beep
Original: beep on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Egg-shaped robot: "SO UUUAAA! THAT'S DAAAH WHEN UAAA [...] HEY! WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE LISTENING TO A HUMAN TALK. HELLO HUMAN, I THINK EEEEEEEEEEEEE I SHOULD TELL YOU EEEEEEEEEEEEE..."
Man with flame-like orange hair: "STOP IT!"
Panel 2:
Man with flame-like orange hair: "WHY? WHY NOT JUST SAY WHAT YOU INTEND?"
Robot: "BECAUSE WHEN YOU HUMANS ARE SILENT IN EACH OTHER'S PRESENCE FOR MORE THAN A SECOND, WE START TO WORRY WE'RE EITHER GOING TO MURDER EACH OTHER OR MAYBE HAVE SEX."
Panel 3:
Robot: "THOSE ARE CALLED FILLER WORDS. EVERY LANGUAGE HAS THEM."
Man: "WHY?"
Panel 4:
Man with flame-like orange hair: "BY GOD... GEE HOW MUCH LESS AWKWARD THIS IS."
Votey:
An empty room. A large speech bubble trails off the panel filled with "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". A knife lies on the floor and a figure is fleeing/disappearing through a doorway.
Egg-shaped robot: "SO UUUAAA! THAT'S DAAAH WHEN UAAA [...] HEY! WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE LISTENING TO A HUMAN TALK. HELLO HUMAN, I THINK EEEEEEEEEEEEE I SHOULD TELL YOU EEEEEEEEEEEEE..."
Man with flame-like orange hair: "STOP IT!"
Panel 2:
Man with flame-like orange hair: "WHY? WHY NOT JUST SAY WHAT YOU INTEND?"
Robot: "BECAUSE WHEN YOU HUMANS ARE SILENT IN EACH OTHER'S PRESENCE FOR MORE THAN A SECOND, WE START TO WORRY WE'RE EITHER GOING TO MURDER EACH OTHER OR MAYBE HAVE SEX."
Panel 3:
Robot: "THOSE ARE CALLED FILLER WORDS. EVERY LANGUAGE HAS THEM."
Man: "WHY?"
Panel 4:
Man with flame-like orange hair: "BY GOD... GEE HOW MUCH LESS AWKWARD THIS IS."
Votey:
An empty room. A large speech bubble trails off the panel filled with "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". A knife lies on the floor and a figure is fleeing/disappearing through a doorway.
Alt text
A four-panel SMBC comic. A man with flame-like orange hair sits talking with a smooth, featureless egg-shaped robot/AI. The robot speaks in a halting, padded way full of stretched-out 'EEEEEE' sounds, imitating how a human talks: 'Hello human, I think... I should tell you...' The man snaps, 'STOP IT!' He asks why the robot doesn't just say what it means. The robot explains that humans fill silence with filler words because when humans go silent in each other's presence for more than a second, they worry they're either about to murder each other or have sex. It notes every language has filler words. The man asks 'Why?' In the final panel he muses, 'By God... gee how much less awkward this is.' Votey: an empty room with a long 'EEEEEEEE' speech bubble trailing off-panel, a knife on the floor, and a figure fleeing through a doorway, implying the awkward filler talk escalated to violence or flight.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.