refresh
Explanation
This comic reimagines the myth of Sisyphus for the modern era of compulsive news consumption.
In the panel, Sisyphus -- the figure from Greek mythology condemned by the gods to eternally roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down -- is shown on a break from his labor. He sits beside his boulder, staring at a screen (likely a phone or tablet), thinking: "Nothing happened in the last 30 seconds. Better refresh the news. Nothing happened in the last 30 seconds. Better refresh the news."
The caption reads: "The depressing thing about Sisyphus' breaktime is how he doesn't realize it's a punishment."
The joke works on multiple levels. First, there's the direct parallel: just as Sisyphus's boulder-rolling is a futile, repetitive punishment, obsessively refreshing the news feed is also a futile, repetitive cycle that produces no meaningful result. The comic suggests that compulsive news-checking is its own form of Sisyphean torment. Second, the caption adds a layer of irony -- the "depressing thing" isn't just that Sisyphus refreshes the news compulsively, but that he doesn't even recognize this behavior as punishment. Unlike the boulder, which at least feels like an imposed task, doomscrolling feels voluntary, making it arguably worse. The implication extends to the reader: we, too, engage in this same punishing loop without recognizing it as such.
Albert Camus famously wrote that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy," but this comic darkly suggests that modern Sisyphus might indeed be content -- not because he's found meaning in his struggle, but because he's too distracted by his phone to notice the absurdity.