subconscious-2
Explanation
The Joke
A team of scientists announces they have created a machine that can read the human subconscious. However, they immediately caveat this grand achievement: so far, the machine has only been able to determine what ultimately motivates human behavior, and the scientist mentions they are still trying to clean the ocean from a valve malfunction. When asked to reveal the contents of the human subconscious mind, the readout turns out to be "100% embarrassing memories from between ages 8 and 22." The scientists then confess that everything they do is an attempt to escape or justify things they did as college freshmen. The final panel shows the lead scientist declaring it is all dark and that they should let the machine read its own output — apparently, even the machine's subconscious is just as cringe-worthy.
The comic's punchline in the votey (bottom panel) shows that the test subject was described as "appeared quite happy" despite the machine removing the embarrassing memories, delivering on the idea that we would all be happier if we could just forget the dumb things we did as teenagers and young adults.
The Humor
The humor works on multiple levels. First, there is the anticlimax: a grand scientific breakthrough in reading the subconscious turns out to reveal nothing profound about human nature — just that we are all haunted by embarrassing memories from adolescence. Second, the scientists themselves are not immune; their entire research program is reframed as an elaborate coping mechanism for their own freshman-year shame. This universality is what makes the joke land — virtually everyone can relate to lying awake at night remembering something mortifying they said at age 15.
References
The comic plays on the popular understanding of Freudian psychoanalysis and the idea that the subconscious holds deep, dark truths about human motivation, only to subvert it with something far more mundane and universally relatable.