bow
Explanation
The Joke
A parent is shown speaking to their child at bedtime inside a cartoon house, delivering a version of "the talk" -- but instead of the real-world puberty talk, the parent is explaining cartoon puberty. "Sweetie, you're becoming a woman now. Soon you'll develop long eyelashes and a hair-bow." The caption at the bottom reads: "Cartoon characters have a different puberty talk."
The joke takes the familiar, slightly awkward parental rite of passage -- explaining the physical changes of growing up -- and transplants it into the world of cartoon logic, where the visual shorthand for "female character" is exaggerated eyelashes and a bow on the head.
The Humor
The humor comes from the observational insight about how cartoons signal gender. In many animated shows and comics (especially older ones), male and female characters of the same species are often identical except that the female version gets long eyelashes and a hair bow. By treating these cartoon conventions as literal biological developments that a cartoon girl would go through at puberty, Weinersmith highlights how absurd and reductive these visual shorthands actually are. It's a gentle satire of lazy character design tropes, delivered through the relatable framing of an embarrassing parent-child conversation.