social-longevity
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents a scenario where extreme human longevity has been achieved, but rather than focusing on the usual concerns about such a development (overpopulation, boredom, resource depletion), it zeroes in on a much pettier consequence: the explosion of social hierarchies and status distinctions. An elderly professor wearing a wizard-like hat and enormous glasses declares that he has "tenure level 14" and that the other person "can't even look at my reflection," treating academic tenure as an escalating RPG-style ranking system.
The humor lies in imagining that if people lived for thousands of years, institutions like universities would develop increasingly absurd and granular levels of seniority. Instead of the current system where tenure is essentially a binary status (you either have it or you don't), immortality would lead to ever more ridiculous gradations of privilege and social distinction.
The Humor
The joke works on multiple levels. It satirizes the already somewhat absurd reverence for seniority in academia, where tenured professors sometimes behave as though their status makes them untouchable. By extrapolating this to a world of extreme longevity, Weinersmith shows how human pettiness would scale with time -- rather than using immortality for grand pursuits, people would just invent more elaborate ways to pull rank on each other. The detail that you "can't even look at my reflection" is a wonderful escalation, evoking both vampire mythology and the kind of over-the-top deference demanded by ancient monarchs.
The votey panel extends the joke with a list of tenure levels: Level 1 means you can't be fired, Level 10 means you can't be spoken to, Level 100 means you can't be thought of, Level 1000 means you can eat students, and Level 10,000 means you can get out of one committee meeting per semester. The final entry is the real punchline -- after all those supernatural privileges, the ultimate perk is escaping the mundane bureaucratic drudgery that academics truly despise.
References
The comic references the concept of academic tenure, the system by which professors receive permanent employment and significant job protections. The joke about tenure levels resembles RPG (role-playing game) leveling systems, where characters gain increasingly powerful abilities as they advance. The concept of extreme longevity or human immortality is a frequent topic in transhumanist philosophy and science fiction.