social-desirability
Original: social-desirability on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title: SOCIAL DESIRABILITY VS. TOOTHPASTE TUBE SQUEEZING LOCATION
The comic is a single panel showing a bell curve (normal distribution) plotted above a toothpaste tube. The background behind the curve is divided into three vertical color bands, each labeled with a category of person, and arrows point down from boundary regions of the curve to the corresponding squeezing locations on the toothpaste tube below.
Left band (blue): GOODY-GOODY ANAL RETENTIVES
Middle band (yellow), under the peak of the curve: DECENT PEOPLE
Right band (pink): VILLAINS
Far right tail of the curve, with an arrow pointing to it: FUTURE HITLERS
Three arrows drop from the curve down to the toothpaste tube: the left arrow points to the far back/bottom end of the tube (where the goody-goodies squeeze), the middle arrow points to the middle of the tube (where decent people squeeze), and the right arrow points to the cap/nozzle end of the tube (where villains and future Hitlers squeeze).
Votey:
A hand-drawn picture frame on a wall. Inside the frame is a tiny version of the same bell-curve graph from the main comic, with the far-left tail labeled "Future Hitlers" (and a small arrow). To the right is the handwritten label: "Graph joke makers" with an arrow pointing back toward the far-left tail of the curve — implying the people who make these graph jokes are themselves the extreme outliers / future Hitlers.
The comic is a single panel showing a bell curve (normal distribution) plotted above a toothpaste tube. The background behind the curve is divided into three vertical color bands, each labeled with a category of person, and arrows point down from boundary regions of the curve to the corresponding squeezing locations on the toothpaste tube below.
Left band (blue): GOODY-GOODY ANAL RETENTIVES
Middle band (yellow), under the peak of the curve: DECENT PEOPLE
Right band (pink): VILLAINS
Far right tail of the curve, with an arrow pointing to it: FUTURE HITLERS
Three arrows drop from the curve down to the toothpaste tube: the left arrow points to the far back/bottom end of the tube (where the goody-goodies squeeze), the middle arrow points to the middle of the tube (where decent people squeeze), and the right arrow points to the cap/nozzle end of the tube (where villains and future Hitlers squeeze).
Votey:
A hand-drawn picture frame on a wall. Inside the frame is a tiny version of the same bell-curve graph from the main comic, with the far-left tail labeled "Future Hitlers" (and a small arrow). To the right is the handwritten label: "Graph joke makers" with an arrow pointing back toward the far-left tail of the curve — implying the people who make these graph jokes are themselves the extreme outliers / future Hitlers.
Alt text
A single-panel SMBC comic titled "Social Desirability vs. Toothpaste Tube Squeezing Location." A bell curve is drawn above a large toothpaste tube. The area under the curve is split into three colored bands. The left (blue) band is labeled "Goody-Goody Anal Retentives," the central (yellow) band under the peak is labeled "Decent People," and the right (pink) band is labeled "Villains," with the extreme right tail of the curve labeled "Future Hitlers." Three arrows drop from the curve to the toothpaste tube below: the left arrow points to the far back end of the tube, the middle arrow to the tube's middle, and the right arrow to the cap end. The joke: tidy people who squeeze from the very bottom and people who squeeze from the very top (the cap) are both statistical extremes, with cap-squeezers branded as villains and future Hitlers, while normal people squeeze the middle. Votey: a framed picture on a wall shows a miniature of the same bell curve with the far-left tail labeled "Future Hitlers," and a handwritten label "Graph joke makers" with an arrow pointing at that extreme tail — joking that people who make these normal-distribution jokes are themselves the worst outliers.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.