rite
Explanation
This comic shows two aliens observing a human who announces, "I will now enact the rite of beginning a diet by gorging myself on the worst quality of fried trash-foods." One alien comments admiringly, "Wow. So in tune with your body." The human, overhearing, yells "Stop that! How dare you!" The caption reads: "The worst thing about living among the aliens was the cultural appropriation."
The joke operates on multiple levels. First, it satirizes the common human behavior of binge-eating junk food right before starting a diet -- framing this mundane, self-destructive habit as a sacred "rite," which is absurd but also uncomfortably accurate to how ritualistic the behavior feels. Second, the aliens treating this as a meaningful cultural practice and admiring the human for it is a reversal of how humans often romanticize or exoticize other cultures' practices. Third, the human getting angry about "cultural appropriation" flips the typical dynamic -- here, a human is upset that aliens are appreciating (or co-opting) the deeply embarrassing human tradition of pre-diet bingeing. The comic pokes fun at cultural appropriation discourse by applying it to a "tradition" nobody would actually want to claim.