I’m willing to bet that majority of students know what I’m talking about when I say I’m a fan of  the “Boneless Pizza” video, but I’m also willing to bet not many student know who George Carlin is. He’s considered by many to be one of the most influential and successful stand-up comedians of all time by the way.

As this generation has grown up I’ve wondered why what we find funny has become drastically different from what our parents and maybe even some older siblings find funny. We laugh at things that seem so much more random and undefined than humor trends in the past. I hate to say it, but internet memes do seem to be the elephant in the room when it comes to the recent change in comedic culture. Though it is easy to dismiss them as silly and unimportant ways to express a feeling or to get an easy laugh, we can’t deny that “memes” reflect the feelings and opinions of those who create and share them.

It is telling that a majority of the jokes and memes that you can find circulating throughout various social media platforms are about how tired people are of what goes in their daily life. These vary from people just using humor to complain about their days, to taking jabs at certain parts of our society. Sometimes it’s just people finding silly ways to say “I wish I was dead.” Bottom line, this generation seems to use humor to help deal with bad things in our lives.

This brings me to why I believe what we find funny and how we express humor has changed so much between generations. People have always used humor to deal or coop with their problems. When our parents were young they could go see a funny movie or go to a comedy club and give themselves an escape from the problems of the world. It is so much hard for us to do that. Yes we can go to movies and clubs but we have tiny computers in our pockets that can show us every bad thing going on in the world whenever we open them. Technology can connect us with family and friends but it can also act as a pipeline that throws arguments and tragedies at us everyday. That is why things have changed so much. We’ve adapted how we get access to humor and what makes up our sense of humor to combat the things we experience everyday. Humor is built around the problems we face. So not matter what you’re going through, you’ll always have something to laugh about.