snowflake
Explanation
The Joke
A child announces that her teacher told her "every snowflake is unique." The comic then presents three different adult responses, each representing a different worldview. The first adult (labeled with a positive attitude) enthusiastically agrees: "Yes! They're all special, just like you!" The second adult (a realist or scientist) deflates the sentiment: "Nah, not really. They pretty much all look the same." The third adult (a nihilist or cynic) takes it further: "Sure, but so is every bit of lint."
The comic systematically deconstructs the feel-good platitude that "everyone is unique and special" by showing how the same factual observation can be interpreted in radically different ways depending on one's philosophical outlook.
The Humor
The comedy lies in the escalating deflation of a wholesome childhood lesson. The "every snowflake is unique" saying is commonly used as a metaphor to teach children that they are each special and valuable. The three-panel response format acts like a philosophical spectrum: the optimist reinforces the intended message, the pragmatist undermines the factual premise, and the cynic delivers the killing blow by pointing out that uniqueness is trivially common and therefore meaningless. The third response is the funniest because it is technically irrefutable -- every piece of lint IS unique at a molecular level -- while completely destroying the emotional comfort the original statement was meant to provide. Weiner frequently deploys this structure of taking an innocent premise and subjecting it to increasingly rigorous (and depressing) philosophical scrutiny.