Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

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2017-09-13 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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Votey panel for aaaah
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

The Joke

The comic depicts a conversation between two people about a news article. One person says they could not believe something when they saw it in the news. The other responds that the article was false and presents evidence. The first person then acknowledges the evidence but says that every so often they still think about it and could believe it. This evolves into a discussion about the current state of affairs, at which point both characters begin screaming "AAAAAAAAA" in escalating panels of existential dread.

The screaming grows in intensity across multiple panels, with more people joining in, until the entire scene is dominated by a massive wall of "AAAAAAAAA." Finally, in the last panel, someone walking by asks "Everything all right?" and one of the screamers snaps back to normalcy: "Sorry, I meant to say 'Gee, what an interesting way of thinking.'" The joke is that the socially acceptable response to overwhelming existential horror is to simply repackage your primal scream as polite intellectual commentary.

The Humor

The humor captures the modern experience of being overwhelmed by news and current events to the point of incoherent screaming, but having to maintain a veneer of calm, rational discourse in public. The escalation from civil conversation to pure, primal screaming is cathartic and relatable, and the sudden snap back to politeness in the final panel perfectly encapsulates how people mask their genuine terror with socially appropriate platitudes. The comic essentially dramatizes the internal experience of reading the news in the modern era.

View History (1) Original Comic
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