If aliens are watching us through telescopes, they’re going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?

Seinfeld’s joke reframes an everyday ritual—humans picking up after dogs—as an anthropological “misreading” by an outside observer. By imagining aliens judging status purely by visible behavior, he highlights how power and hierarchy can look inverted when stripped of cultural context. The humor comes from applying a cold, literal logic to a familiar scene: the creature that defecates appears served, while the other performs the menial labor. Beneath the gag is a broader comic theme in Seinfeld’s work: ordinary social arrangements are often irrational, and our assumptions about who is “in charge” depend on shared conventions rather than objective evidence.