Millennial/Zoomer Ironic Humor is unironically a problem.
Our generation's inability to take anything seriously is damaging more than you may realize!
Note that Zoomers and Millennials are interchangeable here, I just talked about Zoomers because that’s what I am and what you most likely are.
There was a time where “gallows humor” was considered a fine quality in a man. The old British were famous for this sense of black humor, with the ability to freestyle a witty English one liner straight in the face of death. Maybe that’s where today’s sense of humor comes from. Either way, millennials and Zoomers are now infamous for a kind of retarded, less-witty-more-depressing version of this. Being serious, or taking something seriously, is a faux pas in Zoomer etiquette. Instead, everything is a joke, everything is to be made mincemeat of, everything can be giggled at, anything anyone does is at that person’s expense. Take the picture below for example:
It’s pretty. But what makes it so? I think part of its beauty comes from how serious it all is. A run of the mill, broccoli haircut, TikTok multiscreening, vaping, melatonin and caffeine dependent, spiritual but not religious, public high school variety Zoomer could never allow this. They’d say, why are you lifting that sword up? Do you think you’re Braveheart? lmfao. Then there’s a problem with the dramatic lighting. Ayo, you’re doing too much nigga! You are NOT him!! So now the lady is perfectly illuminated. But what’s with the black and white? Nahh I KNOW bitch don’t think she ate on ts 😭 So now it’s just a lady in a dress standing in some field with a prop nearby. See what I mean? They want to boil it down to something uncontroversial, unconfident, and uninteresting so it can be promptly ignored:
There’s never an outright critique, certainly not substantiated with any real commentary. Instead, its going for killshots, passive mockery, a snide comment to your friend group to let them know they’re in on something the person who’s putting themselves out there is not in on. But that doesn’t work with this picture. The picture works because its so dramatic, it goes all in, its very decisive. You can tell in less than a second if its something you can connect to or not. You can tell in less than a second if you’re capable of taking something seriously.
But why is there such a problem with seriousness today? Well…
Enormous cultural pressure to punish seriousness
This is something I’ve gone off about before on iFunny. Media today (games, film, even music) recycles anti-seriousness tropes endlessly. Films directed for or by young people will invariably contain scenes where a serious person is cut down to size. Any character who affirmatively believes something, or affirmatively does not, or takes a bold stand, or commits to something, loses their plot armor and is singled out for removal.
Why does HE think he has all the answers? Why he goin off like dat doe!! damn!!! and so on. We have a crab bucket mentality of pulling everyone back to “I don’t have all the answers, I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m depressed”. Zoomers regard anyone who deviates from this (like institutional religion, for example) with suspicion. In film, the character who loudly proclaims much of anything is usually silenced with a comedic death. Why? Because all those old people think his ideas are important, and its now Zoomer gospel to SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS. We have to be in on the joke, we have to be able to see behind the curtain.
This is the payoff Zoomers want. All those big words and ideas couldn’t save you from a bullet!! They smugly remark. They love this cutting-down-to-size. They love the seriousness of this person’s claims having the rug pulled out from under. They want to feel he’s naieve and narrow-minded for being willing to throw his life away for an abstract like his “nation”. Doesn’t he know England is, like, racist n shit anyway Holmes? “England” itself is even too serious a topic, they want the “cold heart realities” of life they’re so clued in on, the tangibles like DoorDash and independent fact checkers on Twitter. It’s not enough that this character is removed. He has to be killed off in a gag, the ultimate undercutting of anything and everything he stood for.
Now I actually liked Solo (2018), but this is another perfect example. Why is this Imperial officer yammering on about duty, Empire, glory, blah blah blah? It makes him immediately unlikeable to the audience. Zoomers seek for this character to be punished for that, for acting so confident in a warzone. The payoff is instant for them, he is immediately killed in a gag death after his little speech. Zoomers revel in all that pomp and circumstance doing nothing to protect him from something they already knew, that war and life suck. Ayee, that’s what you get tho! Fuck around and find out!!
“You were droning on!” shouts Deadpool, giggling along with the audience. Yeah yeah, we shouldn’t kill innocents, we get it. I got your 5 second soundbite, why did you have to take so long to say that? Anyone who talks too long, especially about “grand ideas” like ethics, quickly exhausts the Zoomer’s appetite for concentration. We just want to see something interesting happen before the phones come back out.
It’s not always a gag death though, really anything that cuts the proud or confident down:
Scary Movie 2 gives us a special rendition: taking someone who’s so confident in their books and little prayers and gaudy buildings (full of stolen indigenous wealth) and making them flee at the first sight of reality. We’re all supposed to giggle at how a “trained exorcist” crumbles at the first sight of a real possession. Take that, organized religion!
Midwits like George Carlin made an entire career out of telling other midwits that the “inside scoop” of life is that nothing matters, nobody can help you, there’s no such thing as a good person, and anyone who has a definitive answer to any issue of substance is trying to sell you something.
Numbness has become a virtue, anyone who’s being serious is really just “being dramatic”. Irony is a shield you can hide behind.
Our generation really hates when anyone is dramatic. It’s seen as acting out, making a mountain of a mole hill. I can see the impact of public school (and its, lets say, very dramatic and loud urban people) in forming this collective identity of hating the dramatic.
Once you take for granted that the average Zoomer is sleep deprived, anxious, depressed, and unfulfilled, anyone who acts “dramatic” (as in, passionate about anything) is immediately ostracized. You can see this in anything from shaming others for exotic hobbies to repeating “You ain’t gotta do all that” when someone is dancing a little too hard in public, or visibly enjoying life a little too much. We’re supposed to keep to ourselves, without rocking the boat.
Numbness is also a weird defense mechanism, a sort of insurance policy against experiencing any negative emotions. Zoomers want equilibrium, stability, familiarity. Any time you’re forced to roll the dice and commit to something, it violates the Zoomer homeostasis of remaining numb and aloof.
This is why they prefer “non-denominational” Churches (if any church at all), don’t like cheering for specific sports teams in social settings, and see being a political moderate as inherently virtuous.
Zoomers love to play the “Or What?” Game
This comes with being young in general, but Zoomers have an odd fetish for both testing the waters of traditionally “off limits” or taboo topics, as well as savoring the “fuck around and find out” videos online (its easy to see how anyone who takes anything seriously is “fucking around” with the expectant “find out” reinforced ad naseum in movie gag deaths etc.).
It’s sometimes taken as a bastardized form of being curious to the point of irreverence. Combine this with both narcissism and using laughter as a coping mechanism, and you get the “Or What” game:
Le teacher: You have to pay attention in class!!
Zoomer: Why?
Le teacher: otherwise you can’t do my homework and you’ll fail my class!
Zoomer: Why does that matter?
Le teacher: Because then you won’t graduate on time!!
Zoomer: Who cares?
Le teacher (flabbergasted that anyone would not want to graduate on time): Um… IT’S JUST BAD, OK? DO YOUR WORK OR I’LL SEND YOU TO THE PRINCIPLE’S OFFICE!
Zoomer: Who cares if I go to the principle’s office? What’s she going to do, stop me from graduating on time?
Le teacher: *Rages, buys trashy boxed wine on the way home and puts on Dead Poet Society as she herself scrolls her phone and cries about how she regrets signing up to teach*
Zoomer: *troll face*
When there’s no real, actual consequences, Zoomers are not going to be serious enough to be reverent near anything. Why should they? Who’s going to physically stop them from using photos of grandma’s still warm corpse for sympathy likes? Who’s going to physically force them to stand for the national anthem? Hold the door open for women? Observe a moment of silence? Let other people finish speaking? Respect their elders? Clean up after themselves? Not cheat on their boy/girl/other friend? Be honest, there’s no consequences for any of that stuff. They live in a self-reinforcing “Fuck around” loop where they delight in discovering there isn’t a real “Find out”. Because institutional conservatism (or what’s left of its corpse) is entirely declawed, anything it cared about is now a punching bag.
Remember on iFunny when those atheists posted pictures sexualizing Mary the Mother of God? It’s because they’re midwit Zoomers, and they fiend on the feeling of knowing they just stepped on someone’s toes, offended someone, or cut something other people love down to size, and there’s no consequences or fear of reprisal.
(Oldhead Note: This is also why a lot of iFunniers don’t really debate stuff anymore. They want to go in for kill shots and screengrabs, and dunk on others without addressing what is being said. They want quick scores, witty deprecating captions, a 5 second interaction with a clear winner. Often times this comes down to a contest of who can demonstrate that they care the least about the topic. Merely invoking the potential of humiliation from a lack of “Finding Out” is enough for the Reddit ratios to come out as everyone wants to dogpile into the easy victory.)
“Don’t do it because it would hurt other’s feelings" is a statement that is quite literally chum in the water for Zoomers. It’s a dinner bell signaling they’re about to score some cheap dopamine.
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All of this creates a perfect storm for an entire generation that can’t take anyone seriously. In their effort to “laugh their way through the pain” (L btw), Zoomers are constantly patrolling for anyone who believes in something a little too much, talks about something a little too long, or cares a little too much. Anything not protected by actual, severe consequences will be mocked, undercut, and scoffed at. It’s partly defensive tactic, partly because nobody can pay attention to anything anymore, and partly because Zoomers just resent the idea of taking anything seriously on its face.
Combined with a lack of whimsy in the world, it really does create an environment of drab just emptiness, a culture of null. Where you're not allowed to be passionate about anything, you're not allowed to feel the gravity of anything, while simultaneously not giving you any room for lightheartedness or any kind of real humor. You're allowed to make snarky comments and be apathetic, and that's the end of it! You're gonna be a blob of nothing and like it!
Recognizing this is an important step to moving above those that participate in this behavior. Other generations aren’t blind, they see what the majority of zoomers are. If you do not act this way you are far more likely to succeed if only because people in other generations, the ones currently seated in power, will view you more favorably. My point, do not succumb to the social pressures of your contemporaries because if you do you will never rise above them, only continue to be among them.