Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

company

2021-12-01 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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company
Votey panel for company
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Explanation

This comic makes a joke about unpaid internships by comparing them to a sexual relationship.

A woman in bed says to a man: "I hope you feel you've gained valuable experience here, and I wish you luck in your future endeavor with some other company." The man, clearly confused and hurt, responds: "What? What are you talking about?"

The caption below reads: "Technically, anything you don't get paid for is an internship."

The joke works on two levels. First, the woman is using corporate HR language -- the kind of boilerplate farewell speech a manager gives when an unpaid intern's term ends -- in the context of a personal romantic/sexual relationship. The cold, professional tone applied to an intimate situation creates absurd humor.

Second, the comic is a pointed critique of unpaid internships. By equating an unpaid sexual encounter with an internship, the comic highlights the exploitative nature of unpaid labor arrangements. Both situations involve one party extracting value (labor or intimacy) from another while offering nothing but "experience" in return. The corporate euphemism "valuable experience" is exposed as hollow when applied to a context where its inadequacy is immediately obvious. The punchline generalizes the absurdity: if the only compensation is "experience," then any unpaid activity could be called an internship, revealing how the label is used to legitimize exploitation.

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