it39s-people
Explanation
The Joke
A group of people are discussing a dramatic revelation: "And then at the end it turns out that all of their food is PEOPLE!" One person reacts with shock ("GASP!"), while another says "That is SO interesting!" The conversation then shifts to a practical analysis: "It takes at least 20 years to get a fully-grown food-grade human" and "An adult would have to eat about 13 medium-sized humans per year just to maintain body weight." The final panel has two people debating: "I think they were making a point about overusing resources" vs. "Was it an ad for potatoes or something?"
The Humor
The comic riffs on the classic twist from the 1973 film "Soylent Green," where the shocking revelation is that a food product is made from human beings. Instead of reacting with the intended horror, these characters respond as practical-minded analysts, running the nutritional math on cannibalism as a food system. Their calculations quickly reveal that using humans as food is wildly impractical -- it takes 20 years to "grow" one and you would need 13 per year just to survive. This deadpan cost-benefit analysis drains all the dramatic horror from the reveal and replaces it with the mundane conclusion that it is simply bad agriculture. The final punchline has the characters so confused by the impracticality that they wonder if the story was actually an advertisement for potatoes -- a far more efficient food source.
References
- Soylent Green (1973): A dystopian science fiction film starring Charlton Heston, famous for the iconic line "Soylent Green is people!" The film depicts an overpopulated future where a mysterious food product turns out to be made from human remains.