By Tyler Kacalek
Over the past years, primarily including the 2020s, Gen Z humor has rapidly advanced, evolving from past trends and traditions of the previous decades. Through platforms such as TikTok, and more recently, Instagram reels.
Gen Z expresses their humor through the most popular form of content available right now, short-form content. However, with the national decreasing average attention span and desire for stimulation, new trends and funny ideas are rapidly appearing and disappearing among these platforms.
Compared to previous years, among apps like Vine and Music.ly, funny trends and events were relevant for a very long time, and had people constantly talking about them. Now, new ideas and funny content are constantly surfacing, but disappearing and becoming unfunny in a matter of weeks, or even days. But why is this happening, and what makes Gen Z humor funny to some people, but stupid to others?
Along with new Gen Z trends and events having a short lifespan, Gen Z humor has also become increasingly more nonsensible. For example, things in the past such as “The Water Bucket Challenge” and other pun/joke videos posted on platforms like Vine genuinely had humor behind them, and could make almost anyone laugh. But in today’s day and age, things like this, which have no sensical meaning behind them whatsoever can get a crowd of middle schoolers giggling their behinds off.
But what makes these images so funny to some people? Well, according to greenlight.com, Gen Z humor is a “Blend of insanity and absurdity that leaves people scratching their heads and wanting something more.”
Kids and young adults are constantly surrounded by short-form content. And due to the process of the algorithm of many online platforms, new ideas like these are constantly being shown to regular audiences every day. But while some audiences can find this type of content annoying, others can find it… somewhat pleasing? Could this type of humor bring unity among future generations? Is this… art?
The definition of art can be defined as: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. With these new examples of humor from the recent years, these seemingly nonsensical things can indeed be a showcase of “creative skill and imagination,” and can be “appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power,” as they all required a mental blueprint in order to be created.
Some of our students at BHS were interviewed about the subject, including the quote, “I believe that anything that’s created with meaning behind it, and has some sort of value or expression to it, can be considered art,” said Carter Guevarra, Senior.
For example, the account, jonmud.fun on Instagram can be known for posting AI-generated content that can be seen as unordinary or not original.
But in order for many of these AI-content generators to work, they require a prompt, or an idea. So all of these “nonsensical” and “absurd” claims made about AI-generated and newly founded content can be proven false, because they all require a creative mastermind behind each piece of art that we see today to fuel ideas for the future and overall, make the new generation find inspiration, and ultimately laugh.
beniciapaw.com 