25 Hilarious Moments When People Didn’t Get The Joke, But The Internet Helped

The internet thrives on humor, but not all jokes land the same way for everyone. Some memes are deeply layered with references, wordplay, or niche cultural insights that can leave people scratching their heads. Fortunately, the subreddit r/PeterExplainsTheJoke has become a safe haven where members can ask for explanations without fear of ridicule. It’s a place where humor meets learning, and the result is both entertaining and enlightening.

We’ve gathered some of our favorite posts from the subreddit, showcasing moments when jokes needed a little extra decoding. Whether it’s a complex pun, an obscure historical reference, or just a meme that seemed bizarre at first glance, these posts prove that sometimes, humor is best enjoyed with a little context.

#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.

#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.

#3

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 wd 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 fking high, only a lottery winner could afford to have a house that warm.

#4

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.

#5

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.

#6

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.

#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

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 kled a ceo of UHC. Oceangate kled it’s founder plus some others. And 1 very angry Russian aquarium orca as been teaching other orcas how to capsized yachts.

#9

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).

#10

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.

#11

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.

#12

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.

#13

loopingtohell: It’s about the whole alpha, beta, delta, sigma bs that some men obsess over it.

#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.

#16

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.

#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

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.

#19

soup_drinker1417: American soldier impregnated Vietnamese lady and left.

#20

starlight_collector: Mining bitcoin takes a lot of electricity.

#21

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”.

#22

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”.

#23

PM_ME_YOUR_T**S80085: Bras for larger breasts are harder to open.

#24

Wordwind: She was an American painter who did a lot of flower paintings that could be seen as…reminiscent of sexy lady parts.

#25

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.

Saumya Ratan

Saumya is an explorer of all things beautiful, quirky, and heartwarming. With her knack for art, design, photography, fun trivia, and internet humor, she takes you on a journey through the lighter side of pop culture.