Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

rebel

2018-10-15 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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rebel
Votey panel for rebel
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Explanation

The Joke

In the first panel, parents worry about their kids, saying "Would you think our kids will be okay? When they grow up, we are going to see more extreme behavior. Don't see what their outlets are." The concern seems to be about typical teenage rebellion -- punk culture, bad attitude, drugs, alcohol, and so on.

The comic then jumps forward 15 years. The child has grown up and announces: "Mom, Dad, I have a degree in faith-based, environmental, religious, and corporate investing." The parents' reaction in the final panel is to tell their child to "get out of this house" -- the exact response one might expect if a child had become a drug addict or criminal, but instead directed at someone who has become an insufferably earnest, socially responsible investor.

The Humor

The comic subverts the classic parental fear about teenage rebellion. Instead of the child growing up to be a punk or a dropout, they become something arguably worse in the parents' eyes: a sanctimonious do-gooder with a degree in every possible form of ethical investing. The joke is that the parents would have preferred actual rebellion to this kind of aggressively wholesome career path. It plays on the generational tension where parents who were themselves countercultural find their children's version of "rebellion" -- earnest corporate responsibility -- to be even more alienating than drugs or punk rock would have been.

View History (1) Original Comic