Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Before

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Before
Votey panel for Before
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Explanation

The Joke

The comic is divided into two panels: "Before Internet" and "After." In the "Before" panel, a child tells an adult "When I grow up, I wanna be a cow!" The adult laughs uproariously -- "HAHAHAHA!" -- because this is obviously a silly, impossible childhood fantasy.

In the "After" panel, the same child says the same thing: "When I grow up, I wanna be a cow!" But now the adult, with a slightly stunned expression, responds: "Yep, there are people into that. You do you."

The Humor

The joke captures how the internet has fundamentally changed our relationship with unusual desires and subcultures. Before the internet, wanting to "be a cow" would be dismissed as childish nonsense. After the internet, the adult has been exposed to enough weird corners of online culture -- furries, otherkin, pet play, and countless other niche communities -- that the statement no longer registers as absurd. The adult now knows that there are, in fact, people who are "into that."

The comedy comes from the adult's weary, nonjudgmental acceptance. The internet has made everyone aware that virtually every conceivable interest, fetish, or identity has a community behind it. The adult has seen too much to laugh anymore. The phrase "you do you" perfectly captures the modern internet-era attitude: a mix of tolerance, exhaustion, and the quiet understanding that nothing is too strange to be someone's genuine lifestyle.

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