translation
Explanation
The Joke
The comic opens with an optimistic technologist wearing round glasses, enthusiastically declaring that if digital translation is perfected, "humanity will become one family." The premise is the common utopian belief that language barriers are the primary obstacle to global unity and mutual understanding -- once we can all communicate seamlessly, peace and brotherhood will follow.
The second panel, labeled "Later, in the future...," shows the same character looking at his phone with a disgusted expression, saying: "I thought I only hated English-speakers. Turns out I hate everyone." The perfect translation technology has arrived, and rather than bringing humanity together, it has simply expanded the scope of the character's misanthropy. Now that he can understand what everyone in every language is actually saying, he has discovered that annoying people are a universal phenomenon.
The Humor
The joke subverts the idealistic notion that communication barriers are what divide us. It plays on the everyday experience of going online and finding that discourse in your own language is already frustrating enough. The comic suggests that the real problem is not that we cannot understand each other, but that we can -- and we do not like what we hear. The emphasis on the word "everyone" in the final panel delivers the punchline with perfect timing, revealing that universal comprehension leads not to universal love but to universal contempt.