What Even are Jokes?

Millennials — and now, Gen Z — have some weird coping mechanisms.

On a late-night browse through Twitter — which, honestly, tends to stir many ideas — I was reading one-liners and social justice observations while Bad Romance, a podcast about ill-conceived romantic comedies, played in the background. As one of the posts, Jourdain, plaintively asked her boyfriend, “why are you like this,” I laughed. It’s a favorite memetic joke of mine, and a standard in our household, often repeated when something has gone awry.

Similarly, other simple, despairing cries have become a form of humour — such as the one that inspired the title of this post.

Why are you like this?

A few years ago, it was Generation Y, the Millennials, who were supposed to Save Us All. Whether we do or not, however, it’s impossible to deny that Generation Y — most of us barely in our 20s or 30s — are already exhausted.

Fatalistic, often beset by mental health issues, physical health issues, a history of trauma, societal marginalizations, poverty, or often, a combination of these, Millennials have turned to three coping mechanisms — weed, the internet, and each other. Perhaps it’s an uncanny combination of all three that’s led to a…