humanity
Explanation
The Joke
A woman encounters a sinister-looking group called the "Evil Bachelor of the Arts Society." The group's members, who appear menacing, explain their evil plot: they have been training in the humanities — literature, philosophy, art criticism — and now plan to unleash their skills on an unsuspecting world. The woman initially recoils in fear, but when they reveal that their master plan involves "the humanities," she bursts out laughing. The final panel shows them devastated, with one yelling "NOOOO" — because the most cutting response to their villainous humanities expertise is simply not taking it seriously.
Humor Mechanism
The comic works through a classic misdirection structure. It sets up a genre-standard "evil society" scenario with all the visual tropes — dark meeting rooms, sinister expressions, dramatic declarations. The reader expects a genuinely threatening plot. The punchline subverts this by revealing the group's weapon is a humanities education, which in contemporary culture is often mocked as impractical and useless. The villain's genuine anguish at being laughed at is the final twist: their deepest fear is not being defeated but being dismissed as irrelevant, which mirrors the real-world anxiety of humanities graduates facing a job market that increasingly values STEM skills.
Context
This comic plays on the long-running cultural tension between STEM fields and the humanities, and the widespread perception that a Bachelor of Arts degree has limited practical value. The "Evil Bachelor of the Arts Society" is a play on various fictional evil organizations. The joke is somewhat self-deprecating for SMBC creator Zach Weinersmith, who frequently engages with philosophical and literary topics in his work. The comic captures the specific sting felt by humanities scholars: not outright hostility, but the more painful response of amused dismissal.