care-2
Original: care-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (annoyed, sitting across a table from a man on his phone): Well, are you gonna talk to me? Engage with me? Or are you just gonna fuck your phone all morning?
Panel 2:
Man (looking up from his phone): How can I care about your life?
Panel 3:
Man: I'm in the decade where I discover that I am inescapably an animal, and then almost immediately have to assess how much value I have in this society of animals.
Panel 4:
Man: You have a family job and a solid grasp of the parameters of your existence. You could predict your next 40 years of your life and be pretty accurate.
Panel 5:
Woman (arms raised, shouting): I am so early in the voyage of my life that tiny deflections today don't even unpredictable universes in the future!
Panel 6:
Man: For you, a text is just some shit that's happening. For me, each backlit gaze, each glowing look, each glance in the mirror is filled with wonder and trembling and hopes strange and distant!
Panel 7:
Man (holding up his glowing phone): Your body has lost the ability to conduct a single electron of the lightning that courses in me with every choice of clothing or shared video!
Panel 8:
Woman (furious): Sorry, what were you saying? I was looking at my phone. THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE!
Man (shouting back, enraged): I HATE YOU!
Votey:
Caption box at top: IN THE BASEMENT. IN THE BASEMENT 600 HOURS.
Speech bubble (small figure): Heh. Cals.
Woman (annoyed, sitting across a table from a man on his phone): Well, are you gonna talk to me? Engage with me? Or are you just gonna fuck your phone all morning?
Panel 2:
Man (looking up from his phone): How can I care about your life?
Panel 3:
Man: I'm in the decade where I discover that I am inescapably an animal, and then almost immediately have to assess how much value I have in this society of animals.
Panel 4:
Man: You have a family job and a solid grasp of the parameters of your existence. You could predict your next 40 years of your life and be pretty accurate.
Panel 5:
Woman (arms raised, shouting): I am so early in the voyage of my life that tiny deflections today don't even unpredictable universes in the future!
Panel 6:
Man: For you, a text is just some shit that's happening. For me, each backlit gaze, each glowing look, each glance in the mirror is filled with wonder and trembling and hopes strange and distant!
Panel 7:
Man (holding up his glowing phone): Your body has lost the ability to conduct a single electron of the lightning that courses in me with every choice of clothing or shared video!
Panel 8:
Woman (furious): Sorry, what were you saying? I was looking at my phone. THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE!
Man (shouting back, enraged): I HATE YOU!
Votey:
Caption box at top: IN THE BASEMENT. IN THE BASEMENT 600 HOURS.
Speech bubble (small figure): Heh. Cals.
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A woman confronts a man who is staring at his phone at a breakfast table, asking if he'll talk to her or just "fuck your phone all morning." He responds with an escalating, grandiose monologue about being at a stage of life where he must assess his value in a "society of animals," insisting that for him every glance, text, and shared video is charged with wonder, trembling, and lightning, while her settled life is predictable. In the final panel the woman, furious, snaps that she wasn't even listening because she was looking at her own phone, declaring "THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE!" The man screams back "I HATE YOU!" The votey aftercomic shows a dark scene with a caption reading "IN THE BASEMENT. 600 HOURS," where a tiny figure mutters "Heh. Cals."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.