Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

The comic presents three panels contrasting different levels of human desire. The first panel, "What I Ought to Want," shows a figure peacefully contemplating, desiring "Wisdom." The second panel, "What I Actually Want," shows a figure joyfully running through green hills, desiring "Happiness." The third panel, "What I Behave Like I Want," shows a figure hunched over a glowing screen in the dark, consuming "Tiny bits of information that I will immediately forget."

The comic captures the gap between our aspirational selves, our true selves, and our behavioral selves. We know we should want wisdom; we genuinely want happiness; but what we actually do with our time is scroll through phones and computers, absorbing ephemeral content that provides a brief dopamine hit and nothing lasting.

The Humor

The humor is in the painfully relatable self-recognition. The progression from noble philosophical aspiration to simple human desire to the grim reality of doomscrolling creates a comedic deflation that almost everyone in the internet age can identify with. The visual contrast reinforces the joke: the first two panels are bright and open, while the third is dark, with the figure's face illuminated only by a screen -- a composition that feels uncomfortably like a mirror. The phrase "tiny bits of information that I will immediately forget" is a devastatingly accurate description of how most people actually spend their leisure time, and the comic's power comes from its refusal to soften that observation.

References

This comic was a bonus comic included with the SMBC love-themed collection, as noted in the footer text.