2014-02-21
Explanation
The Joke
Rene Descartes declares his famous philosophical statement "I think, therefore I am." In the next panels, he shrinks down to a tiny figure sitting on a large couch, then the TV turns on to a cable news network, and in the final panel, there is just a "poof" -- he has vanished from the couch entirely.
The Humor
The joke is a direct inversion of Descartes' most famous philosophical principle, "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am). The implication is that watching cable news causes a person to stop thinking, and since Descartes' existence is predicated on thinking, the cessation of thought caused by mindlessly watching cable news literally causes him to cease to exist. The visual progression -- Descartes shrinking and then disappearing -- shows the gradual erosion of thought (and therefore being) that cable news induces. It is a sharp satire of the intellectually numbing quality of 24-hour cable news programming.
References
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher and mathematician often called the father of modern philosophy. His statement "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") from his Meditations on First Philosophy established that the act of thinking is proof of one's own existence.