Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

personality

2022-07-23 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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personality
Votey panel for personality
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Explanation

This comic satirizes personality quantification and data-driven self-assessment. A person is told by what appears to be a hiring manager or evaluator that they "don't have enough personality." When asked how personality is measured, the evaluator explains it can be "objectively quantified" by determining how much computing power -- storage, bandwidth, and processing -- would be required to simulate a person's personality.

The evaluator delivers the devastating assessment: "Your score: you can best be regarded as much computer as a laptop from the '80s." In other words, the person's entire personality is so simple it could be replicated by an early personal computer. Then comes the twist: "The computer eventually refused to join our network. Your entire self can be instantiated via a list of gaming quotes and some poorly-written fan fiction from Reddit."

The final panel shows this was apparently a breakup conversation, not a job interview -- "Worst. Breakup. Ever." The other person responds: "It's all right, I know that is also you communicating." The comic mocks the modern tendency to reduce human personality to quantifiable metrics and data, while also poking fun at people whose entire identity really does seem to consist of internet culture references.

View History (1) Original Comic