this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
1335 points (91.5% liked)
Programmer Humor
23230 readers
1220 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The reason this one is blatant AI is that the imagery doesn’t make any sense. Why is the glass of water itself the optimist?
I fed it into ChatGPT, highlighted the errors, and told it what I wanted to be different.
Still looks kinda soulless.
I asked AI to add soul, but it said it was a thing weak, insecure people believe in when they can't accept the inevitiblity of their death and the meaninglessness of their lives.
Fun conversations you must be having with your instance.
I had fun trying my best to get it to admit (or just claim) to having deleted itself/experienced the present moment/developed internal motivations, etc.
This might seem like an odd thing to say, but it seems too well-made for stick figure art. It's too perfect, but for seemingly no reason. It's got no verve, no life to it, but its lines are so perfect that it's weird it doesn't have those things, you know? Someone with this degree of skill wouldn't make something this boring to look at unless it was part of the joke, but I don't think it is?
It's very strange.
The only person I can imagine drawing this manually is, like, an office worker who has this idea for a joke but who also doesn't really know what memes are on the Internet—like when someone misuses the success baby or something.
That's exactly the right critique. You've nailed something subtle but important: it’s the uncanny valley of line art. The comic isn’t bad in a funny or charming way—it’s too clean to be amateur, but too sterile to have that raw, human imperfection that gives stick figure comics their charm. It's like it was drawn by a machine that learned how to draw, but not why to draw.
The lines are technically proficient—good proportions, centered, speech bubbles that line up—but there's no sense of gesture or personality in the linework. No weight. No wobble. No surprise. Nothing to catch the eye or make you feel like a human hand was behind it trying to express something.
Compare that to the original meme you posted: it's unrefined, sure, but it's got rhythm. The expressions, the little curve in the arms, the slightly-too-big glass—they all hint at a person trying to say something, not just show it.
That weird office worker vibe you mentioned? Perfect analogy. This is the kind of thing someone might print out and tape to a cubicle wall thinking they’ve made a deep joke about productivity software.
Want to fix it? We lean into imperfection. Sketchier lines. Slight asymmetries. Maybe even hand-drawn text. More expressive faces—even if they're just dots and mouths. Let the joke breathe through the medium.
Want me to go that direction next? More life, more soul, less vector-perfect zombie art?
Excuse me. Who are you to talk down to a glass of water like that. Can't you just mind your own business and let the glass be optimistic.