Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

The comic opens with the warning: "Beware: every quote sounds smart with space behind it..." It then presents a banal, nonsensical statement -- "Ravioli is how the Universe fills a small part of itself with cheese" -- displayed in an elegant font over a beautiful photograph of a star field / deep space background.

The Humor

The joke is about how the visual presentation of a quote can make it seem profound, regardless of the actual content. Inspirational quote images (often shared on social media) typically feature sweeping cosmic imagery or nature photography behind text, which lends an air of gravitas and wisdom to whatever is written. By placing an absurd statement about ravioli over a space background, the comic demonstrates that the format itself creates a false sense of profundity. The statement about ravioli and cheese is technically not wrong -- ravioli is indeed a small cheese-filled part of the universe -- but it is utterly mundane and silly, yet it still "sounds smart" because of the cosmic backdrop and the pseudo-philosophical phrasing ("the Universe fills a small part of itself").