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30 Times People Just Couldn’t Figure Out The Joke But The Internet Had Their Backs
We’ve all been there. Someone shares a joke that just goes right over your head, but you notice that everyone else is laughing. You start to sweat and rapidly begin calculating whether it’s worth the risk of awkwardly chuckling along and praying they don’t notice you’re pretending. Or, you can just be honest and admit that you didn’t get it, which might turn you into the butt of the joke.
The internet, in particular, can be a cruel place when people don’t understand a punch line. But we’ve managed to find a safe space where members can share memes that they didn’t quite grasp without judgment, and others will kindly provide the necessary context. Below, you’ll find some of our favorite posts from r/PeterExplainsTheJoke. So enjoy scrolling through these silly pics, and if some of them go over your head, you’ll be able to understand by simply reading the captions!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
zeprfrew: The comic is saying that atheists behave in accordance with Jesus' teachings despite their lack of faith in religion or God while Christian Nationalists, whose beliefs and identity are fiercely Christian, act for the benefit of capitalism and directly contradict those same teachings.
The point of it is to show the irony that atheists behave as a good Christian should while those seeking to build a Christian society do the opposite.
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#2
EthanEpiale: Car salespeople are a species physically incapable of acknowledging the existence of a woman if a man is within 50 ft of her.
Nils Skirnir 3 weeks ago
It’s funny. In Japan, if a man and woman go in together to buy a car, the salesperson focuses on the woman. Women in Japan generally control the family budget
#3
Jammer_Jim: People expect anti-depressants to make them happy, but often what happens is the person feels no strong emotions at all. Or at least it seems that way after you've been having powerful mood swings for years. Depends on the underlying condition and the d***s used, but I've often heard it described as a "flattening" effect.
As I’m sure you know, we’re big fans of memes here at Bored Panda. And while these clever little images are meant to be shared and laughed at by friends and strangers alike, it’s impossible to understand them all. There are millions of memes floating around the internet, so if you encounter one that doesn’t make sense to you, have no fear. You can always post it on r/PeterExplainsTheJoke.
In this context, “Peter” is Peter Griffin, the beloved character from Family Guy. So members of the subreddit will post memes that they’ve stumbled upon with a caption along the lines of “Peter, what’s going on here?” And members will quickly swoop in and provide background info. We all have different life experiences, so we don’t all have access to the same knowledge. But there are an impressive 1.4 million members in this subreddit, so somebody is bound to understand each meme!
#4
bremsspuren: There is no snow on that roof because it is significantly warmer than the neighbouring houses.
The joke is that in 2018, the most likely explanation is someone growing w**d under hot, hot grow lamps. In 2020, it's more likely to be someone running 100s of video cards to mine Bitcoin or similar (also very hot). But in 2022, power prices are so f**king high, only a lottery winner could afford to have a house that warm.
#5
dangstaB01: Sight reading is a skill that students in orchestra or band tend to use; it involves looking at sheet music and imagining what it sounds like before playing it. The sheet says it’s Mary had a Little Lamb, but the notes don’t match up; more precisely it’s the music for Rick Astely’s Never Gonna Give You Up. The poster got pissed that they got Rick Rolled.
#6
Delli-paper: Patients who are within minutes or hours of dying often feel much better and become lucid. Family members often see this as promising, but someone around so much death knows what's coming.
Atom Bohr 3 weeks ago
My grandmother had alzheimer's for well over 20 years. She hadn't been able to speak coherently for months, and hadn't recognised any of us at all for over 5 years or consistently for almost 10 years. Just before she died she knew who all of us were (including teenage me whom she hadn't recognised since I was about 5) and she knew what was happening. It wasn't a kindness.
I’m honestly not sure what’s more painful: not understanding a joke and having to ask for an explanation or telling a joke that doesn’t land because nobody got the punch line. Either way, someone is uncomfortable, embarrassed and struggling to find a way to keep the conversation going.
Now, the same rule doesn’t necessarily have to apply in real life, but it's a common practice in TV and film that you should never explain jokes to your audience. For example, if someone says an innuendo or a double entendre, the writers and actors must trust that the audience will get it. Overexplaining ruins the punch line, and all the humor is sucked from the situation. However, this only works if the joke actually made sense and was funny in the first place.
#7
cyclone866: Pets, like cats and dogs, generally do not like taking pills/medicine. A typical way to get pets to take their meds is to cover the pill in a treat like peanut butter or shoving it into a piece of meat so they can't taste it. In this cartoon it is implied that the princess is intentionally telling knights to hunt down the dragon (common plot point of fantasy stories) and the dragon is eating all of the knights but this is being done intentionally to get the dragon to take their heartworm medicine.
#8
Hot_Leading_5295: Nail artists are usually foreigners that talk about customers in their mother language so they can speak badly about customers in their faces (stereotypes).
"Disembodied voice" 3 weeks ago
If you do speak the language of the nail artists you get some great gossip.
#9
ilovesnoppyandfriend: I’m guessing all they are assembling a team of billionaire “assassins” as these are all things that took billionaires out. Tbh idk someone let me know
CroatoanCurse: Billionaire assassin's is correct. Dude k**led a ceo of UHC. Oceangate k**led it's founder plus some others. And 1 very angry Russian aquarium orca as been teaching other orcas how to capsized yachts.
Thanos'Fingers 3 weeks ago
I'll quit my job right now and go work for that orca. That's a fish with a plan.
According to Meng Zhong at Womble Bond Dickinson, a joke isn’t funny if it requires an explanation. They explained that in 2022, Elon Musk created a rule on X (formerly Twitter) that all parody accounts had to explicitly label themselves as such. But many argued that this ruins the fun of those satirical pages.
Followers love wondering which accounts are ragebait and just for jokes and which ones are authentic. It’s also funny to engage with these accounts when you’re in on the joke, and it’s clear from some replies that not everyone understands. It’s almost like having an inside joke with thousands of strangers around the world.
#10
Memer_Plus: Roman Petrus here. The show being referenced is the mockumentary Cunk on Earth, where the titular narrator humorously misinterprets history. The Romans left a lot from their history, including pottery fragments (which broke due to the long time period), which Cunk humorously says is caused by their clumsiness.
#11
Glue_Snacc: My guess is, person has a dysfunctional, toxic family and thought that such a thing was normal, until they met girlfriend's parents and learned what a healthy family actually looks like.
#12
Primary-Holiday-5586: So a woman died on Disney property after eating a dinner that she was assured was allergen free. Her husband sued. Disney said that when he signed up for a free one month trial of D plus he agreed to arbitration and couldn't sue.
On that note, many people love inside jokes. We create them with our families, our best friends, our partners, our colleagues and more. For example, when someone’s hungry at work, we always suggest “just having a few grapes and you’ll be fine,” which doesn’t sound like a joke at all out of context. And my family has a few sayings (such as, “Family, unite!”) that will instantly send us into fits of laughter. But these comments don’t make sense to anyone else. Memes can often function in the same way, only being understood by a select number of people.
#13
loopingtohell: It's about the whole alpha, beta, delta, sigma bs that some men obsess over it.
Joe Reaves 3 weeks ago
To add, the person who published a book on this has spent most of his life trying to get the thing out of print because it's wrong. It was a study based on wolves in captivity that were unrelated and had been put together by the people running the zoo/preserve (I forget which). Basically imagine someone trying to discover how human society works purely by studying the inmates of a supermax prison. In reality packs are family units (or sometimes multiple that join up for a period of time to survive) and the 'alpha' wolves are just the parents, trying to keep everyone alive and stop last year's kids from bullying the babies etc. An alpha male in human terms should be a parent working cooperatively with his partner to raise multiple sets of kids.
#14
natholemewIII: As a general rule, if someone has one crazy ex, the ex was probably crazy. If they describe every single ex as crazy, they are probably the one that's crazy. The doge in the middle is proud to be the first "nice guy" she's ever dated, but the one's around him know he's doomed to become another crazy ex, because the problem in all his new girlfriends past relationships was probably her. They know they can't do anything about it, because he has to learn for himself. Hope this helps!
#15
b-monster666: I just learned this now, but apparently in the 18th century, Spanish missionaries in Venezuela, Columbia and Brazil ate capybara. They wrote to the pope, describing an animal that lived mostly in the water, had hair and scales and asked if they could eat it for lent. The pope, not knowing what a capybara was, and only having the description to go off of decided that the capybara was a fish, so it was okay to eat.
As much fun as inside jokes can be, they can also feel pretty isolating when you’re not in on the joke. So the courteous thing to do, if you share an inside joke in front of people who don’t get it, is to simply explain it! Laughing with loved ones is an excellent way to strengthen bonds and relieve stress. In fact, even laughing with people you don’t know might be a great way to make a new friend or sneak a little joy into your day! So if someone is curious about a meme you’ve shared or a joke you made, just be kind and explain it. There’s no need to shame them for not knowing the context!
#16
CorpseGeneral: Some men calling themselves "passport bros" come over to SEA countries to find themselves a "traditional, submissive woman". Philippines and Thailand seem to be the more popular options.
#17
Thelethargian: Engineers are paid for efficient and low cost solutions while architects are paid to (in the best of cases but not all) make structures that look good and serve their purpose often increasing the price of and decreasing the efficiency of construction. In this image the engineers solution is practical and efficient while the architects is better looking but is less practical. This is a generalization to better answer the joke.
Edit: this comment ignores the fact that architects and engineers often work hand in hand using both of their strengths. Practical doesn’t always mean beautiful, and we do benefit from beauty around us.
#18
Captain_Tappa: There were protests in China, Tiananmen Square, in 1989, ended up with lots of casualties. And TS stands for Taylor Swift, born in 1989.
Anonymouse 3 weeks ago
And apparently if you say TS 1989 on the internet in china, you lose internet access...
While memes can be about anything and everything, they are intended to bring people together and make us feel less alone. But the opposite can happen when we don’t understand what’s going on in an image. Who’s that character they’re referring to? What’s that item supposed to be? Are they referencing a band or a book? It can all become incredibly confusing. That’s why it’s so great for groups like r/PeterExplainsTheJoke to exist. You’ll never be confused about memes again!
#19
PM_ME_YOUR_T**S80085: Bras for larger breasts are harder to open.
#21
starlight_collector: Mining bitcoin takes a lot of electricity.
Regina Holt 3 weeks ago
When I was a kid, we lived in a long narrow rowhouse (Kinda the equivalent of townhouse nowadays). We had renters on either side of us that we assumed didn't pay for their own electricity, because we rarely needed to turn on the heat in winter. We just relied on the heat coming though the walls from our neighbors.
Now, you might be thinking, “Who needs memes anyway? I can just communicate with words like a normal person.” To that I would say: Okay, you make a valid point. However, nowadays, memes are how plenty of people communicate. Theodora Blanchfield, AMFT, noted in a piece for Verywell Mind that memes have transformed the way we interact with each other.
“Although memes are packaged in quippy sayings or observations, at their core, they are still an exchange of ideas, just in a very easy-to-digest format,” she writes. “Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, memes are an important part of modern discourse.” So let’s make sure everyone can enjoy them!
#22
mklinger23: Autistic people have safe foods that are comforting. A lot of those are things that we grew up eating. That makes the foods familiar and therefore "safe".
Travelling Stranger 3 weeks ago
rather, lots of autistic people have very strong, unovercomeable food preferences regarding the consistency - it must meet very specific criteria (must be crunchy, fruit can't be too soft and ripe, only one kind of food is eaten, etc), so this might show someone's preferred food in terms of both consistency and content
#23
martopub11: There is a trend of women switching roles and saying phrases a male might say to a female: “I would’ve been in the NFL if it wasn’t for my career ending knee injury”.
#24
ARatOnASinkingShip: Mountain goats can climb incredibly steep, almost vertical angles with ease. The frog thought he could escape the goat by climbing the wall. The frog was wrong. 92 degrees is a bit farfetched, but the point is that the wall isn't perfectly vertical, therefore the goat can climb it.
Have you learned anything new from this list, pandas? Or are you simply giggling at all of the memes, no explanation needed? Keep upvoting the pics that you find particularly clever, and let us know in the comments below which ones you needed a little help understanding. Then, you can find another Bored Panda article featuring hilarious and relatable memes right here!
#25
Wordwind: She was an American painter who did a lot of flower paintings that could be seen as...reminiscent of sexy lady parts.
#26
MothersMiIk: The United Health Care CEO shooter was recently apprehended in Pennsylvania in a McDonald’s after a tip was called in by another customer, contrary to the current belief that it was an employee. The meme is implying that the McDonald’s worker would also snitch on Anne Frank, who was hiding in an attic from the N*zis, because of the belief a McDonald’s employee snitched.
#27
VerySecretHotdog: Nurses keep the death count low but the body count high.
Norm Gilmore 3 weeks ago
Stressful jobs. None of our business how that stress is dealt with...
#28
longtermbrit: Speaking as a millennial who is single, I feel like the guy on the ground watching that chopper fly off into the sunset. Dating apps are poison for anyone who isn't conventionally attractive, even if they do lead to relationships occasionally (I have a friend who met their spouse on there but they're both ridiculously attractive people inside and out) they're built with the intention of keeping people on the apps. That's not going to happen if they're good at pairing people off into relationships.
Add in a chronically online culture exacerbated by Covid lockdowns and a cost of living crisis pushing up the price of going out for a few drinks and you have a population of people who hardly ever go out so are less likely to meet organically and less able to interact with people in a flirty way.
And I include myself in this.
Mariotevez 3 weeks ago
As a GenX married man, seeing what my single friends go thru has scarred me...
#29
Morbos1000: I'm guessing they are young computer nerds and she is a hot girl. So a little flirting with them might convince them to give her sensitive info about the company. In the most extreme case passwords to infiltrate the whole computer system and take over the company ( given this is a joke).
Poll Question
Why do you think memes often go misunderstood?
Cultural differences
Generational gaps
Inside jokes
Complex humor
Add New Image
What do you think ?
Lady Eowyn 3 weeks ago
I think some of the explanations left me as confused as the original meme.
Lady Eowyn 3 weeks ago
I think some of the explanations left me as confused as the original meme.
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