Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

civilization

2022-06-03 View on smbc-comics.com → 2 revisions
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civilization
Votey panel for civilization
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Explanation

This comic imagines a first-contact scenario where aliens test whether humanity qualifies as a civilized species. The alien leader tells Earth's representatives that humanity can join the Galactic Federation if they pass a test: each human must speak to the aliens individually in a video conference, and not one of them may show their genitals during a 30-second conversation.

The human diplomats initially react with confidence ("You must mean we passed!"), but the aliens clarify: "You're proving you're a civilized species" -- suggesting this is actually a difficult bar to clear. In the final panels, it's revealed that someone did flash the aliens, and it was "the Austrian chancellor." The last panel shows the alien noting, "And that's when the Austrian chancellor took his pants off."

The joke satirizes the phenomenon of people exposing themselves during video calls -- a problem that became widely recognized during the COVID-era shift to remote work. The comic suggests that if aliens judged humanity's civilization by our ability to keep our clothes on during brief video calls, we would fail. The specific mention of an Austrian chancellor adds political satire, implying that even heads of state can't be trusted to behave appropriately on camera.

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