so-we-beat-on
Explanation
The Joke
The comic shows a man in a suit addressing an audience, dramatically reciting the famous final line of F. Scott Fitzgerald''s "The Great Gatsby": "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." The visual suggests this is being presented as a grand literary moment -- the man appears to be a salesman or presenter giving a pitch.
Below the panel is a caption reading: "Fun Fact: F. Scott Fitzgerald''s first job was selling wave pools."
The Humor
The joke works by recontextualizing one of the most celebrated closing lines in American literature. Fitzgerald''s original metaphor compares human striving to boats fighting against a current -- a poetic meditation on nostalgia, ambition, and the impossibility of recapturing the past. The comic imagines this line not as literary genius but as a sales pitch for wave pools, where the imagery of boats, currents, and being "borne back" would be quite literally applicable to a recreational water attraction. The absurd fake "fun fact" suggests Fitzgerald developed his most famous metaphor not from deep philosophical reflection but from his day job hawking wave pools, deflating one of literature''s great moments into mundane commerce.