2014-12-07
Explanation
The Joke
A man arrives in Hell and is greeted by the Devil, who says "Welcome to Hell." The man notes it doesn't look so bad. The Devil explains he'll only be there for sixty-five seconds before fading into non-existence, but says he'll probably want to have some "panicked questioning." Instead, the Devil decides to just dance to bad teenage pop music. A cheesy pop song plays ("That's when I knew-ew-ew, I was falling for you-u-u") and the Devil invites the man to dance. The man protests -- "What's the point of this afterlife?!" -- but the music takes over. They both end up screaming "AAAH!" as the experience is terrible. In the final panel, the Devil admits "That's screwed up" and mutters "I didn't design the system."
The Humor
The comic subverts expectations about Hell in several ways. First, Hell isn't eternal torment -- it's just 65 seconds of existence before oblivion, which is arguably more existentially terrifying than eternal punishment. Second, instead of fire and brimstone, the torture is being forced to listen and dance to terrible pop music -- a very relatable modern annoyance elevated to cosmic punishment. Third, the Devil himself is sympathetic and somewhat hapless; he didn't design the system and is clearly uncomfortable with how pointless and awful it all is. The joke plays on the absurdity of existence itself: even the afterlife is a brief, meaningless, uncomfortable experience set to a bad soundtrack, and nobody -- not even the Devil -- is in control or happy about it.