engaged
Original: engaged on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Man (red shirt): WOULD YOU EVER LEAVE BEHIND REALITY TO ENTER A PLEASURE BOX?
Woman (yellow shirt): YOU MEAN LIKE WITH LOVE AND SUNSETS AND SO FORTH? NAH.
Panel 2:
Woman: WHAT I WOULD GET INTO IS AN ENGAGEMENT BOX.
Panel 3:
Woman: I ALREADY SPEND 4 HOURS A DAY ON THIS APP. IT FEEDS ME AN INFINITE QUANTITY OF SHORT VIDEOS. I SPEND AN AVERAGE OF 4 SECONDS ON EACH, LIKE OR DISLIKE, SHARE OR DON'T SHARE, THEN MOVE ON.
Panel 4:
Woman: DO I LIKE IT? I DON'T KNOW!
Panel 5:
Woman: EVENTUALLY I'D RUN OUT OF INTERNET, BUT IT WON'T BE LONG UNTIL AI CAN GENERATE CONTENT DESIGNED TO SURGICALLY PULL APART EVERY BIT OF MY ATTENTION SPAN UNTIL ALL THAT REMAINS IS 150 POUNDS OF WARM FLESH EXISTING ONLY TO MINIMALLY SERVICE ITS BODILY FUNCTIONS WHILE LOOKING AT THE NEXT VIDEO.
(The two figures walk together along a wooded path.)
Panel 6:
Man: HUH.
Panel 7 (silhouettes):
Man: AND YOU'D ENJOY THAT?
Woman: WHOA, WHOA, YOU SAID "WOULD YOU" NOT "SHOULD YOU".
Votey:
Man (in close-up, smiling): I CAN GET IT DOWN TO HALF A SECOND IF I START SWIPING BEFORE THE CONTENT LOADS.
Man (red shirt): WOULD YOU EVER LEAVE BEHIND REALITY TO ENTER A PLEASURE BOX?
Woman (yellow shirt): YOU MEAN LIKE WITH LOVE AND SUNSETS AND SO FORTH? NAH.
Panel 2:
Woman: WHAT I WOULD GET INTO IS AN ENGAGEMENT BOX.
Panel 3:
Woman: I ALREADY SPEND 4 HOURS A DAY ON THIS APP. IT FEEDS ME AN INFINITE QUANTITY OF SHORT VIDEOS. I SPEND AN AVERAGE OF 4 SECONDS ON EACH, LIKE OR DISLIKE, SHARE OR DON'T SHARE, THEN MOVE ON.
Panel 4:
Woman: DO I LIKE IT? I DON'T KNOW!
Panel 5:
Woman: EVENTUALLY I'D RUN OUT OF INTERNET, BUT IT WON'T BE LONG UNTIL AI CAN GENERATE CONTENT DESIGNED TO SURGICALLY PULL APART EVERY BIT OF MY ATTENTION SPAN UNTIL ALL THAT REMAINS IS 150 POUNDS OF WARM FLESH EXISTING ONLY TO MINIMALLY SERVICE ITS BODILY FUNCTIONS WHILE LOOKING AT THE NEXT VIDEO.
(The two figures walk together along a wooded path.)
Panel 6:
Man: HUH.
Panel 7 (silhouettes):
Man: AND YOU'D ENJOY THAT?
Woman: WHOA, WHOA, YOU SAID "WOULD YOU" NOT "SHOULD YOU".
Votey:
Man (in close-up, smiling): I CAN GET IT DOWN TO HALF A SECOND IF I START SWIPING BEFORE THE CONTENT LOADS.
Alt text
A seven-panel SMBC comic. A man in a red shirt and a woman in a yellow shirt talk while walking. He asks, "Would you ever leave behind reality to enter a pleasure box?" She says, "You mean like with love and sunsets and so forth? Nah." Instead, she says, "What I would get into is an engagement box." She explains she already spends 4 hours a day on an app that feeds her infinite short videos, spending about 4 seconds on each, liking or disliking, sharing or not, then moving on. He asks if she likes it; she says, "Do I like it? I don't know!" She continues that she'd eventually run out of internet, but soon AI will generate content engineered to surgically dismantle her attention span until all that remains is "150 pounds of warm flesh" existing only to minimally service its bodily functions while looking at the next video. The man replies, "Huh." In silhouette he asks, "And you'd enjoy that?" She objects, "Whoa, whoa, you said 'would you' not 'should you'." Votey: a close-up of the man smiling, adding, "I can get it down to half a second if I start swiping before the content loads."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.