The last one refilling detergent is a parody of The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer; everyone has seen it on textbooks and it has become a meme template on Japanese Twitter in recent years.
I mean, that's a tough idea. That's literally just a picture of someone pouring detergent, not an actual costume. Would have to say this one is pretty lame...
It's in Japanese school textbooks. I don't remember if it was in art or world history class, but a lot of people have seen it and/or had to be able to fill it in the blanks from multiple choices. It's also a memorable work of art, so it's famous to those Japanese and terminally online. I agree that this can be a bit more obvious, though.
Some of these are very humorous because of the cultural disconnect (as an American, I have never experienced somebody asking to put their seat back).
"An expert on a very niche subject" made me laugh out loud the hardest, because it's the one that's most "just a guy", and yet it's also exactly how it's described.
I am reasonably confident that's a train seat, not an airplane - though obviously the wonderful cultural norm of politely enquiring / advising the person behind you work in both realms, it's a very common action on the trains.
Love these. Visual comedy. I could say "Person trying to persuade bus driver to let them on at a traffic stop" but without the specific instance that captures it for ppl, there's no joke being communicated.
> Many yearly traditions gradually get stale. You’ve done them many times. You’re not sure if you should put in the effort this year. Your jack-o-lanterns become fewer, and then vanish.
Maybe this is a different type of mundane costume, but I like costumes that just look like guys. When the anime initial D was popular, I would wear a white T, blue jeans, part my hair down the middle and say I'm cosplaying as Takumi Fujiwara...
So who is it? Claude? Or someone they've farmed out their marketing to?
Either way they're pretty transparently mass generated. "Hi Johnny, we've been watching your {{latest YouTube video}} with interest and are impressed by how you {{summary of your latest blog post}}."
I saw video of a costume contest this year where one participant was wearing an Amazon delivery driver vest, flung a cardboard box across the stage and then took a picture of it (all to wild applause).
It's San Francisco, there's a lot of immigration, cultural influence, etc. whereas say Australia has outsize Vietnamese, Indonesian influence; or India in the UK.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer)
Just have to ask, how do you know this???
I was watching the new Street Fighter movie and I was wondering who is Joe? But actually a funny reference.
"An expert on a very niche subject" made me laugh out loud the hardest, because it's the one that's most "just a guy", and yet it's also exactly how it's described.
Yes, a thousand times yes you can put your seat back you gentle soul.
Overjoyed that I understand this, allow me to explain it to those who don't.
Seats on the Shinkansen [0] are bolt-upright by default. You basically have to recline them a little bit to be even vaguely comfortable.
Every person, every time, asks the person in the seat behind them whether it's okay to recline their seat by 5°.
The seat pitch on the Shinkansen is approximately 1 metre. There's a lot of room.
[0]: My line, anyway – the E5 series cars that run the Hayabausa service.
https://moultano.wordpress.com/2025/12/30/children-and-helic...
> Many yearly traditions gradually get stale. You’ve done them many times. You’re not sure if you should put in the effort this year. Your jack-o-lanterns become fewer, and then vanish.
no, i'm not responsible for global warming. please don't even try to shift the blame from corporations to me for doing this.
Source: these dudes email me at a rate of about 5/week asking me to spruik their app to my audience.
Either way they're pretty transparently mass generated. "Hi Johnny, we've been watching your {{latest YouTube video}} with interest and are impressed by how you {{summary of your latest blog post}}."
You don’t see this kind of post rise for any other culture.