anomie
Explanation
The Joke
This comic is a promotional strip for Zach Weinersmith's book "Soonish." It features a conversation about the word "anomie." A character explains that anomie is "a distressed sense of normlessness produced by the breakdown of old institutions." They elaborate that organisms need eight hours of sleep and bright light, but humans only get brief, fragmented sleep, stare at screens, rarely go outside, and end up looking like "cave plants."
As the description of anomie becomes more extreme -- bodies becoming corrupt, going from strong to giant weak blobs, every act becoming sonic without meaning -- the other character asks if you just remain silent. The first character confirms that people say "please" and "sorry" a lot. The punchline is at the bottom: "This entire comic brought to you by buyers of 'Soonish' -- click for more info."
The Humor
The humor derives from presenting a bleakly accurate description of modern life -- sleep deprivation, screen addiction, sedentary lifestyles, social disconnection -- through the clinical-sounding sociological lens of "anomie." The term itself, coined by Emile Durkheim, refers to a breakdown of social norms and values, and the comic applies it to the mundane reality of contemporary existence in a way that is both uncomfortably recognizable and darkly funny. The escalation from "we don't sleep well" to "we look like cave plants" to total social and physical decay is characteristic of SMBC's approach to societal critique -- diagnosing civilization's ailments with increasing absurdity while keeping each observation grounded enough to sting.
References
Anomie is a concept from sociology, introduced by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in the late 19th century. It describes a condition of social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values. The comic was created as a promotional tie-in for "Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything," a 2017 book co-authored by Zach Weinersmith and Kelly Weinersmith.