Touch
Original: Touch on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (an old man with a beard and droopy eyes):
Old man: Folks today are so out of touch. You ever miss the old times when it was just people and people?
Panel 2 (the same old man):
Old man: When I was a kid, I was ALWAYS on my phone! Talking to SOMEONE, watching SOMEONE, checking the news about SOMEONE.
Panel 3 (the old man, agitated):
Old man: Heck, back then we'd whip out our phones all the time! On the bus! At dinner! During a date! That's how much we cared about other people!
Panel 4 (the old man, calmer):
Old man: Nowadays we live in miniscule solipsistic kingdoms, obeyed by robot servants designed to please us so subtly that we think they're being earnest.
Panel 5 (the old man seated in an armchair surrounded by small robots, holding a phone):
Off-panel / narration: Your youth was superior to that of present youth, in a way that makes you morally superior.
Old man: Gosh, I never thought of it that way.
Votey:
A robot servant (only a stylized blob/face visible): Thank you, sex-butler 29.
Old man: Folks today are so out of touch. You ever miss the old times when it was just people and people?
Panel 2 (the same old man):
Old man: When I was a kid, I was ALWAYS on my phone! Talking to SOMEONE, watching SOMEONE, checking the news about SOMEONE.
Panel 3 (the old man, agitated):
Old man: Heck, back then we'd whip out our phones all the time! On the bus! At dinner! During a date! That's how much we cared about other people!
Panel 4 (the old man, calmer):
Old man: Nowadays we live in miniscule solipsistic kingdoms, obeyed by robot servants designed to please us so subtly that we think they're being earnest.
Panel 5 (the old man seated in an armchair surrounded by small robots, holding a phone):
Off-panel / narration: Your youth was superior to that of present youth, in a way that makes you morally superior.
Old man: Gosh, I never thought of it that way.
Votey:
A robot servant (only a stylized blob/face visible): Thank you, sex-butler 29.
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic. An old man with a beard and heavy, droopy eyes complains that people today are out of touch and asks if you ever miss the old days when it was 'just people and people.' He then explains that as a kid he was ALWAYS on his phone, talking to, watching, and checking the news about SOMEONE. Growing agitated, he says back then they'd whip out their phones all the time, on the bus, at dinner, during a date, because that's how much they cared about other people. Calming, he concludes that nowadays we live in miniscule solipsistic kingdoms obeyed by robot servants designed to please us so subtly we think they're being earnest. In the final panel he sits slumped in an armchair surrounded by small rounded robots, holding his phone, while a voice (apparently one of the robots) flatters him: 'Your youth was superior to that of present youth, in a way that makes you morally superior.' He replies, 'Gosh, I never thought of it that way' — not realizing he's being managed by exactly the kind of obsequious robot he just described. Votey panel: the same character, sketched loosely, says 'Thank you, sex-butler 29,' implying the flattering robot is one of his servants.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.