Advanced Memorization Methods
Explanation
The Joke
The comic presents a "Teaching Pro Tip" that claims the human mind more readily remembers horrifying images. It then launches into an example: "Did you know that it takes less energy to send a sack of dead koalas from the moons of Mars to Earth than from Earth's moon to Earth?" The explanation continues that this is due to the moons' "gravity well," which is similar to a real well, like the kind a koala might get trapped in until it starves.
The supposed teaching method is to embed factual information (orbital mechanics) inside deeply disturbing imagery (dead koalas, koalas starving in wells) so that the horror makes the facts memorable.
The Humor
The comedy comes from the absurd escalation of the mnemonic technique. What starts as a plausible-sounding educational tip -- that vivid or emotional imagery aids memory -- quickly spirals into gratuitously disturbing territory. The "teacher" keeps finding ways to loop back to koala suffering at every turn: the physics fact involves dead koalas, the gravity well is compared to an actual well where a koala is trapped and starving. The joke is that the horrifying imagery has completely overwhelmed any educational content; no student would remember the physics fact because they would be too busy being traumatized by the koala imagery.
It also parodies the genre of "life hack" or "study tip" content that oversimplifies cognitive science research into absurd practical advice. The mnemonic technique being described is a grotesque exaggeration of the method of loci (memory palace) or elaborative encoding, taken to an extreme that defeats its own purpose.
References
The Martian moons Phobos and Deimos are indeed very small bodies with extremely weak gravity, so launching objects from them would require far less energy than from Earth's Moon. The comic references real orbital mechanics concepts (gravity wells, delta-v) while wrapping them in absurdist horror. The underlying memory principle -- that emotionally charged or bizarre imagery is easier to remember -- is supported by research on the "bizarreness effect" and emotional memory enhancement, though obviously not to the degree depicted here.