worst-new-social-trend
Explanation
The Joke
The comic depicts a formal waiter approaching a woman at a restaurant with an elaborately polite but deeply backhanded message: "Good evening, Madame. A gentleman who wishes to remain anonymous sends you this glass of wine and compliments on your magnificent pride in that haircut that really isn't ideal for your shape of head." The caption at the bottom labels this as "Future Social Trend #271812: Platonic Negging."
The joke combines two recognizable social phenomena. The first is the romantic gesture of sending a drink to someone at a bar or restaurant via the waiter. The second is "negging," a manipulative pick-up artist technique where someone gives a backhanded compliment designed to undermine the target's confidence. Here, the comic imagines a future where negging has been divorced from its romantic context entirely and become "platonic" -- people now send anonymous backhanded compliments to strangers with no seductive intent whatsoever, purely for the sake of undermining someone's self-esteem.
The Humor
The humor comes from the absurd escalation of an already dubious social behavior. Negging is widely mocked as a manipulative tactic, but at least it has a (misguided) purpose. Platonic negging strips away even that rationale, leaving pure, purposeless passive-aggression delivered through the most formal possible channel. The elaborate courtesy of the waiter's delivery makes the insult about the woman's head shape even more jarring and funny. The "Future Social Trend" numbering (implying there are at least 271,811 other terrible future trends) adds to the satirical worldbuilding.