anthroplogy
Explanation
The Joke
The comic is a single panel showing a man standing in front of a bookshelf, ruffling through a red book. The caption, written in the style of a nature documentary narrator, reads: "As part of its courtship display, the male will ruffle the pages of its Jane Austen novels, making them appear to have been read."
The comic treats human dating behavior as if it were an animal behavior being observed by a wildlife documentarian. The specific behavior being described is a man trying to impress a potential romantic partner by creating the illusion that he has read Jane Austen novels, when in fact he has not -- he is simply bending and wearing the pages to make the books look well-read.
The Humor
The humor comes from the nature documentary framing, which reduces a relatable human social behavior to the level of an instinctual animal "courtship display" -- like a peacock fanning its tail or a bowerbird decorating its nest. The specific choice of Jane Austen is perfect because her novels (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc.) are strongly associated with romantic sophistication and are stereotypically more popular with women. A man claiming to have read Austen is a classic move to signal sensitivity and literary taste to a potential partner. The joke is that rather than actually reading the books, the man takes the shortcut of physically distressing them to fake the appearance of use -- a hilariously lazy form of intellectual peacocking.
References
The title "anthroplogy" is a deliberate misspelling of "anthropology" (the study of human societies and cultures), playing on the comic's conceit of studying humans like animals. Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known for her witty social commentary and romantic plots, whose works include "Pride and Prejudice," "Sense and Sensibility," and "Emma." The nature documentary narration style is reminiscent of David Attenborough's famous wildlife documentaries.