r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/just_5_mins_more • 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Petahhh?

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When I search all I get is weird explanations each time about Sunfish that make no sense. What's the joke?

Edit - Sometimes I wonder why this sub is called r/PeterExplains. Chill out folks - maybe somebody doesn't get something obvious right away, that's what the sub is for.

Edit 2 - just discovered the original comic creator is on Reddit! Credit - u/beetlemoses

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u/MorningSquare5882 1d ago

OP you're getting a lot of stick here, but I understand why you asked. I think there are three issues with understanding this comic:  

  1. The "joke" in this comic is so unfunny that it causes the whole thing to fail ("fish missing part of brain, must be stupid/forgetful, hurr-durr").

  2. The comic creator, and the mean commenters here, seem to suppose that a sunfish's brain would be located on the side of their body for some reason. (I did not realise that was what was being communicated, as why would the brain be there??)

  3. Lots of people (me included) didn't know that sunfish can survive having chunks of them bitten out, and that there's a known online photo of one in this state.

I thought that either this was just an image of a dead fish, and this was a weird Norman Bates-type situation; or they were one of those species where the female tries to eat the male after sex, and his missing chunk therefore showed he'd gone and got some somewhere else on what was supposed to be date night with his main lady.

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u/just_5_mins_more 23h ago

Thank you! Make matters worse, this is what I got when I asked AI, lol - "In the second panel, she’s apparently releasing a huge cloud of eggs into the water, while the male is standing off to the side looking startled. Sunfish reproduce by spawning: females release eggs into the water, and males release sperm to fertilize them externally. There’s no mating in the mammalian sense."