Some may argue that context is everything when trying to achieve a comedic effect. To some extent, that’s true, as jokes that comment on current political affairs require knowing at least who the main public figures of the government institutions are at the time. Or to know your audience when delivering sexist jokes at the Golden Globes about the woman-empowering movie Barbie (not pointing any fingers).  

But online, where it’s full of memes that seem to condone the idea of universal humor, context becomes quite irrelevant. If you come across a screenshot that makes you giggle, chances are that it can be shown to anyone in the world, and they will laugh too. Essentially, that’s what universal humor is. It’s about what we all, as humans, have in common. 

When the joke or meme caters to that, it usually doesn’t need an extra explanation. That’s why screenshots of movies, TV shows, X threads, or messages taken out of context can be very funny. And in recent years, such content has been gaining a lot of popularity online. Just take a look at the Facebook page “Screenshots With or Without Context,” which has gained 267k followers since its creation in 2015.

Such a medium for jokes might have started with Tumblr, where GIFs and stills of our favorite pop culture moments were collected and easily shared on these digital scrapbook pages. But since 2017, they’ve spread to broader waters and gotten completely yanked from their original environment.

Afterward, the format gained momentum, and more accounts started to appear dedicated to shows like The Good Place, Nathan for You, Frasier, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and New Girl.

My personal favorites are from the Fleabag series. The writing on it is impeccable, and you can’t resist the charm of British humor, no matter how hard you try.

Part of the appeal may have been the simple utility. An image is smaller and easier to make and share across all social platforms. In some cases, websites don’t allow you to acquire their pictures, so taking a screenshot is even more convenient than saving a photo. You don’t even have to click the right button and choose where to save, if it’s done on a mobile device, of course. 

Lifewire even conducted a small experiment to prove this point and attempted to share an X post from their website. It was done on an iPhone, but the same procedure is pretty much the same on every device.

First, they tapped the share icon and were presented with a menu with options. One of them is to send it via direct message, another is to copy the link to the post; and the final one offers to choose even more options for sharing.

At this point, they emphasize, “We're now three taps in, and we're still navigating the hierarchy. And remember, every step of this chain requires you to read a list, decipher the intent of each option, decide what you want to do, then tap. That's a lot of cognitive load.”

To learn about the process of choosing the particular screenshots to post, the owner of the X account “No Context Succession,” Anna Golez, told The Sydney Morning “As a base rule, I go for the funniest one-liners or the most emotional scenes. Occasionally, I post a screenshot that doesn’t have lines because the actor’s expressions are so great. I watch each episode three times to make sure I have caught everything,” she shares.