Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Smell

2020-09-04 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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Smell
Votey panel for Smell
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

The Joke

A person walks into a room and exclaims "Oh my god, this room smells like death and pigshit." The room's owner calmly explains, "This is my cheese room." In the final panel, the first person's expression completely changes to one of delight, clasping their hands together and gushing, "Sooooo wonnnnderful."

The comic plays on the fact that many highly prized artisanal cheeses -- particularly aged varieties like Limburger, Epoisses, or Stinking Bishop -- are notorious for their extremely pungent odors. Objectively, these cheeses smell terrible to the uninitiated, yet cheese connoisseurs consider those same smells to be markers of quality and sophistication.

The Humor

The humor lies in the instantaneous 180-degree shift in the character's reaction. The exact same smell that was "death and pigshit" one second ago becomes "sooooo wonderful" the moment it is reframed as cheese. The comic satirizes how context and social signaling can completely override our sensory experience -- or at least how we express it. It also pokes fun at foodie culture and the way people perform enthusiasm for things that are, by any objective measure, genuinely foul-smelling.

View History (1) Original Comic