Shift
Explanation
The Joke
A person is pondering the cosmological observation that every part of the universe is rushing away from every other part (referring to the expansion of the universe and redshift). They ask, "Why is it that every part of the universe is rushing away from every other part?" and note, "That's just you." An alien then appears and says, "There's not" -- implying that the universe is not actually expanding, it is just that everything is specifically moving away from Earth (or humans). The alien explains they came all the way from Planet Zorblaxx. When asked why, the alien says, "We're coming this way on purpose," but adds that the rest of the universe is indeed running away -- because "this is a punishment."
The comic reimagines the expansion of the universe not as a fundamental physical law but as a deliberate act of cosmic avoidance. Everything in the universe is not expanding uniformly -- it is all specifically fleeing from humanity, except for these aliens who are approaching Earth intentionally as some form of punitive assignment.
The Humor
The comic takes the well-known astronomical observation of universal expansion (redshift) and gives it a hilariously misanthropic interpretation. Instead of being a natural cosmological phenomenon, the universe expanding away from us is reframed as the rest of the cosmos actively avoiding humanity. The alien visitors are not coming in friendship or curiosity -- they are coming as a punishment assignment, implying that having to interact with humans is so unpleasant that it is used as a disciplinary measure on other planets. It is a clever way of expressing cosmic-scale self-deprecation about the human species.
References
The comic references the Hubble expansion of the universe, first observed by Edwin Hubble in 1929, which showed that distant galaxies are moving away from us, with their speed proportional to their distance (Hubble's Law). This is observed through redshift -- the stretching of light wavelengths from receding objects.