Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

gig-economy

2020-03-03 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
gig-economy
Votey panel for gig-economy
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

The Joke

A couple is in bed, and one partner announces that before they go to sleep, they need to tell the other something: "I'm renting." The other asks, confused, "You want... yes, I'm renting it to you?" The first explains: "I am renting this prosthetic condom because these are darkest economic times." The partner is horrified: "Oh my God, do you spend all day long about economics? Do you think of anything else? Or do you want for me to go?" The response: "That is called 'glamping.'"

The comic takes the concept of the "gig economy" and "sharing economy" -- where people rent out their homes (Airbnb), cars (Uber), and other personal assets -- and pushes it to a grotesque extreme by applying the rental model to intimate personal items like condoms. The escalation continues as even the act of a partner leaving is reframed through economic terminology ("glamping," a portmanteau of "glamorous camping," here absurdly repurposed).

The Humor

The humor derives from applying cold economic logic to the most intimate possible context. The sharing economy has already pushed into uncomfortable territory (strangers sleeping in your bed via Airbnb), and the comic simply extends that trajectory to its most revolting conclusion. The secondary joke -- that the economically obsessed partner cannot stop reframing every human interaction in economic terms, even a partner threatening to leave -- satirizes people who are so steeped in startup/economics culture that they cannot relate to other humans in normal terms anymore.

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