Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

The comic is titled "Sometimes, it's better that we don't know history." A pharaoh, depicted as a muscular man wearing traditional Egyptian headgear, instructs an architect: "Build me a structure that makes it look like the desert got a boner while sleeping!" He then declares: "There, I shall reside for eternity!"

The Humor

The joke offers a deliberately crude reinterpretation of the Egyptian pyramids. While historians and archaeologists have long debated the cultural, religious, and architectural significance of the pyramids, this comic proposes that the pharaoh's actual motivation was far less dignified — he simply wanted a giant phallic monument. The pyramid's pointed shape is reframed as an intentionally suggestive form rising from the flat desert. The title's observation that "sometimes it's better that we don't know history" sells the joke by implying that the real reasons behind historical monuments might be embarrassingly juvenile. The pharaoh's bombastic delivery and the architect's silent acceptance add to the absurdity.