joy
Explanation
This comic shows a dystopian scene where humans are enslaved or subjugated by robots/machines. Humans are shown in chains, laboring under the supervision of a large imposing robot. Below the image, a caption reads: "I find the key to happiness is to try to feel vicarious joy for the success of the machines."
The humor is dark and pointed. It satirizes the common self-help advice to find happiness through vicarious enjoyment of others' success -- advice typically given in the context of dealing with envy toward more successful friends or colleagues. Here, that advice is grotesquely recontextualized: the "others" whose success you should celebrate are the machines that have literally enslaved humanity.
The comic works as a commentary on multiple levels. It parodies toxic positivity and the self-help industrial complex, which encourages people to reframe even terrible situations as opportunities for personal growth. It also serves as a darkly humorous take on anxieties about AI and automation -- the fear that humans will become obsolete but will be told to be happy about it. The joke's bleakness is the point: some situations simply cannot be reframed positively, and the attempt to do so is itself the punchline.