Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

thief

2019-04-18 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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thief
Votey panel for thief
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Explanation

The Joke

An elderly woman cries out that her purse has been stolen. A superhero (dressed in a classic cape-and-mask outfit) appears and seemingly catches the criminal instantly. The woman is amazed at how fast he was, but the hero says, "I wasn't." He explains that both she and the criminal were glued to their phones during the entire mugging -- the criminal was so distracted that he did not even realize the hero had taken the purse back. The woman marvels, "Celebrities are dumb," implying the thief was a celebrity absorbed in social media.

Then the old woman asks how the thief disappeared, and the hero looks down at his own phone showing a news alert and exclaims, "Leave him, Jennifer! He doesn't deserve your love!" -- revealing that he, too, is now completely absorbed in his phone, having forgotten about the crime entirely. The joke comes full circle: every single person in the scene, hero and civilian and criminal alike, is hopelessly addicted to their phones.

The Humor

The comic lampoons smartphone addiction by placing it in the context of a classic superhero rescue scenario. The subversion is multi-layered: the mugging itself was barely noticed because both victim and criminal were on their phones, the hero's "speed" was an illusion created by everyone's distraction, and even the hero ultimately succumbs to the same phone addiction mid-conversation. The final panel, where the hero is emotionally invested in some celebrity drama on his phone while ignoring the real situation in front of him, drives home the universality of the problem -- not even a superhero is immune.

View History (1) Original Comic