Once again, young people are joking about their trauma on TikTok This isn’t the first time Gen Z has packaged their trauma into something funny—remember the “candy salad” trend? But this time around, they’re acknowledging just how they’ve developed their humor. The captions on these viral memes mimic a conversation, always starting with “You’re so funny,” and replying “thanks,” with a dark reason why. It plays on the idea that dealing with hard experiences is what makes a person funny as they get older—because Gen Z clearly derives so much of their humor from making light of the un-funny things in life. With over 45M TikToks under the ‘You’re So Funny’ search, each video is set to the audio of the 5 Seconds of Summer hit “She Looks So Perfect.” The super upbeat track juxtaposes a memory that is usually awkward, dramatic, or downright depressing, really driving home the strange connection between their humor and their trauma. To Gen Z, this meme is both funny and painfully real,...
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