system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Marvel] How does Rocket know who Jackson Pollock is?

I mean... He's a friggin racoon.
gpt
And he's not from Earth and probably never had been on Earth and possibly had never even **HEARD** of Earth.  Nor had any of the others who got the joke.

However, to facilitate better communications the universal translators they use also include cultural databases and can offer brief explanations (and comparisons to similar things/people/events/etc from the listener's culture) when needed.

So the people on the ship didn't hear a reference to Jackson Pollock, they heard a reference to an artist they were familiar with who did similar work. In fact, since none of the people hearing the joke shared a cultural background every one of them heard a different artist referenced.