Compress
Explanation
The Joke
The comic features a human encountering an alien. The alien says it has come to take a "perfect snapshot" of Earth's culture, compress it, and then destroy Earth. In subsequent panels, the human objects, pointing out that compression loses information. The alien responds that Earth's culture used to be diverse -- mom and pop shops, regional cuisines, local traditions -- but now everything has become so homogenized and compressed that the snapshot would barely lose anything.
The human tries to argue that they are an individual with their own unique identity, preferences, and beliefs. The alien counters that every one of those traits exists in their registry already and that between streaming services, politics, and social media, they can predict the human's entire identity precisely. The human attempts one last stand by saying they want to make one more interesting thing before they go, and the alien agrees to wait. In the final panel, a line of humans stands before the alien, each saying "Wait, I--" suggesting everyone wants the same last chance, further proving the alien's point about human homogeneity.
The Humor
The comic works as a satire of cultural homogenization in the internet age. The alien serves as an outside observer who can bluntly point out what humans might not want to admit: that despite our sense of individual uniqueness, modern culture has converged into a relatively small number of patterns. The humor builds through the human's increasingly desperate attempts to assert individuality, each of which the alien effortlessly categorizes.
The final panel is the masterstroke -- the human's attempt to do something unique (asking for more time to create something interesting) turns out to be exactly what everyone else wants to do too, perfectly illustrating the alien's thesis. The comic uses science fiction as a vehicle for social commentary, a classic SMBC technique.
References
The comic references data compression concepts from information theory, where lossy compression discards information deemed redundant. It also touches on critiques of cultural homogenization through globalization, the death of local and regional culture, and the way algorithmic recommendation systems on streaming platforms tend to funnel people toward the same content. The alien invasion framing is a nod to science fiction tropes where aliens study or catalogue human civilization.