Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Human Jokes

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Human Jokes
Votey panel for Human Jokes
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 human is trying to explain the concept of fake dog poop (a classic prank toy) to an alien. The human explains: "See, it's just fake latex dog poop. Not real." Then elaborates: "Like, the person thinks there's poop on their floor, then they discover it's fake. It's a relief, so they laugh." The alien doesn't find it funny at all. The human concludes "I guess Zorbacran humor isn't like human humor." Later, we see the alien pulling out a robot and saying "Ha! It's just a robot with a brain exactly like your wife's!" — implying the alien's sense of humor involves far more existentially disturbing pranks.

The Humor

The comic explores the idea that humor is culturally relative by imagining what an alien species might find funny. The fake poop gag — one of the most basic, lowest-common-denominator pranks in human culture — is completely lost on the alien. But the alien's version of a prank is far more unsettling: presenting someone with a robot replica of their wife's brain, which raises disturbing philosophical questions about consciousness and identity. The joke is that what the alien finds hilarious is something that would cause a human an existential crisis. It's a commentary on how humor often relies on shared cultural assumptions, and how what seems harmless in one context could be deeply disturbing in another.

View History (1) Original Comic