family
Original: family on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child (looking in mirror, excited): "MOM! I'M DOING SCIENCE!"
Mother (off-panel, shouting back): "NO, YOU'RE FUCKING NOT!"
Panel 2 (the mother addresses the reader):
Mother: "THANKS TO CHILDREN'S SCIENCE SHOWS, YOU BELIEVE 'DOING SCIENCE' IS SYNONYMOUS WITH HAVING A FUN INDIVIDUAL SENSE-PERCEPTION."
Panel 3:
Mother: "IF YOU'RE 'DOING SCIENCE,' EVERY HUMAN WHO EVER LIVED IS A SCIENTIST. IN FACT, EVERY LIVING CREATURE IN THE WHOLE OF EARTH'S HISTORY HAS BEEN 'DOING SCIENCE.'"
Panel 4:
Mother: "IF YOU'RE NOT REPEATING AN EXPERIMENT IN A CONTROLLED SETTING OR COLLECTING INFORMATION IN A SYSTEMATIC MANNER OR COMING UP WITH AN EXPLANATORY MODEL TO MAKE SENSE OF AVAILABLE DATA, YOU ARE NOT DOING SCIENCE. YOU ARE LOOKING AT SHIT."
Panel 5:
Child: "BUT YOU'RE A SCIENTIST AND MOST OF WHAT YOU DO IS GETTING ANGRY AND YELLING AT THE INTERNET."
Panel 6:
Mother: "AND I BET YOU DON'T SEE THAT ON YOUTUBE, DO YA?"
Votey:
A voice (off-panel, shouting at the slumped figure): "HEY! ARE YOU IN THERE ALIENATING YOUR ENTIRE READERSHIP?!"
Child (looking in mirror, excited): "MOM! I'M DOING SCIENCE!"
Mother (off-panel, shouting back): "NO, YOU'RE FUCKING NOT!"
Panel 2 (the mother addresses the reader):
Mother: "THANKS TO CHILDREN'S SCIENCE SHOWS, YOU BELIEVE 'DOING SCIENCE' IS SYNONYMOUS WITH HAVING A FUN INDIVIDUAL SENSE-PERCEPTION."
Panel 3:
Mother: "IF YOU'RE 'DOING SCIENCE,' EVERY HUMAN WHO EVER LIVED IS A SCIENTIST. IN FACT, EVERY LIVING CREATURE IN THE WHOLE OF EARTH'S HISTORY HAS BEEN 'DOING SCIENCE.'"
Panel 4:
Mother: "IF YOU'RE NOT REPEATING AN EXPERIMENT IN A CONTROLLED SETTING OR COLLECTING INFORMATION IN A SYSTEMATIC MANNER OR COMING UP WITH AN EXPLANATORY MODEL TO MAKE SENSE OF AVAILABLE DATA, YOU ARE NOT DOING SCIENCE. YOU ARE LOOKING AT SHIT."
Panel 5:
Child: "BUT YOU'RE A SCIENTIST AND MOST OF WHAT YOU DO IS GETTING ANGRY AND YELLING AT THE INTERNET."
Panel 6:
Mother: "AND I BET YOU DON'T SEE THAT ON YOUTUBE, DO YA?"
Votey:
A voice (off-panel, shouting at the slumped figure): "HEY! ARE YOU IN THERE ALIENATING YOUR ENTIRE READERSHIP?!"
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. Panel 1: a kid grins into a hand mirror and shouts "Mom! I'm doing science!" An off-panel mother snaps back, "No, you're fucking not!" In the next panels the mother (a woman with long dark hair) turns to the reader and rants: children's science shows have made you believe "doing science" just means having a fun individual sense-perception. By that logic every human who ever lived, and every living creature in Earth's history, has been "doing science." She insists that unless you're repeating an experiment in a controlled setting, collecting information systematically, or building an explanatory model to make sense of data, "you are not doing science. You are looking at shit." The kid retorts that the mother is a scientist yet spends most of her time getting angry and yelling at the internet. She replies defensively, "And I bet you don't see that on YouTube, do ya?" Votey: a hunched figure sits silently while an off-panel voice yells, "Hey! Are you in there alienating your entire readership?!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.