Inside 'millennial humor,' the new outdated trait Gen Z has identified

• Discourse about generational differences is hugely popular on TikTok.
• Lately, Gen Z has been ragging on their perception of "millennial humor," labeling it "cringe."
• According to Gen Z, millennials are hung up on musical-parody sketches and self-deprecating jokes.

Baby boomers were once the universally mocked generation in comedic TikTok videos, but now Gen Z users have turned on millennials by mocking their perception of "millennial humor."

Millennials, many of whom were already adults when internet memes and lingo became widespread, are being mocked for continuing to use jokes and references that Gen Z now widely considers "cringe," such as "adulting" and "weird flex but OK." Several users have also gone viral for parodying millennials in skits on the app.

Gen Z users have also characterized some millennial jokes as being excessively self-deprecating and dark, which often draw on a theme of being bored or fatigued in life.

"This garbage bag is just like me, get it, cos I'm literally trash," one user parodying his take on millennial banter said. 

Meanwhile, other millennials have been accused of trying too hard to be "goofy" or "quirky" by Gen Z users, who have characterized millennials as the generation that popularized comedic sketches presented in the form of songs.

The TikTok creator Sarah Maddack's 2022 song, "Coffee Shop Bop," is a prime example of this type of humor, commenters who have reacted to it have said, as are a number of YouTube channels that were popular in the mid-2000s, which often produced musical parodies. 

Several popular posts from Gen Z users mocking millennial humor have said that millennials, and their jokes, are influenced by a finite number of cultural references that they believe marked the generation, including BuzzFeed quizzes, Pinterest, and the Harry Potter franchise.

Many millennial users have weighed in on these observations, some saying that they think jokes directed toward millennials are overly generalized. Others have said they think Gen Z's diagnosis of millennial humor is spot-on and that they agree much of what millennials find funny could be interpreted as cringey.

One millennial user, @andrewschiavone, offered an explanation for why his generation was "so corny," saying millennials grew up before memes and social media were widespread and that a lot of humor they absorbed was highly manufactured. 

"If we wanted to see a joke, we had to finish a popsicle stick or look at a shirt, and those weren't good jokes," he said. 

Generational discourse is hugely popular on TikTok, with users often commenting on what they think about the way other generations behave in the real world or on social media. 

One of the most popular concepts to emerge out of TikTok's discussion on generational differences is the "millennial pause." Gen Z users say millennials on TikTok take a habitual pause at the start of their videos after hitting the record button, which they say demonstrates that they were not used to advanced technology because they did not have access to it growing up in the same way Gen Z does now. 

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.

Correction: June 20, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misspelled a TikToker's name. Her name is Sarah Maddack, not Sarah Maddock.

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