mastery
Explanation
The Joke
A woman in bed looks at her laptop and exclaims in horror: "What the... they're calling it 'Ass-Expertise-Havers' now? My night is ruined!" Below the panel, a caption reads: "The attempt to introduce inclusive language was devastating to the entire Assmasters movie series."
The Humor
The comic takes the real-world trend of updating language to be more inclusive and applies it to the most absurd possible context: a pornographic film franchise. The word "masters" has indeed been scrutinized in various contexts for its connotations of dominance and hierarchy, but replacing it with the clunky bureaucratic phrase "Expertise-Havers" is hilariously ill-suited to the genre. The joke works because the inclusive language movement is being applied with perfect earnestness to content that is inherently crude and irreverent.
The woman's genuine distress — "My night is ruined!" — adds to the humor by implying she was looking forward to watching this content and the rebrand has somehow diminished the experience.
Broader Context
SMBC often takes contemporary cultural trends and pushes them to their logical extremes to find comedy. This comic satirizes both the sometimes over-zealous application of inclusive language reform and the absurdity of caring deeply about branding in lowbrow entertainment. The joke is not mocking inclusive language itself so much as imagining the funniest possible place where it could be applied.