The way derivatives is used in this meme refers to the mathematical object, not the financial instrument (even though it’s generally about finance) as far as I can tell. It doesn’t make sense grammatically otherwise, a mathematical derivative is an operation you can do, a financial derivative isn’t something you “do”.

The reason the equations look messed up and weird

The reason is that financial derivatives are messed up and weird and the equations just reflect it.

…I have to study calculus in order to get past introductory statistics, don’t I?