counting
Original: counting on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1: A caveman with long hair and a beard holds a spear, standing over a crouching woman who is tending a small garden plot.
Caveman: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Woman: "TENDING THIS GARDEN."
Panel 2: The woman explains her plan.
Woman: "YOU TAKE THE GRASS SEEDS, PLANT THEM, GET MORE GRASS SEEDS."
Woman (continuing): "KEEP WATCHING FOR SLIGHTLY BIGGER GRASS SEEDS. THEN PLANT THOSE AND GET MORE GRASS SEEDS."
Panel 3: The caveman, now sitting and grinning, becomes obsessed with the loop.
Caveman: "I'M GONNA KEEP DOING THIS FOR A THOUSAND GENERATIONS, UNTIL I HAVE A BILLION DESCENDANTS, AND THEN THEY WILL GO AROUND THE WORLD COUNTING THE GRASS, COUNTING IT! COUNTING UNTIL WE HAVE CONQUERED IT ALL!"
Panel 4 (caption: "LATER"): Two modern people sit side by side, each holding a phone or game device.
Person 1: "WHY ARE THESE REPETITIVE CLICK-THE-THING GAMES SO ADDICTIVE?"
Person 2: "GAAH. I'M CLICKING THE THING."
Votey: A hand-drawn red square button outline.
Caption inside the button: "(THANKYOU FOR CLICKING THIS RED BUTTON!)"
Caveman: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Woman: "TENDING THIS GARDEN."
Panel 2: The woman explains her plan.
Woman: "YOU TAKE THE GRASS SEEDS, PLANT THEM, GET MORE GRASS SEEDS."
Woman (continuing): "KEEP WATCHING FOR SLIGHTLY BIGGER GRASS SEEDS. THEN PLANT THOSE AND GET MORE GRASS SEEDS."
Panel 3: The caveman, now sitting and grinning, becomes obsessed with the loop.
Caveman: "I'M GONNA KEEP DOING THIS FOR A THOUSAND GENERATIONS, UNTIL I HAVE A BILLION DESCENDANTS, AND THEN THEY WILL GO AROUND THE WORLD COUNTING THE GRASS, COUNTING IT! COUNTING UNTIL WE HAVE CONQUERED IT ALL!"
Panel 4 (caption: "LATER"): Two modern people sit side by side, each holding a phone or game device.
Person 1: "WHY ARE THESE REPETITIVE CLICK-THE-THING GAMES SO ADDICTIVE?"
Person 2: "GAAH. I'M CLICKING THE THING."
Votey: A hand-drawn red square button outline.
Caption inside the button: "(THANKYOU FOR CLICKING THIS RED BUTTON!)"
Alt text
A four-panel SMBC comic. Panel 1: A bearded caveman holding a spear stands over a woman crouched at a small garden, asking what she is doing; she says she is tending the garden. Panel 2: The woman explains the loop of planting grass seeds, getting more grass seeds, watching for slightly bigger seeds, planting those, and getting more grass seeds again. Panel 3: The grinning caveman declares he will keep doing this for a thousand generations until he has a billion descendants who will go around the world counting all the grass until they have conquered it all. Panel 4, labeled LATER: two modern people sit side by side staring at handheld game devices; one asks why repetitive click-the-thing games are so addictive while the other groans and admits to clicking the thing. The joke is that humanity's endless drive to repeat a simple rewarding action (farming, descendants) is the same impulse behind addictive incremental clicker games. Votey: a hand-drawn red square button with the text inside reading "(thankyou for clicking this red button!)", a meta gag rewarding the reader for clicking through.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.