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The Washington Post: Why is millennial humor so weird?
- Thread starter benjipwns
- Start date
benjipwns
Banned
i still think this was my favorite combined ending to an interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjtDcuHClHw
even if the second part has the better written joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_TqMOaL_XQ
the dude falling through the desk, hannibal suddenly doing that, the african music
even if the second part has the better written joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_TqMOaL_XQ
just some bitch i fucked after i went to see a raisin in the sun starring denzel washington
TurboLibre
Member
You print me out a list of all the people that hated Bird Up. I'll punch fight every one of them.
Vincent Alexander
Member
But The Three Stooges are great. I still pop in my DVDs and watch them, and I'm 29.This is peak Baby Boomer humor
Pow right in the kisser
Yeah I'm fine with dark humor taking over. Like mentioned in the article, this recalls back to the absurdism and Dadaism days when it was miserable to live so art reflected that.
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
That's like saying that Ghostbusters and Back to the Future are Millenial movies.
Gnome Scat
Member
It's fun watching my Dad try to understand Eric Andre, and I think that's where he's going wrong.
KenzinFive
Member
Can't underestimate the influence of Spongebob on the humor, either.
Most of the memes I see on imgur or instagram or twitter that derive from a TV show or movie are from Spongebob.
Spongebob started in 1999, so if you were a kid watching you're in your early or mid 20s. Prime memeing age.
Golden-age Simpsons (mostly through syndication) influenced my sense of humor and Simpsons references are basically part of my vocabulary. I teach teens, and I can 100% agree that Spongebob is to their generation what the Simpsons was to me. It's something that everyone watched but was also very influential to a lot of people's sense of humor. I'm perfectly OK with it because early Spongebob has some excellent absurdist humor, including the movie itself (which I saw in theaters as a college student).
You can form a generational through-line of influential, highly-refenced comedy going with Monty Python -> Simpsons -> Spongebob.
Anyway, the article isn't as terrible as the comments, but it still comes from a "kids these days" point of view. Being open to new stuff from younger generations is something more people should learn. I discovered The Eric Andre Show just browsing YouTube after dismissing Tim & Eric for years, and it's some of the funniest shit I have ever seen.
Blargonaut
Banned
The meme isn't used "instead". The meme is the articulation.
discospider
Member
I don't get "Weird Twitter" and never will
Some of our earliest formative memories were the looping deaths of thousands of people across our tv screens, the noise of munitions and the drumbeat of unending and pointless wars, humanitarian crises and butchery every morning met with political inaction, the truth to the lie of capitalism lifting all boats, the world burning up while we burn more fires, and the sins of fascism resurrected under new labels and old hatreds.
Better to laugh at the absurdity of it all than be swept away. It's helped some of us survive.
All those comments
You realise when talking about millenials that we're talking about people potentially nearing 40 , right ?
Evil Monkey DTT
Banned
Some of our earliest formative memories were the looping deaths of thousands of people across our tv screens, the noise of munitions and the drumbeat of unending and pointless wars, humanitarian crises and butchery every morning met with political inaction, the truth to the lie of capitalism lifting all boats, the world burning up while we burn more fires, and the sins of fascism resurrected under new labels and old hatreds.
Better to laugh at the absurdity of it all than be swept away. It's helped some of us survive.
Doubling down on the picture it's not like Millennials don't find older humor funny either. They watch the classics, they still laugh at them. The voice of our modern humor might sound different but it's not like anyone is saying "Blazing saddles isn't funny"
LogicAirForce
Neo Member
eh, I like Rick and Morty but there are some great comedy anime out there. Osomatsu-san, One Punch Man, and Haven't You Heard, I'm Sakamoto are all pretty great.
Agreed. MASH remains my favorite tv show in large part because it speaks to my lived experience, despite it ending well before I was even born. Trapped by insane expectation, circumstance, and a struggle in futility? I relate, Hawkeye. You got me better than my entire fucking blood family did.
rockinreelin
Member
This is peak Baby Boomer humor
Nah boomer humor is Monty Python, original SNL, and believe it or not The Simpsons in the influential early seasons was written mostly by boomers. Gen X humor for me are shows like Kids in the Hall, The Ben Stiller show, the original Mr. Show, and even MadTV which were all played with surrealism and absurdity to different extents. It all kind of influences what comes afterwards if you think about it.
Yeah gotta say I do not understand shit like Tim and Eric. There's a line for me when going too ridiculous
Is shit like robot chicken, archer, and it's always sunny in Philadelphia millennial? Cuz I'm all on that shit. One thing I like about the millennial generation is saying goodbye to laugh tracks
Is shit like robot chicken, archer, and it's always sunny in Philadelphia millennial? Cuz I'm all on that shit. One thing I like about the millennial generation is saying goodbye to laugh tracks
benjipwns
Banned
Then how do you know when to laugh?
IdreamofHIME
Member
But the next gen are worse. my nephew spends all day laughing at Minecraft YouTube vids.
This made me laugh more than it should have lmao
Can't tell if you're being \s because I don't see anything wrong with watching Minecraft vids.
As far as things go, it's fairly harmless and I can see the appeal in the storylines and stuff.
I still find some new episodes of The Simpsons funny, Rick and Morty are great but this season has been a little weak on humor. I used to watch I Love Lucy and stuff from that era as a kid and going back I still enjoy it.
I don't get Tim and Eric. I don't find dank memes funny. Family Guy is pretty unfunny too.
People find my dry wit and sarcasm hilarious but I don't... I'm so confused at where I fit now.
I don't get Tim and Eric. I don't find dank memes funny. Family Guy is pretty unfunny too.
People find my dry wit and sarcasm hilarious but I don't... I'm so confused at where I fit now.
Daffy Duck
Member
So the author of the article is a millennial I assume but thinks she's better than the rest.
I'm always confused as someone born in 81 am I a millennial or not.
I'm always confused as someone born in 81 am I a millennial or not.
Phrozenflame500
Member
Meme humour has always been hit or miss for me, but when it hits it hits hard.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
You are a Generation X.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I enjoy Tim and Eric and I follow dril but that's about as far down the weird Twitter hole as I can go. I'm so burnt out on postmodern nihilism
Daffy Duck
Member
No, he's a millennial.
noun
1.
a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
I thought they overlap?
thecouncil
Banned
Baby boomer humor or not, Three Stooges are still absolutely hilarious and I'm a millennial.
travisbickle
Member
Millennial comedian: Acting as if their meaningless comedy means something.
Gen X comedian: Never have any of their comedy recorded so it is only experienced by the people in the room at the time it is said.
Gen X comedian: Never have any of their comedy recorded so it is only experienced by the people in the room at the time it is said.
actually the whole point of millennial humor seems to be that they are acknowledging that their meaningless comedy means nothing and that their very lives and actions are inherently without value
travisbickle
Member
That's why some alternative comedians from the 80s would only commit to live performances. Their live show, after it had ended, was literally a memory to the people who saw it, nothing more.
Anything recorded could exist beyond your own life time, could even be "immortal" and exist forever depending on how obsessed society becomes in maintaining digital records.
Evil Monkey DTT
Banned
I mean, I don't disagree I just don't see the point. Millenial humor tends to use the recordings as a way to shape the joke, I mean it is the digital generation.
Blargonaut
Banned
I would never betray my generation by agreeing with this article
As others have said, memes and shit are just absurdist humor anx inside jokes spread over the Internet.
Both have existed pretty much forever at different levels of extremity. There's nothing particilarLt special one way or another about millenial humor. And I say that as a millenial who doesn't really follow memes that much.
Both have existed pretty much forever at different levels of extremity. There's nothing particilarLt special one way or another about millenial humor. And I say that as a millenial who doesn't really follow memes that much.
The Jazz Cabbage Master
Member
Humor hasn't gotten any weirder. All that's happened is that the entire world suddenly manifests its weirdness across the globe due to the internet. We are a bunch of weird ass apes connected to eachother on a global scale and that is allowing the novelty of humor to evolve in ways never before seen.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
Desus and Mero are the funniest people on TV and there's nothing weird about their humor. Writer needs to expand his cultural horizons.
Gotta wonder if a shift towards this kind of humour in Russia eased people into the political nihilism present there now. I mean, it can be very forcibly apolitical. We're seeing absurdist mockeries of demonstrations—monstrations—normalized, celebrated, and even sanctioned by those in power.
Seems like an awfully convenient cultural shift for the "post-democractic" movements. I'd hope the other side learns to fight back with it too, if it is indeed going to cement its mainstream appeal.
Seems like an awfully convenient cultural shift for the "post-democractic" movements. I'd hope the other side learns to fight back with it too, if it is indeed going to cement its mainstream appeal.