2014-10-08
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents the concept of "Nuanced Motivational Posters" -- a series of motivational poster parodies where each inspiring statement is immediately followed by a deflating caveat:
- "You Are Awesome" ... "By a standard that would consider 95% of people awesome" (shown with a bell curve)
- "You May Be Doing a Great Job" ... "But you should probably ask your peers"
- "Be Who You Are" ... "But also you can change"
- "Basically everything you do can be spun as self-affirmation"
- "No One Can Replace You" ... "But then nobody's really trying to"
- "Doubt Kills More Dreams Than Failure" ... "But random chance is like, Grim Reaper for dreams"
Each pair takes a standard motivational poster sentiment and adds the honest, statistical, or logical caveat that the original poster conveniently omits.
The Humor
The humor comes from the tension between the feel-good motivational poster industry and actual honest assessment. Motivational posters work by being vague and unconditionally positive, and the comic systematically destroys each one by applying even a tiny amount of critical thinking. The bell curve under "You Are Awesome" is particularly funny because it points out that if 95% of people qualify as awesome, the word has lost all meaning. "No one can replace you / But then nobody's really trying to" is a devastating observation that reframes uniqueness as irrelevance. The final panel about random chance being the "Grim Reaper for dreams" undercuts the entire self-help industry by noting that most failures are not due to self-doubt but to factors completely outside one's control. The comic captures the SMBC sensibility of finding the depressing truth hiding behind comforting platitudes.