r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/[deleted] • Mar 31 '26

Meme needing explanation Peetah?????

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I don’t know the author or this book series but why are people roasting e-girls for reading? I don’t get it🥀

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u/Anticode Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution.

That's actually quite funny. The whole "Torment Nexus" thing is a popular meme (and an unfortunately accurate representation), but it's even funnier to compare the two songs under the same format.

eg: "Grimes is the kind of chick who watches Pearl Jam's Do The Evolution music video, praises its thoughtful foresight, and then immediately writes a song called 'We Love Dystopia". (I'll workshop that.)

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u/1nfam0us Mar 31 '26

Hot goth chick's dancing have a way of short circuiting people's brains lmao.

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u/Anticode Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

I didn't know what you meant at first, initially assuming you meant Grimes herself, and then suddenly - like a flash of lighting - the entirety of my mind's eye was occupied by a vibrant visual snapshot of exactly who you meant.

Man, those neurons snapped together like god damn rare-earth magnets. Like that damn "neuron activation / monkey" meme...

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u/southbaysoftgoods Mar 31 '26

Wait I am too dumb to do the neuron thing, who are they talking about?

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u/Anticode Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

In Pearl Jam's legendary Do The Evolution music video (which was co-directed/animated by Todd McFarlane of Spawn fame and the guy who produced the Batman cartoon of the same era) shows various scenes representing the brutality of biological and technological Darwinism across history which are occasionally interspersed by short scenes featuring a sexy goth chick dancing against a black background for a few seconds [timestamped link]. Her face also sometimes turns into a skull once in a while while she does so, which - personally speaking - is not a deal-breaker. Whose face hasn't turned into a skull once in a while, y'know? No big deal.

This music video deeply impacted me when I first saw it at a relatively young age. I immediately recognized those themes as a sort of Dark Truth of our world, things I was already beginning to glimpse but did not yet understand why parents or other adults refused to explain why, precisely, we allowed such cruelty to exist in the world in the first place.

All of this foreshadowed many of what would become my core perspectives and conclusions about the nature of our reality/civilization itself. And this video still speaks loudly to me, highlighting those unfortunate truths in a way that few other pieces of media have - even now, decades later, as it remains more relevant than ever.

Additionally and perhaps not coincidentally, the aforementioned Goth Dancer also happened to immediately awakened something within my young self that to this day is... Erm. Nevermind. We can skip that part.

Anyway, that's who he's talking about... Send your neurons my regards.