social-desirability
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents a fake statistical graph titled "Social Desirability vs. Toothpaste Tube Squeezing Location," which maps where a person squeezes their toothpaste tube onto a bell curve of moral character. The graph divides people into three zones: those who squeeze from the very back of the tube are labeled "Goody-Goody Anal Retentives," those who squeeze from the middle are "Decent People" (the majority, at the peak of the bell curve), and those who squeeze from the very front near the cap are "Villains" -- with the far extreme labeled "Future Hitlers."
Below the graph, a toothpaste tube is shown with arrows pointing from the graph's regions down to the corresponding squeeze locations on the tube, reinforcing the absurd correlation between tube-squeezing habits and moral worth.
The Humor
The joke satirizes the human tendency to assign deep moral significance to trivial everyday habits. People genuinely do get worked up about the "correct" way to squeeze a toothpaste tube -- it is a classic source of domestic friction. The comic takes this petty preference dispute and inflates it to ludicrous proportions by mapping it onto a bell curve of social desirability, complete with comparing front-squeezers to history's greatest monsters. The use of a seemingly scientific graph format makes the absurdity even funnier by lending an air of authority to a completely meaningless correlation. The term "Goody-Goody Anal Retentives" for the back-of-tube squeezers also undercuts them, suggesting that even the "correct" behavior is taken to an annoying extreme.
References
The phrase "anal retentive" comes from Freudian psychoanalytic theory, referring to a personality type characterized by excessive orderliness and attention to detail. The "social desirability" in the title references social desirability bias, a concept in psychology where people tend to present themselves in a favorable light.