Generation Z and Humor

By JDKC Editorial

Every generation has its own way to characterize themselves from each other. These
characteristics are what make the members of these generations so distinctive in the way they
live their lives and not just solely based on their age. Although age is what puts people into
different generations, it is when they lived that truly explains why, and how they are acting.

One of the newest generations to exist is our generation; it’s referred to as generation z, or the
igeneration. Having been born from generation x and the xennial generation our generation holds
the honor of being the first to be born in the 2000s. Characterized by being born in or right
before the creation of social media and the iPhone our generation has lived through a lot so far.
We also have an interesting taste in humor that can be seen as quite odd from the older
generations. Let's take a deep dive into who the members of generation Z are and what makes us,
well, us.

Social media is our outlet as Gen Z. The fact that we connect worldwide with other people in
Generation Z gives us all the social interaction we need. It took previous generations a national
tragedy like 9/11 to realize we live in a dark, dark world. Gen Z has used social media in a time
when news cycles are 24/7 and are constantly reminding our younger generations that the world
is a dark place. So why can’t we joke about our reality?

Self-deprecating humor defines Gen Z. We will constantly make jokes about the tragedy that is
our reality. Ranging from our rigid mental health to the heartbreaking tragedies that happen to us
in school. The global health service company, Cigna, did a study that utilized the UCLA
loneliness scale to tally scores on a scale of 20 to 80 with a score of 43 being officially labeled as
lonely. The average scored for the Gen Z students surveyed was 48.3 and it gradually decreased
by generation. As if it was not already prevalent by our dark sense of humor, this labelled Gen Z
as the loneliest generation.

Millennials use social media to interact with their other family or friends. Generation Z uses the
social media video-based platforms the most because they look to these platforms for
entertainment and comedy rather than social interaction.

A big part of Generation Z’s humor stems from the impacts we have experienced early on in our
lives. Living in post-9/11, school shootings and an economic recession have led to us using
humor as a method of coping with these tragic events. This type of humor is referred to as
absurdism.
Although Gen Z creates pessimistic memes about how the world is falling to pieces, we use these
jokes to cope with the world we are stuck in. In reality, Gen Z is considered to be one of the
more optimistic generations; we are very active in politics and working to better our society.

The baby boomer generation, whose humor relies more on bashing newer generations, lived
during post-War World II, the moon landing and the red scare. Their humor is more mocking of
technology and other generation’s reliance on it. Boomers grew up in a time when divorce was
not as common, so they stuck with their spouse. A lot of their humor mentions their disdain for
their wives because of this. Gen Z and millennials blame baby boomers for the terrible economy.
In return, baby boomers model their humor from their belief that millennials and Gen Z act with
entitlement and ignorance. Boomers use their humor, mostly comics, to illustrate this.

Gen Z differs from this generation by using their humor to bring each other together. By
laughing at their pain or other tragedies, we are able to not let the depressing nature of our world
overtake us. Although boomers may believe this is us being ignorant, it actually shows how
much we know of the current world. We chose to laugh at it rather than be weighed down.

Millennial humor is more similar to Generation Z humor than baby boomer humor. They, like
Gen Z, are very big on self-deprecating humor. Some would even say that millennial humor is
even wilder. As mentioned in an article on The Guardian, millennials are responsible for shows
such as Rick and Morty. Bojack Horseman and The Eric Andre Show.

Similar to Gen Z, millennials have not only had to live through the recent tragedies on this
planet, but most of them have had to raise kids and work. The stress of living an adult life while
everything is falling apart is a huge reason why they are the creators of “dark humor.” Some of
them have been out of their parents’ house for a while with no one around to comfort them
through all of the tragedies. The millennial offensive humor walked so the gen Z offensive
humor could run.

One difference between the two generations is the way we access and consume this humor.
According to SocialMediaToday, Gen Z prefers Instagram when it comes to consumption and
Millennials are much more fond of Facebook. This is for obvious reasons. Instagram was created
when a lot of generation Z started to get phones and enter their teen years. Most millennials at
the time had already been on Facebook for years and didn’t feel like making another switch to
something completely different, as they already had to switch over from MySpace.

No matter the generation, humor has been a huge part of defining what a generation likes or
dislikes. It is a way to communicate with each other at a level that is intended to either make one
group smile and another group angry. The kind of humor that is used by each respected
generation differs from the fact that they had different upbringings and simply lived in different
eras of time. This will most likely continue in the generations that follow gen z. Whether
pessimistic or just downright goofy, humor is a constant.