Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

boring

2025-03-09 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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boring
Votey panel for boring
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Explanation

An older person complains that kids today are boring: "You're on the phone. Don't want to drive or party. It's so boring!" They reminisce nostalgically about being a teen, "listening to music about Satan and getting wasted and ripping lines off my best friend's butt." Another character dryly notes "I remember that." The older person then approaches a young person and tries to tempt them: "Hey kid, you want me to take you to some dark woods where strangers wanna chew tobacco?" The kid politely declines: "No thank you, ma'am." The older person is outraged: "This isn't a life! It isn't a life!"

The comic satirizes the recurring generational complaint that "kids these days" are too well-behaved and boring. The humor comes from flipping the usual concern -- instead of older generations worrying that youth are too wild, here the older generation is upset that young people are too responsible and polite. By having the older character explicitly describe their own teenage behavior (Satan-themed music, substance abuse, drug use off a friend's body) and then try to recruit kids into similarly reckless activities (going to dark woods with strangers to chew tobacco), the comic highlights how absurd the complaint sounds when you actually spell out what "not boring" entails. The kid's polite refusal is the perfect punchline: the younger generation's wholesomeness is presented as deeply offensive to someone who romanticizes dangerous teenage rebellion.

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