeled "SOON" and shows the young man screaming "AAAH!" while coating himself in "macerated worms" (blended-up worms). In the final panels, he approaches a girl covered in the disgusting substance and asks, "Hey, do you still wanna hang out, even though we both like music?" She responds simply: "Shallow!"
The Humor
The comic takes the classic teenage anxiety about whether someone likes you "for who you really are" and applies ruthless scientific methodology to it. The father's advice is essentially the scientific method -- eliminate one variable (physical attractiveness) and see if the relationship persists. The son takes this literally by making himself as physically repulsive as possible (covering himself in macerated worms). The punchline is a double reversal: the girl calls him "shallow" for even testing her, which is ironic because the entire exercise was designed to test whether she was shallow. Additionally, the absurd extremity of the "experiment" -- coating oneself in worm paste -- satirizes how overthinking romantic relationships with analytical rigor leads to worse outcomes than just being normal. The father's advice, while logically sound, is a perfect example of how scientific thinking can go hilariously wrong when applied to human relationships.