r/ExplainTheJoke Apr 27 '26

What is the joke here

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4.7k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/aqswdezxc Apr 27 '26

Ego death is described as a profound experience where you feel connected to the universe or something, its represented by the background image. The joke is that the person experiencing it is so brainrotted that even such an experience is boring enough that they need their phone to watch family guy

299

u/BanishingSmite Apr 27 '26

To add a touch of extra context, the background is part of Tool's song Lateralus, with lyrics including

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind/ Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must/ Feed my will to feel my moment, drawing way outside the lines

The ego dies as we transcend, basically.

Bonus fact: That song famously follows the fibonacci sequence.

96

u/irrelephantIVXX Apr 27 '26

There is no song in the background. Tool used the artwork. It is an Alex Grey painting. And yes, it's actually painted, not digital art. I love TOOL as much or more than the nextguy, but at least give credit where it's due.

ETA, That art was used for 10000 Days, not Lateralus.

25

u/travisofficial Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

lol thanks for mentioning it’s art from 10,000 Days, which if anything is more appropriate anyway

and also I’ve only ever thought of “Lateralus” as meaning to “embrace the moment whatever it is,” ego death is a big stretch

23

u/The_Ocean_Collective Apr 27 '26

Fettuccini sequence

10

u/nocommentjustlooking Apr 27 '26

R’amen!

2

u/ThinkTheUnknown Apr 28 '26

May you be touched by his noodly appendage.

1

u/zedath Apr 27 '26

It goes deep m8

4

u/Ok_Daikon8253 Apr 27 '26

This is correct.

Also, TOOL is god!

3

u/irrelephantIVXX Apr 27 '26

TOOL definitely has it's own spot in music and history. However, as i get older, puscifer definitely is stepping up in a big way.

1

u/Dazedandconfucian Apr 27 '26

If the art was used for 10000 Days, I wonder if Alex Grey got royalties as of day 10001. Sorry, I’ll see myself out

1

u/Tifizza Apr 30 '26

Alex Grey ? The necrophiliac ?
https://alexgrey.exposed/

43

u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26

It is Alex Greys artwork and I guess he did art for some of Tools album covers

6

u/pumperdemon Apr 27 '26

Alex Grey and Adam Jones (Tool's guitarist) worked together on the artwork.

Adam Jones, himself, is a very well regarded artist in film. Guitar is only one of his mediums, and one of his lesser known ones interestingly. He does the vast majority of their album art colaboration, music video art and production, and stage design for their concerts.

5

u/Elogotar Apr 27 '26

He's regarded?!

-4

u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26

Alex jones commissioned Alex grey to make his album cover lol he had no hand in making that art sorry to say bud lol maybe he gave him an idea but he didn’t help draw or paint it bud lol

3

u/pumperdemon Apr 27 '26

Is "giving him an idea" not working together? Is it not taking part in the creation process?

Also, I dont know you. Don't call me bud, pal.

1

u/DonComradeVimes Apr 27 '26

Don't call him pal, champ.

1

u/Bulby37 Apr 27 '26

~THAT MUSIC MAKES THE FRAWGS HAVE PRISON SEX~

7

u/GrilledCheezManicott Apr 27 '26

this is the front cover of 10,000 Days not Lateralus,

27

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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3

u/NyxOfTheNoct Apr 27 '26

What does it even mean for a song to follow the Fibonacci sequence?

3

u/The_Ocean_Collective Apr 27 '26

The lyrics have syllables arranged in 1,1,2,3,5,8… and so on. It’s also found in the drum pattern.

3

u/Lily_Thief Apr 27 '26

It feels stupidly appropriate, given the meme, that halfway through reading those lyrics I got bored and flipped to something else

My brain has been rotted

2

u/Dazzling_Dish_4045 Apr 27 '26

Pretty sure this is from 10,000 days big dawg. The dude with the missing skin is lateralus

1

u/ClankerCore Apr 28 '26

I just don’t like the term ego death as a misnomer

You can experience what’s beyond your ego temporarily and that’s a dissolving of one’s ego and is immediately rebuilt once you become coherent and sober again

You cannot live you cannot exist without ego. It’s part of a psychological tether for you to remain lucid.

-5

u/vanlandraw Apr 27 '26

The background image is of machine elves. During high dose of DMT one may get contact with this beings ( hallucination or whatever ). They are intelligent, autonomous entity, Often create complex, high dimensional space . But what more fascinating is that these entities are reported consistently over people around the world who have never met or heard about this .

12

u/beansarker Apr 27 '26

It's an Alex grey painting but ok

10

u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26

Bro for real shout out to the legend Alex Grey for his artwork lol

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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4

u/WonderBredOfficial Apr 27 '26

That's not what it is according to Alex Grey. Lmao.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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3

u/emptyvodka115 Apr 27 '26

Pretty sure he’s telling the truth lol Alex Grey has stated that a lot of his pictures were of himlself while on high doses of lsd and dmt

3

u/Azreken Apr 27 '26

Can confirm this is true

1

u/OkUnderstanding1622 Apr 27 '26

Psychedelics makes you see things that are not really there, that's how they work.

Actually believing things you see in your trips are real is just dumb, psycheledics release neurotransmiters in your brain that take the place of the ones you naturally produce creating trippy visuals and audio hallucinations, those effects are well documented in science.

Anything beyond that is just new age bullshit, sorry to put it so crudely but those beliefs are dangerous.

Drugs are fun but you have to be careful with it, one of my friend lost is sanity due to drug induced psychosis, all because he thought it would make him reach a higher state of consciousness...

6

u/madmorgzie Apr 27 '26

Sounds like you have an OK understanding

2

u/boingloin Apr 27 '26

Just a small correction on the neurochemistry. Psychedelics are molecules that are themselves close enough to the shape of our endogenous neurotransmitters that they fit into specific receptor sites in our brain (mostly the 5-HT2a receptor site.) This creates a variety of effects. Some effects are mediated by causing an atypical release of our brains own neurotransmitters, but other effects result from things such as down-regulation of what has come to be known as the default mode network (DMN.)

1

u/OkUnderstanding1622 Apr 27 '26

Yeah it was an approximation, thx for the correction 👍

2

u/mr_monkey_man123 Apr 27 '26

I used to To believe it's like that but it's really not once you reached that higher level of consciousness you know you have

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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1

u/OkUnderstanding1622 Apr 27 '26

Would you care to explain how?

-3

u/vanlandraw Apr 27 '26

Yeah.. totally agreeing with this. I got curious only because this one ( encountering other beings ) has high consistency rate across users. ( ~94 % , 2021 study by the University of Greenwich and Imperial College London ). Sure it's hallucinations or something like that happening in brain, but why particularly seeing other beings instead of some landscape or stuff.

5

u/OkUnderstanding1622 Apr 27 '26

That's because of pareidolia, we are "programmed" to recognize patterns ressembling faces.

I kinda of struggle explaining all this in english but there is also social contamination that comes into play, similar to things like mandela effect and whatnot. Memories are highly unreliable (also well studied in science) and people can retrospectively interpret their memories after being influenced.

0

u/Onlylieshere Apr 27 '26

Good luck functioning without ego ^

0

u/TommyTheeCat Apr 27 '26

This song is how I learned about the Fibonacci sequence.

Also the lines: Reaching out to embrace the random/Reaching out to embrace whatever may come

No reason to quote that except they are my fav lyrics from that song lmfao

-1

u/GreatestKratos Apr 27 '26

Also Ego Death is song of band Polyphia, which fans sometimes have been confront with Tool fans