The joke isn’t so much about the phone, as it is about a fisherman getting fished by someone above the panel. The same is happening to him as what he’s doing. It could be anything that’s attractive on the hook…
Y’know what, I give up. It ceases to be funny if I have to explain it multiple times. Y’all win, phones bad, Apple bad.
Considered your approach to the joke, but I don’t think that’s it. “Phones bad” is so prevalent that the author must be aware of it, if they wanted to make a meta joke about a fisher being fished (which is pretty good imo) they would have used literally anything else as the bait. Using a phone and making it blatantly explicit with the speech bubble reduces any subtlety in the cartoon to “phones bad”.
29/12/2025 and boomers are still rehashing the “phones bad” joke. Can’t say they don’t have perseverance.
The joke isn’t so much about the phone, as it is about a fisherman getting fished by someone above the panel. The same is happening to him as what he’s doing. It could be anything that’s attractive on the hook…
Y’know what, I give up. It ceases to be funny if I have to explain it multiple times. Y’all win, phones bad, Apple bad.
Considered your approach to the joke, but I don’t think that’s it. “Phones bad” is so prevalent that the author must be aware of it, if they wanted to make a meta joke about a fisher being fished (which is pretty good imo) they would have used literally anything else as the bait. Using a phone and making it blatantly explicit with the speech bubble reduces any subtlety in the cartoon to “phones bad”.
That’s… pretty good!
Joke’s on you, I’m gen z and I think phones are bad
Your issues are blinding you.