14 Social Media 'Comedy' Tropes That Need To Retire

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14 Social Media 'Comedy' Tropes That Need To Retire

It's difficult to judge comedy because humor is subjective, and some truly unfunny people manage to reach a level of fame that is embarrassing and slightly enviable. That said, there is content permeating social media that is hella cringe, possibly even sus, and we're here to call it out. 

The fact is that almost no comedy ages well. We said ALMOST. The notable exception? Any gag involving a banana peel, a monkey, and or one of those old fashioned soda spray things. Can we bring those back? Bananas used to be the peak of comedy for a reason. Seriously though, outside the realm of physical comedy, a lot of comedic cliches, tropes and tactics could use a breath of fresh air. Yes, yes, we all understand how subverting expectations is funny, but formulas are not. Take my wife (please!), for example. How did the whole ‘I have a horrible wife’ trend start, anyway? 

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM LOUD = FUNNY PALL TKF 10 If you can't make it funny, make it LOUD! This subgenre of comedy is filled entirely by spastic children that are entertained by wild gesticulations, akin to jingling keys in front of an infant.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM THE MEME BUTTON. Bro. Send me some good jokes Sorry, now I'm busy with my Girlfriend Good One! Send me more. DESTRUCTION 100 ABSOLUTELY ROASTED. When you have no faith that your intended audience will understand the breadth of your wit, put a button on the fake SMS conversation you wrote with a ready-made meme. This is the laugh track of internet images.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM SO RANDOM! TikTok ЛЯ q AA REI More like ranDUMB, am I right? Smart comedy will subvert expectations to surprise the viewer, while random comedy is only interested in being devoid of expectations to begin with.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM I HATE MY WIFE! Honey please give me the hair dryer Hey Boomers, are you ok? The younger generations get a lot of flack for their poor comedy chops online, but nothing is as hacky and uncomfortable as these cartoons of older couples with nothing but contempt for one another.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM INSTAGRAM PRANK COUPLES. I MISSED MY PERIOD! These terrible and fake videos exist to sell this illusion of a fun couple that spends all day playing hilarious pranks on each other in their luxury homes. If any of these pranks were real, wouldn't these people be constantly on guard? Or in jail?

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM ANNOYING PEOPLE IN PUBLIC. Following For You It's cool, we're on TikTok, we're verified Tak 100 @straighteriplaced Source Since Chickgo Please leave the commuters alone. We could go into the psychological damage that social media has had on the impressionable youth, but all that matters is that these narcissists simply aren't funny.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM MAKING A HUGE MESS IN MOMMY AND DADDY'S HOUSE. How girls on tiktok make coffee: TkTok TkTok Cutting chocolate milk in half We get it, you are incapable of self awareness. It's difficult to be less funny than the obnoxious brat spilling food all over their parent's clean and bright kitchen, but the real horror is thinking about the clean up. Oh who are we kidding, they pay people for that.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM COMPANIES MAKING THEIR OWN MEMES. McDonald's UK M @McDonaldsUK Him: Meet me at McDonald's? Barber: Say no more, fam. McDonald's music 4BAND SILENCE, BRAND. It's like when your mom wouldn't leave you alone when you had friends over as a kid. None of the 56-year-olds making the Social Media Manager write these has ever seen a meme, or know how they are used.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM STEREOTYPES. Every white girl on twitter All men are CAPRICORN SCORPIO AQUARIUS LIBRA VIRGO LEO trash Women DO be shopping! Lazy, offensive caricatures of broad demographics based on race and gender have been a mainstay in comedy for ages, and they've aged as poorly as a Romanian chimney sweeper.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM QUICK. CUTS. OAHLE . Hide the fact that you have no sense of timing, or any kind of joke to make, by getting the hell away from the set-up before the punchline has a chance to fall flat on its face.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM ADJECTIVE + NOUN INSULTS. Listen here, you flateunt traffic cones, just because it's an unusual set up does not mean it's creative or witty. The more nonsensical and unrelated the two words that are being combined, the more they seem to amuse the idiots.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM HUGE, MEANDERING COMEDY SITE LISTS. Number 9 will SHOCK YOU TO YOUR VERY CORE! We get that Time On Page metrics are paying the bills, but don't these sites know that after 5 entries in these inane compilations, they're really just scraping the bottom of the barrel?

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM META COMMENTARY. Hang on, that's what WE'RE doing right now! It's ok when we do it because... Look, it's just ok when we do it. Everyone likes to be meta, because if you can laugh at yourself then no one can relentlessly dunk on you. If it's good enough for Deadpool, it's good enough for us.

COMEDY NERD CRACKED.COM OVEREXTENDING A JOKE PAST ITS WELCOME. Ok I get it. It's not making me laugh, but I get it. While not exclusive to social media or online comedy, letting a joke go on too long is becoming a bigger problem now that short videos aren't the norm. Ever since Tik-Tok gave us more than 6 seconds to make a joke, they've just gotten worse. I remember when Tik-Tok was called Musical.ly, and before that we had Vine on all of our iPhone 5's. YouTube didn't have all these complicated rules about copyright and the front, page wasn't
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