this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



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[–] fedditter@feddit.org 36 points 2 days ago (31 children)

Can someone explain what is funny about that? Autism adhd here.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 136 points 2 days ago (18 children)

People normally feed ducks food like bread. The woman was used to this, so she was startled to see someone feeding ducks birdseed.
We're used to birdseed being used to feed songbirds or the various tree birds.
When the woman was directly informed that ducks are birds she was directly confronted with the knowledge that we put waterfowl in a different mental category than arboreal birds.
It's easy to imagine the feeling of realizing you've had a very basic, totally benign blindspot in how you conceptualize something as simple as ducks, and the woman's reaction captures that deep feeling of "now that you say it it's obvious" that a lot of people have felt. Knowing the feeling, it being slightly uncomfortable but harmless, and the general whimsy of ducks makes it funny.

It's funny because feeling empathy for silly mistakes makes us laugh.

[–] Brainsploosh@lemmy.world 43 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Wow, this is an exemplary explanation. Being clear with several levels of cultural knowledge as well as the emotional load behind several meanings and juxtapositions, and still comes across with the humor unscathed.

I dream to one day attain such mastery.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Username checks out.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago

Respect for you taking the time to post this thoughtful praise in lieu of a gold badge. You may not yet be a ricecake, but you're getting there!

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Fellow autist here, though I don't think I have adhd:

I was once where you are now.

It can be done.

Entirely unironically:

Believe in yourself, don't be too stubborn or proud, but also don't let the haters get you down, ... and as Johnny Cash once said, "know when to walk away, know when to run."

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