53 Times The Internet Broke Down Complex Memes And Posts So That Everyone Could Understand (New Pics)
The internet moves fast, and not everyone catches every joke, pop culture meme, or sarcastic comment. But don’t worry, it has a special safe haven for even the confused.
The r/explainitpeter community has made it their mission to educate the masses about online humor, using the voice of Family Guy’s gloriously simple-minded Peter Griffin. We’ve rounded up some of their funniest posts, where they break down simple jokes step by step. The twist is that the explanations are often funnier than the original memes.
Scroll down for a good laugh (and maybe learn a thing or two).
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Explain It Peter
alfa-dragon: The Dr. guy was not rating her appearance with numbers (like Ethan assumed he was), but was instead noting her glasses prescription/vision.
I love Dr Glaucomflecken's (he's an ophthalmologist, not his actual last name) videos. They are funny and educational
What Did Insurance Companies Do? Explain It Peter
Exciting_Place_6817: Trees cost more to insure because of hazards, meaning less trees in new developments because of insurance costs for those trees.
Don't know if that's the real reason or the developer wants to squeeze more houses into less space probably both.
Never Thought I'd Be One To Post Here, But... Explain It Peter
alexweird: First one is switch off switch on.
Second one is an actual problem.
The simple bold text on a meme may be in a language you understand, but the references and callbacks can sometimes sound completely foreign. You might read the words clearly, yet feel completely left out of the actual message.
Some memes go a step further and assume the audience is already deeply familiar with a specific subculture. Whether it is niche video game lore, underground music genres, or hyper-specific regional humor, missing just one piece of context leaves you staring in confusion at an inexplicable image.
Explain It Peter
KrimsunV: Really good meals only get served when something unfortunate happens
Explain It Peter
holdme2000: Basically the only time I receive compliments from a judge, they are about to rule against me.
Explain It Peter
Polygnom:I mean, just look at the photograph. Its utter trash. This should never have ended up in a photo book that is sold commercially. And the description is laughable, elephants are BIG and SLOW, they are easy to photograph well. You have to TRY to take such a bad photograph.
The only reason this ended up in a book that is sold commercially is because the author is the son of a celebrity. Its nepotism, plain and simple
Memes and online jokes also move fast, getting constantly remixed, edited, and recycled across platforms. While the quantity of memes keeps increasing, their lifespan is in sharp decline. As of 2023, the average meme lifespan was estimated at four months, while it was 23.6 months in 2008.
This decrease may reflect the ever-changing state of the world. Go offline for a few days, and an entire generation of jokes has already been born, peaked, and forgotten.
Explain It Peter. I'm Not A Pharmacist
RandomflyerOTR: Dr Hartman here. Antibiotics need to be taken in their full course (until the supply given runs out) to ensure an infection is fully eradicated. A lack of symptoms does not mean the infection is gone, and if you stop early the bacteria will multiply again and the infection will return, likely stronger than before with a risk of becoming antibiotic resistant.
Explain It Peter
5AM_EdgeQueen: In the original movie she's played off as a ugly character who's supposed to be annoying because she's interested in Peter. however she's the only person who notices him enough to know when he's struggling mentally, she makes food for him and consistently stands up for him, she even gives him a pep talk and encourages him to go back out there and pursue his goals (which includes another woman). She's girlfriend material by any realistic standard and the actress is in fact pretty, but she's portrayed as unthinkably unattractive comic relief
What's Wrong With Slavic Men, Explain It Peter
_Qyqb_: They are either overweight or they are jacked. There is no in between
Memes that are created after something funny happens spontaneously can be hard to understand. One example of a spontaneous, random meme is the 6-7 phrase, which quickly became popular among Gen Alpha and Gen Z. Spoiler alert — it means nothing.
At the same time, current-event memes likely have a short lifespan because the political world changes so often. Once the news cycle moves on, the meme vanishes into obscurity.
Explain It Peter I’m Confused
Brilliant-Cause6254: It means that the rice is perfectly cooked. When the water evaporates, the escaping steam carves out tiny micro-chimneys between the grains. If you rinsed the rice well (removing excess surface starch), the grains stay separate enough for that steam to push them upright rather than gluing them into a horizontal pile of mush.
Explain It Peter
jolalolalulu:
There was a lawsuit a while back where a woman was exposed to an allergen in the parks and passed away. The family sued and Disney argued that the lawsuit would be bound by the rules of the DisneyPlus terms of service agreement and go to arbitration instead since the woman who passed had an account.
Explain It Peter!
The_Marine708: There are four poles stemming from the center. It means multiple people can hold on and brace themselves while riding the train without having to overlap their hands and touch, because that's gross.
It's a smart design, but I like touching other people's hands on the train. It makes me feel less like a loner.
Sarcasm and irony can also be remarkably easy to miss online. In daily life, people usually detect sarcasm through tone of voice, subtle pauses, and facial expressions and body language. Even then, some people find it harder to detect irony in real life, depending on social context or communication style.
Online, those vital physical cues completely disappear. Text strips away pitch and expression, making it harder to tell whether someone is being serious or ironic.
“When delivered in person, sarcasm tends to assume a cutting, bitter tone. But written messages don’t always get that attitude across or give you much else to go on. We still need more information,” says Sara Peters, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Newberry College.
Explain It Peter
mee3ep: Environmental storytelling is when the people put something that shows what happened instead of saying it. In this case, the bird bit the sign. He might bite.
Techie Petaahhhhh, Explain It Peter!
Much_Artist_5097: basically metadata is data beyond the picture itself stored in a photo. what this command is doing is removing the location stored in the photo, so law enforcement can’t find you from any pictures on your phone.
How Do Antidepressants Work? Can You Explain It Peter
Squarehip123: Maybe on very high doses. This was a piece of misinformation that kept me from seeking treatment for a long time. I had no side effects from sertraline and it was an effective solution for me. Please do not let rumors dissuade seeking help.
str1ctlyformyjeeps:
They make you numb, not happy.
So, why is it important to actually understand the web culture? As more people speak in memes, understanding the references and overall language becomes more important. It’s like not understanding what an emoji means while you’re texting someone.
“Memes are essentially a language that people use on the internet, and being able to identify and understand the nuances is key to understanding communication between people online,” says Amanda Brennan, a trends expert at Tumblr who is often referred to as the meme librarian.
“As people use memes as a language of their own, having this knowledge really helps give a fuller understanding of the meaning and insight into the motivation of why something was shared,” she adds.
Explain It Peter!
El_Paublo: Orpheus' legend involves a test where he has to travel down a path without looking back. If he succeeds, his wife will be returned to life. Worrying that she's not actually behind him, he eventually looks and fails the test, condemning her to Hades.
Explain It Peter
Sure-Confection3117: Using a different personality with different people based on their different personalities.
Friend one is laid back and chill, so youre laid back and chill around them. Two is outgoing, bubbly, so you match it. Etc etc.
Explain It Peter,wich Egg Is Next?
dmtslayr:
E5 to E3 then E3 to C3 and then to C5. Checkmate
Another reason understanding online memes matters is that a large portion of the population uses them. According to a recent survey, 75% of people aged 13 to 36 post memes, with 55% sharing them weekly and 30% daily.
On average, US internet users spend about 2 hours and 20–24 minutes a day on social media, including browsing memes, funny pics, videos, and feeds.
Another survey found that Gen Z and Millennials use abstract visuals online as emotional shorthand to stay connected without the pressure of actual small talk. In fact, frequent meme use is linked to stronger intimacy and better relationship maintenance.
Whats The Difference? Explain It Peter
Significant_Sale6172:
Shelley Boothbishop here: this is anti-British flim-flammery implying that the Great British cuisine is inferior to that of the Mexicans, because the Mexicans are ridiculous enough to EAT their shipments of Sugarcane, Tobacco and Spices instead of selling them on for profit in the name of our glorious Queen Victoria!
I'd have thought: beans (Mexican food) = any of a variety of beans 🫘 ; black beans, pinto beans, red beans etc. - some served as "refried" beans ... whereas beans (British food) = either long green things eaten plain after boiling in water, or canned baked beans in a basic tomato sauce
Explain It Peter
Reesewithoutaspoon2: The screenshot in question is from the movie Midsommar, specifically the scene where the main characters (who are visiting a small rural village in Sweden) discover that the villagers have a tradition where people who reach a certain age commit a ritualistic tradition: taking their own life by jumping off of a cliff, and are ended with a giant hammer if they survive the fall
I am not a software engineer so I may be missing nuances, but it appears they they’re joking that there are no software engineers over 40 because software engineers do that ritual.
Understanding memes can also help you recognize cultural references, whether your own or someone else’s. It’s a free, easy, and entertaining way to learn about different countries and people. Memes can even update us about current events, a place's history, or how things work in a particular part of the world.
Even in the same country, we may not know someone else’s daily realities. You might be an accountant who isn’t aware of the specific daily struggles of a retail worker, an ER nurse, or a commercial welder.
Understanding memes can also bridge generational gaps, shedding light on how different age groups express humor.
Explain It Peter
f3rryt4le: Ground war requires vehicles. Toyota builds a lot of vehicles that Middle Eastern ground armys tend to use (Pickup trucks etc.)
Explain It Peter
Responsible_Hall_471: a non electric guitar is called acoustic. im sure you can figure out the rest
Keeping up with the internet shouldn’t feel like studying for a school exam. And that is precisely why the r/explainitpeter phenomenon is so brilliant.
Family Guy’s legendary protagonist isn’t a high-brow scholar, and he certainly isn’t dropping dense academic jargon. He’s just a clueless, reckless cartoon dad whose logical reasoning is as basic as it gets.
So, next time a nonsensical post crosses your feed and leaves you scratching your head, let Peter work his magic.
Explain It Peter
Jixxie87: fractional banking, it's where a bank will only hold a certain % of money on their books, the rest gets loaned out to other customers to make money
Why Shouldn’t I Pick Blue Or Purple? Explain It Peter!
federalbureauofsocks:
Women are (apparently) more likely to pursue a man if he’s been “vetted” by another woman, meaning he’s just been in a relationship or, in some wild cases, in a relationship.
Explain It Peter
No_Spread2699: There was a guy doing a Super Mario 64 speedrun when the game bugged which greatly sped up the run. People have done analyses of it and the bug was literally impossible unless an ionizing particle from space hit the device playing the game to change the state of a bit
Explain It Peter, Why Are Aliens Flying Past Here
Lord_Cthuwu:
So there are three parts to explain here
- Some people (group 1) believe that saying "sorry, I have a girlfriend" is a gentle and polite way to reject someone. Other people (group 2) believe it is like saying "I wish I could, but unfortunately I have a girlfriend," and would be upset if their partner said that. @ppyowna is stating that they believe the latter.
- The response about the UFO is a joking way to say that they believe that @ppyowna and others in group 2 are idiots. The UFO is flying past because there are no signs of intelligent life.
- The Joe Rogan reaction image is a way to state that the sender is stunned by the wit and humor of the UFO insult
Explain It Peter Who Is That Woman?
aodifucyhehsixjej8: That's Anita Sarkeesian, apparently she examines and criticizes tropes about female characters portrayal in pop culture and videogames.
Explain It Peter. What Is The Correlation?
equals420: Mormons love jello
ExtensionServe6904:
it’s not just that Mormons like jello. We are in the middle of a bunch of mountains at a high elevation. We are one of the driest states as well as having one of the shortest growing seasons. So most of our stuff has to be shipped up to us and the cost adds up. Dry goods are the cheapest things for us to get. Which lead to box dinners, jello, drink mixes, etc becoming very popular. With the mormon culture of having food stores in case of emergency it became the perfect storm to entrench these product into the local culture.
Explain It Peter. Why Is The Thumbs Up Guy Cool?
International-Sky65: Dale Cooper, the protagonist of the tv show Twin Peaks depicts healthy masculinity while still being in touch your emotions in the perfect way.
Explain It Peter, What's So Special About This Controller??
fixermark: This is a prototype controller for the "Dolphin" development platform that became the GameCube. "DS" --> "Dolphin System." 3/4 speed indicated that this prototype had 75% the clock rate of the eventual planned production design.
(Just as a fun aside: the prototype names have a tendency to leak quietly into the final production product on Nintendo consoles. If you treat a Wiimote as a plain old Bluetooth device using an open-source Linux driver, you'll find it announces itself as "RVL-CNT-01." That's "Revolution Controller (Production) Revision 01.")
Explain It Peter What Are These Names Relevant To?
reillan: They were tortured by a supercomputer in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Explain It Peter
Slaanyash: VLC Media Player supports almost every known video format and have a traffic cone as logo. And it's free.
Explain It Peter(Asking As A Guy)
Complex_Standard2824: This is about the importance of attraction in a relationship. Even if the guy is perfect, it is not going to work out if she isn't attracted to him.
I Need Your Help. Explain It Peter
PeterExplainsTheJoke: So basically, this is used to represent the fitgirl website, which is used for piracy. So, the joke is that PC players don’t complain about the prices of games because they pirate them, and so get them for free. Peter out!
Explain It Peter
Whiskey079: I'm guessing something in the vein of companies at the corporate level not wanting to actually hire competent people - or of hr being so disconnected from the ground work, but so ingrained into the hiring process that they ultimately have the final say with no bearing on competence or of ideas of what is needed on the ground.
Explain It Peter
lordvatti: The photo references an old thought exercise about doubling grains of rice across a chess boards squares. Starting with 1 grain, then 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on. Easy at first.
A chessboard has 64 squares so while the initial numbers seem pretty manageable 264 is actually such a catastrophically high number that there would be enough rice on the "final square" to carpet an entire continent in a hearty layer of rice, hence the dramatic mister incredible.
Who's starting in a corner and distributing the rice right to left diagonally across the board? Surely starting at the bottom row and going left to right row by row is the sane way to conduct this insanity
Explain It Peter
Objective-Ad3239: Japanese dots are organised in a neat table, others arent, playing into the japanese being strict and efficent stereotype.
Explain It Peter
Felconite: Odysseus marrying Penelope as a consolation prize is like that Starcraft Tournament where 5-8th place won 25 bitcoin.
John_Wotek: Ulysse/Odysseus has to leave his wife, Penelope, for 20 years, because Helen, the fairest lady in all of Greece and wife of Melenas, decided to go with Paris of Troy, jump starting the 10 years long Trojan war on which were added 10 more years to go back.
Ulysse did not want to go to this pointless war and tried to make an insanity plea. But the other Greek caught on the ruse and coerced him into this war. Ulysse would be instrumental in ending it through his ruse.
Helen cheated on her husband and started a whole damn war, while Penelope remained loyal to her husband despite an army of suitor harrassing her to remarry.
For this, Penelope is best girl, this is why she get the 10/10 rating for her. Although, Ulysse did cheat on her with Calypso and Circe at some point.
The 1/10 rating to Helen is because she's a cheater. Although, in the case of her affaire with Paris, it's quite unfair considering Aphrodite, the literal godess of Love, gamed the whole thing when she promised Helen to him.
Also, Ulysse is kinda the architect of his own demise because he's the one behind the oath of every Greek king going to war to defend Melenas mariage to Helen. Everyone wanted Helen as a wife, but he wanted to wed Penelope. So he orchestrated the whole thing specifically to stop the other Greek kings to kill each other over Helen and to have no competition for Penelope's hand.
So, yeah. Greek tragedy. Trully the best.
Anybody Know The Actual Reason This Happens? Please Explain It Peter
firenova9: So your brain basically shuts down access to your body as you're falling asleep to try to prevent sleep walking, night thrashing, or playing out your dreams irl. Sometimes your brain isn't in sleep mode before this "turning off" happens, so your body goes through an experience of "falling" as body access is being shut off, which promptly has you jerk awake.
This is a very simplified explanation, but I hope it helps! :)
Explain It Peter
Technical-Form8994: It's the movie jeepers creepers
The two characters stumble across stuff because they can't help but be curious, ultimately leading to classic horror movie high jinks
Explain It Peter
ninth9ste: man invents fictional scenario and then gets angry about it
"gets angry about it"? Or lives in fear of it (religion and particularly hell seems to be depicted)
Why Wouldn’t It Work? Explain It Peter
QuoteGiver:
Significantly more expensive.
They’re using double the amount of partitions and plumbing.
Explain It Peter
djparent: Not everyone with autism looks or 'behaves' autistic. A lot of people don't seem to understand the nuance and will argue with someone that they are not even if they've been diagnosed. 'Acting' autistic makes people shut up and go away.
Explain It Peter
Thrownpigs: One of the questions fans of the DC films and shows have had since Lanterns came out is why Guy Gardener is Green Lantern in Superman instead of either of the main characters of Lanterns. James Gunn, the executive producer of DC films, assured fans there was an answer. The latest Lanterns episode provides that answer.
I Know This Is Pewdiepie But I Don’t Get It, Please Explain It Peter
Ambitious-Most4485: Pewdiepie said the n word on stream
Explain It Peter!
thebuscompany: 5 "feels" like an even number because it divides so evenly within a base 10 system.
Explain It Peter
DenizBueno:
Geneticist Stewie here, morons believe that skin color mixes like paint, but in real life, parents contribute different genes that together yield various levels of pigmentation. By chance, their child can land anywhere on that spectrum.
Explain It Peter
TeraGigaMax: All men love pasta cooked just right.
*cries in 1/5 Italian * mama mia w*f never cauld always salt well never oil pasta water either stops sauce stickin pasta
Stranger Things, Explain It Peter
avatarstate: “Him” is Noah Schnapp. He’s hated in online circles because he’s a Zionist. People online have then since made it their head canon that the entire stranger things cast hates him too.
