Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Internet

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Internet
Votey panel for Internet
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Explanation

The Joke

A bearded man warns his partner before they go to bed that everything he has learned about sex came from a video he saw on the internet. His partner responds graciously, saying "Ah, wow. Well, let's give it a try anyway." The implication is that he learned from pornography, and his partner is bracing for something awkward or unconventional.

In the next panel, labeled "Later...", the partner is lying in bed saying "That was amazing. Wonderful. The best I've ever h--" but is cut off by the bearded man, who says "Please like and subscribe." The twist is that the video he learned from was not pornographic content but rather a YouTube-style tutorial, and he has internalized the conventions of online content creation so thoroughly that he treats the post-coital moment like the end of a YouTube video.

The Humor

The comic operates on a classic misdirection. The setup leads the reader to assume the man learned about sex from pornography, which is a common and relatable joke premise. The punchline subverts this by revealing that his "internet video" influence manifests not as any bizarre sexual technique but as the deeply ingrained habit of asking viewers to "like and subscribe" -- the ubiquitous sign-off of YouTube creators. The joke is funny because it suggests internet culture has become so pervasive that its conventions bleed into the most intimate moments of our lives.

The humor also plays on the absurdity of treating a sexual encounter like content to be rated and followed up on, reducing an intimate human experience to a transactional engagement metric.

References

The phrase "Please like and subscribe" is the standard call-to-action used by YouTube content creators at the end of their videos to encourage viewer engagement. The comic satirizes how internet culture and its language have become so embedded in daily life that they infiltrate even our most personal interactions.

View History (1) Original Comic