These look like crumpled up plastic water bottles, but these always were plastic, and seldom carried purses.
I was reminded of Country Joe McDonald’s “Tricky Dicky from Yorba Linda, a Geniune Plastic Man”, but any connection is doubtful.
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The way I read it, those are human women who have consumed too much microplastic from the environment.
But what does “act plastic” mean? That has to be a reference to something.
I agree with Powers @2, but the phrase is effectively a “Googlenope” (partly because it’s also the name of an Australian company).
P.S. The (incorrect) reference that first came to my mind was the quote “Plastics” from “Mrs. Robinson“.
I had to look up Googlenope: “A phrase that returns no results when entered between quotes into Google.”
Googlenope is not itself a Googlenope.
Since “act[ing] plastic” was something they apparently wanted to do and seem to regard as positive, I agree it is probably not from the disparaging more-modern senses of “artificial or insincere; synthetic; phony” or “lacking in depth, individuality, or permanence; superficial, dehumanized, or mass-produced”. So maybe the more fundamental senses of adaptable, protean, “capable of being molded or of receiving form” .
@ Zbicyclist (4) – Googlenopes have been featured in a number of “Invitational” contests. Gene Weingarten described the Googlenope concept in an article in 2007; an excerpt is available on his Gene Pool page (warning, that link is NSFW, see the text below @9).
Weingarten also coined the term “Googlewhack”, which is a search that gets exactly ONE hit.
An odd concept, but when I get one, I always feel vaguely smug for no discernible reason!
“Plastic people” has long had currency as a description of people who are fake and insincere in their interactions with others. And yes, the timing of this strip seems to match recent reports about microplastics in people.
P.S. I had forgotten that the majority of that “Gene Pool” article is NSFW and far below CIDU’s standards for decorum, so instead of linking it, here’s the relevant section:
This was [Gene Weingarten’s] first Googlenope column, back in 2007. There will be others. It began this way:
It’s pretty hard to find a phrase or expression that is not out there somewhere on the Web. I know. I’ve tried. No matter how unlikely it may seem that anyone has ever put certain words together, someone, somewhere, probably has. When I Googled the exact phrase “Santa Claus nude,” I got 278 hits.
It’s tricky. For example, I tried Googling “unintelligent Jew,” which not only denies a ubiquitous cultural stereotype but uses an unusual adjective to do so. I figured I was safe, but this is what came right up: “I have yet to meet an unintelligent Jew.”
More failures followed. After a while, I got mad and decided to do something about it.
Want a phrase that doesn’t appear on Google? Try searching for the Magritte-inspired, epistemologically impossible sentence “This phrase doesn’t appear on Google.” You should find only one hit, and that hit is from the very paragraph you are reading. When I wrote this, before it was archived, that sentence was nowhere on the Web.
Voila. The assault begins.
When a phrase cannot be found on Google, I call it a Googlenope. Once a Googlenope is discovered and written about, it is no longer a Googlenope.
Every single exact phrase that follows could not be found on the Web before today:
Googlenope.
Queen Elizabeth’s buttocks.
Varsity pinochle.
Caviar ’n’ taters.
… [The full text of the original article includes a much longer list of sample Googlenopes.]
Plastic People oh Baby You’re such a drag
Poor Bing. Everyone forgets Bing. No one bothers to coin interesting new catchphrases around its name.
“Plastic” really did change its meaning. In Samuel Johnson’s time it meant “having the ability to give form”, as in “the plastic hand of the Creator.” Then it meant “having the ability to take on a form.” A thermoplastic material such as the vinyl for an LP record is hard at normal temperatures but soft at higher temperatures, i.e. plastic when hot. This is the meaning used in the “Plastic Man” comic strip. Plastic Man can form himself into anything at all. But in the Mad Magazine parody “Plastic Sam”, a criminal disguises himself as Plastic Sam and robs banks. The criminal and Plastic Sam are both captured, but which one is the real Plastic Sam? One of them proves he is plastic by stretching his body into impossible forms, thereby proving that he is the FAKE Plastic Sam, because as any little kid can tell you, anything plastic is the cheap knock-off version of the real thing. Plastic Sam, Oh baby, you’re such a drag.
Comics I Don't Understand 
The way I read it, those are human women who have consumed too much microplastic from the environment.
But what does “act plastic” mean? That has to be a reference to something.
I agree with Powers @2, but the phrase is effectively a “Googlenope” (partly because it’s also the name of an Australian company).
P.S. The (incorrect) reference that first came to my mind was the quote “Plastics” from “Mrs. Robinson“.
I had to look up Googlenope: “A phrase that returns no results when entered between quotes into Google.”
Googlenope is not itself a Googlenope.
Since “act[ing] plastic” was something they apparently wanted to do and seem to regard as positive, I agree it is probably not from the disparaging more-modern senses of “artificial or insincere; synthetic; phony” or “lacking in depth, individuality, or permanence; superficial, dehumanized, or mass-produced”. So maybe the more fundamental senses of adaptable, protean, “capable of being molded or of receiving form” .
@ Zbicyclist (4) – Googlenopes have been featured in a number of “Invitational” contests. Gene Weingarten described the Googlenope concept in an article in 2007; an excerpt is available on his Gene Pool page (warning, that link is NSFW, see the text below @9).
Weingarten also coined the term “Googlewhack”, which is a search that gets exactly ONE hit.
An odd concept, but when I get one, I always feel vaguely smug for no discernible reason!
“Plastic people” has long had currency as a description of people who are fake and insincere in their interactions with others. And yes, the timing of this strip seems to match recent reports about microplastics in people.
P.S. I had forgotten that the majority of that “Gene Pool” article is NSFW and far below CIDU’s standards for decorum, so instead of linking it, here’s the relevant section:
This was [Gene Weingarten’s] first Googlenope column, back in 2007. There will be others. It began this way:
It’s pretty hard to find a phrase or expression that is not out there somewhere on the Web. I know. I’ve tried. No matter how unlikely it may seem that anyone has ever put certain words together, someone, somewhere, probably has. When I Googled the exact phrase “Santa Claus nude,” I got 278 hits.
It’s tricky. For example, I tried Googling “unintelligent Jew,” which not only denies a ubiquitous cultural stereotype but uses an unusual adjective to do so. I figured I was safe, but this is what came right up: “I have yet to meet an unintelligent Jew.”
More failures followed. After a while, I got mad and decided to do something about it.
Want a phrase that doesn’t appear on Google? Try searching for the Magritte-inspired, epistemologically impossible sentence “This phrase doesn’t appear on Google.” You should find only one hit, and that hit is from the very paragraph you are reading. When I wrote this, before it was archived, that sentence was nowhere on the Web.
Voila. The assault begins.
When a phrase cannot be found on Google, I call it a Googlenope. Once a Googlenope is discovered and written about, it is no longer a Googlenope.
Every single exact phrase that follows could not be found on the Web before today:
Googlenope.
Queen Elizabeth’s buttocks.
Varsity pinochle.
Caviar ’n’ taters.
…
[The full text of the original article includes a much longer list of sample Googlenopes.]
Plastic People oh Baby You’re such a drag
Poor Bing. Everyone forgets Bing. No one bothers to coin interesting new catchphrases around its name.
“Plastic” really did change its meaning. In Samuel Johnson’s time it meant “having the ability to give form”, as in “the plastic hand of the Creator.” Then it meant “having the ability to take on a form.” A thermoplastic material such as the vinyl for an LP record is hard at normal temperatures but soft at higher temperatures, i.e. plastic when hot. This is the meaning used in the “Plastic Man” comic strip. Plastic Man can form himself into anything at all. But in the Mad Magazine parody “Plastic Sam”, a criminal disguises himself as Plastic Sam and robs banks. The criminal and Plastic Sam are both captured, but which one is the real Plastic Sam? One of them proves he is plastic by stretching his body into impossible forms, thereby proving that he is the FAKE Plastic Sam, because as any little kid can tell you, anything plastic is the cheap knock-off version of the real thing. Plastic Sam, Oh baby, you’re such a drag.