This is what it's like making jokes on the internet in general these days. Say something that is clearly absurd for the sake of humor, and then get hit with a ton of "um achtually..." responses.
That's not what happened in the scenario above, is it?
Asking 'why aren't koalas considered bears?' isn't clearly absurd.
If they'd said the punchline and then the other person said well actually they're marcupials, then fair enough. That just isn't what happened here though.
Have to take time out of my day to mention that was convincing enough that I swear I felt my cortisol levels spike for a moment or something. Well done, asshole! 👍
Sometimes it's so obvious that I wonder if the person knew it was a joke and decided to troll anyways. Other times I have to remember that it does take experience to recognize it, and some people have additional limitations like not speaking the language
Like if I never played a video game, I might not recognize the very obvious wall with a different texture that I'm meant to bash through
Out of curiosity wouldn't the "nuerodivergent" part just be not interested in why he was asking the question then? Not educated on how that really works. The term seems to imply to me the brain is dividing thoughts into factions, and the social "solenoid" that would get triggered and route to joke faction "by being interested" is getting bypassed so it just went straight to literal answer. Maybe section would be a better term than faction. I should add nuerodivergence to my list of need to look into to further understand.
Or worse - if you're like me, you spend 10 minutes after the joke to talk more about bears, koalas, marsupials, the entire evolution of bears, because they brought up what you thought was an interesting question.
Eh, she might have genuinely not realized that he's attempting a joke. You do need to bring across in your voice+expression that you're being humorous, otherwise it sounds like a normal question, and if they're on a party or such, that can be difficult.
Not to mention that if she's a biology student, the info that koalas are marsupials probably makes it quicker to her head than the realization that he's joking.