Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

app-4

2022-11-07 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
app-4
Votey panel for app-4
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

A person excitedly shows their friend a new app, saying it "takes you to every website, headline, even social media post, even ones you'd never find." The friend's response is dread: "You're going to die." The first person is confused — the app has the correct conjugation of a Latin verb, so it's not to be feared, and also it's not like it's stealing data. But the friend insists: "What are you going to do with the entire time you're alive? ... Dread."

The joke is about information overload and the existential burden of having access to all information. The friend immediately recognizes that an app giving you access to every piece of content ever created isn't a gift — it's a curse. You'll spend your entire life anxiously consuming an infinite stream of content, most of it anxiety-inducing. The mention of the Latin conjugation is a non-sequitur that highlights the absurdity of focusing on trivial features while ignoring the app's fundamentally life-destroying nature. The comic satirizes how we treat new technology as exciting while ignoring its capacity to consume all of our attention and fill us with dread.

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