time-travel
Explanation
The Joke
A man bursts through a doorway announcing "Hey, teenage me! I have come back in time to give you advice!" His teenage self, sitting at a computer, dismisses him: "Sorry, I am busy posting my opinions on women to a Magic: The Gathering web forum." In the final panel, two people discuss the situation, and one asks "So what did you tell him?" The time traveler replies: "We are not on speaking terms."
The Humor
The comic subverts the classic time-travel trope where a wiser future self returns to guide their younger self. Instead of the teenager being eager to receive wisdom, the teenage version is too busy doing something cringeworthy -- posting opinions about women on a Magic: The Gathering forum -- to listen. The humor lies in the painful recognition that one's teenage self was not a sympathetic underdog deserving of guidance but rather an insufferable person. The fact that the time traveler is "not on speaking terms" with his own past self suggests that encountering your own youthful behavior is so embarrassing that even transcending time itself cannot bridge the gap. It also plays on the stereotype of socially awkward young men in nerd-culture spaces expressing bad takes about women online.
References
- Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game created by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast since 1993. Its online communities were common gathering places for nerd culture in the 2000s and 2010s.