alone
Explanation
This comic explores the evolutionary psychology of loneliness. A character asks "Why does being alone make me sad?" and is told that evolution made it so that isolated primates who felt bad about being alone were more motivated to rejoin their social groups, giving them a survival advantage. The character then observes the cruel irony: "When you meet peers, the thing that has kept you alone has also demoralized you, your friends see demoralization, not attractiveness, and you are alone again."
The punchline takes this further: "The funniest thing is that the adaptation that detects loneliness and creates sadness -- one of the greatest marvels of nature -- can be triggered entirely by comparing yourself to strangers on the internet." The comic highlights how an ancient evolutionary mechanism designed for small tribal groups now misfires catastrophically in the age of social media, where constant comparison with curated online personas triggers the same loneliness response that was meant to motivate real-world social bonding. It's a pointed commentary on how social media exploits our deepest psychological vulnerabilities.