Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

satire

2020-07-05 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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satire
Votey panel for satire
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Explanation

The Joke

A child has written a satire about their dad. The dad reads it and says he thinks the child will find that the dad changed his life to be a better person in response to the satire, showing himself open to critique. However, the child's "satire" is titled "Count Von Stupid-Poopface" and turns out to be crude drawings of the dad with big teeth and his butt hanging out. The child calls it "a commentary about the status quo."

The dad initially assumes the satire will be a sophisticated literary critique, perhaps of his parenting or leadership in the family. Instead, it is a childish caricature with a silly name. But when called out, the child defends the work using the kind of lofty artistic language that real satirists use, claiming it is "a commentary about the status quo."

The Humor

The comedy works on multiple levels. First, there is the contrast between the dad's earnest, mature response to being satirized and the revelation that the "satire" is nothing more than a child's crude drawing with potty humor. Second, the child's deadpan defense of the work as serious social commentary parodies how creators of low-effort or juvenile content sometimes cloak their work in intellectual-sounding justifications. It pokes fun at the gap between pretension and substance in the world of satire and art criticism.

View History (1) Original Comic