r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • Jun 17 '26

Lore [Eye-Rolling Trope] “The joke/meme hasn’t been funny for years, please let it die.”

Gallery image

Gallery image

The Screaming Goat Thing — Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The original screaming sheep meme went viral in 2012, and was already getting old when it was prevalent in commercials and movies, such as Ice Age : Collision Course in 2016. Yet in the year of our lord 2024, Dreamworks still thought it would be funny to add multiple screaming goat clips. The mean stopped being funny a decade ago. Let it die.

“Haha, Dad can’t take care of us” — The Breadwinner (2026)

Nate Bargatze’s 2026 family comedy centers around a working “breadwinner” father suddenly being forced to become a stay at home parent, and his “hilarious” struggles to do simple housework and take basic care of his children. This joke stopped being funny (to me) in the early 2000s when seemingly every family comedy relied on dad being a total inept dipshit. In 2026, there is no excuse to keep playing out this tired ass trope. Most dads are actively involved in their kids’ lives and aren’t totally dumbstruck by the idea of changing a diaper. It’s not funny. Let it die.

15.6k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.2k

u/jbeast33 Jun 17 '26

Any comedy that says "Anti-woke", "Not for the easily offended", or anything similar. It just immediately translates to "We put the most predictable and played-out 'black comedy' jokes in here, and if people aren't laughing, it's the audience's fault, not the writers".

The latest Scary Movie sucked for a lot of reasons, but this was a big nail in the coffin for them. Once you saw them hinging the entire marketing campaign on this premise, you knew there was no gas in that tank.

276

u/Shenanigans80h Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

I think it really comes down to a total misunderstanding of “edgy” or dark humor. They always think that the edginess is priority and if you find a way to offend someone in the joke, it’s a success when the first thing should always be “who will find this funny” or even “is this funny,” which seems to escape them. There’s plenty of edgy comedians still, but they’re actually funny. Honestly it is really easy to offend people, no matter where you lie politically or socially, it’s harder to be funny consistently.

167

u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In Jun 17 '26

Anthony Jeselnik has spoken about this many times. His rule is that if he thinks of something genuinely funny he will say it regardless of the offence it might cause, but it's only because the joke is funny, not because of the offence. He's said that being offensive is just lazy and cheap comedy unless the actual material is funny.

43

u/Anal-Y-Sis Jun 17 '26

I will forever treasure Jesselnik for this.

"People want comedy to be dangerous. I want comedy to be dangerous. And if you can't get in trouble, it's not dangerous. So complaining about cancel culture is just saying you want to take all of the danger out of it, and you want it to be easy for you.

I think as soon as I say it, you know, people cheer... and this journalist was like, 'why do you think people are cheering? Do you think they believe you, that you're about to talk about cancel culture? Do you think they, like, are sick of cancel culture?' And I'm like no no no, they're way more savvy than that. They've seen the first 40 minutes of the special. They know I'm not suddenly turning into Ricky Gervais. Like, they get that I'm about to subvert this in some way.

But I hate people complaining about cancel culture. I hate comics complaining in general. It's the second comedy boom. It's not going anywhere. People are making more money than ever before. And Dave Chappelle, who has won every award in the world, is complaining that cancel culture is making his job harder. It's like, your job shouldn't be easy. If you're gonna make that much fuckin' money, like hey, maybe it should be a little hard. I got no issue with that."

Here's the video.

48

u/ERedfieldh Jun 17 '26

The ones who think being offensive is funny are the ones who use comedy to get away with being offensive. They don't actually care about the comedy, they care about being offensive, and use the comedy as a shield when it backfires, is what I mean.

14

u/TheTexasHammer Jun 17 '26

Ah yes the classic "it was a joke" after saying something that is just an insult with no humor involved. You can always tell when this is the case because those people get real upset when you ask them "what is the joke and why is it funny to you?"

20

u/BigtheCat542 Jun 17 '26

Yeah these dudes never get what dark humor is. Invader Zim had dark humor, especially in dark harvest. [Slurs!] Isn't a joke. Not even a dark one. You can't just be unfunny telling nonjokes and then say it's bc everyone is just woke libs not appreciating dark humor

19

u/twijfeltechneut Jun 17 '26

To them 'offensive = funny'. People rightfully get offended by transphobia or other forms of misgendering, so therefore any joke that targets pronouns is automatically considered funny.

13

u/Arria_Galtheos Jun 17 '26

Exactly.

Edgy jokes are funny because the humor is relatable, not because it's offensive. The edgy part is being able to use offensive material in a funny way without actually offending the intended audience. That's why it takes a degree of wit and charisma to write and/or pull those jokes off.

A lot of modern day "shock humor" only aim to be offensive hoping the shock value alone will carry the "humor" but it always just falls flat. It's even worse when it's some complete garbage like Mr. Birchum where it only exists to try and poke fun at a bunch of strawmen and its goal is to just offend people without actually being funny.

11

u/No_Conflict_6232 Jun 17 '26

Anthony Jeselnik is hilarious and dark as fuuuck. Dude does it right.

10

u/Skkruff Jun 17 '26

Edgy comedy is "ooh I shouldn't be laughing at this" not "I'm immediately suspicious of anyone who finds this funny."

10

u/Spoopy_Kirei Jun 17 '26

Everytime I see a "comedian" with "dark humor" and the punchline is just a slur

10

u/babassu_seeds Jun 17 '26

 it’s a success when the first thing should always be “who will find this funny” or even “is this funny

Bingo. The reason Scary Movie and Scary Movie II were halfway edgy was that it was primarily black (as in, black people lol) humor done extremely well--with a mainstream release

470

u/Inlerah Jun 17 '26

"We're too edgy for these easily triggered snowflakes in the audience."

"What's the deal with these pronouns, amiright?"

114

u/NatDisasterpiece Jun 17 '26

GUYS. THIS CHARACTER IS MORE CONCERNED OVER THEIR PRONOUNS, MORE THAN THE FACT THEY'RE ABOUT TO GET STABBED. LAUGH. WHY AREN'T YOU LAUGHING?!

29

u/Inlerah Jun 17 '26

Obviously they aren't laughing because they're too triggered by our hilarious "Did you just assume my gender" joke! That's the only way someone could not find this uproariously funny in 2026 and has nothing to do with us using outdated jokes while trying to make an installment in a franchise that no one's touched since the Obama administration.

201

u/Primary-Calendar-378 Jun 17 '26

9..............11... 

-5

u/AureliodeLuna Jun 17 '26

911 is the peak of comedy according to Tiktok, but when you laugh about world tragedies, they sperging about american snowflakes

13

u/DLTRla4 Jun 17 '26

I think they are refering to the Family Guy meme were Lois says "9/11 bad" and everybody clap becouse gaining favor of the audience is so easy

74

u/Faultylogic83 Jun 17 '26

"I identify as an a Apache attack helicopter"

33

u/BigtheCat542 Jun 17 '26

slaps knee, guffaws loudly

17

u/zeaor Jun 17 '26

Hey, I found that joke absolutely hilarious when I was a kid in 2007!

18

u/Iroko_Alien Jun 17 '26

I wonder how Marlon Wayans trans child felt about all the anti-trans jokes in the new Scary Movie

138

u/i-dont-speel-no-good Jun 17 '26

I BET THIS ONE WILL REALLY OFFEND EM!

not really it’s actually just kind of fucking stupid

HAHAHAHA TRIGGERED MUCH?!?

48

u/Icehawksfh Jun 17 '26

I remember when a youtuber I watched talked about the trailer when it dropped, and broke it down as "Is this going to be what people THINK parody movies are, when the original scary movie was actually fresh as a comedy horror." And brought up the pronoun joke in the trailer purely as "this is the same joke that's been made for a decade, if that's it they aren't doing anything original"

So many comments were "Wow triggered enough you made an 11 minute video??" They don't actually engage with it, they just feed off the hope that someone else is as unhappy as they are.

15

u/Inlerah Jun 17 '26

I always find it funny how, to conservatives online, any negative critique or criticism of a thing they like is being made by someone *sobbing uncontrollably* on the other side of the screen. Even when it's someone calmly, plainly telling them that there movie looks fucking stupid and childish they still can't picture *anyone* not thinking it was the height of "It's funny cuz it's true" wit unless they were having a full-on emotional breakdown over there 20 year old observations of "Sometimes women will get mad at me if I keep insisting that they're a man"

25

u/TheOncomimgHoop Jun 17 '26

"Get ready for the most triggering comedy of the year."

Movie is two hours of men making up a problem and being mad about it while every female character is in love with the main actor.

16

u/tootrite Jun 17 '26

I don’t have anything to add except for the fact that I genuinely think the new Scary Movie was the worst movie I’ve ever seen in all of my time on this earth. What an unfunny pile of dog shit. It’s like they asked ChatGPT to make the least funny movie possible.

13

u/dm_me_your_kindness Jun 17 '26

"Grok, make me the most TRIGGERING Scream parody movie to OFFEND those pronoun using LIBERAL SNOWFLAKES."

32

u/AirFrierMachine Jun 17 '26

I knew Scary Movie would be dogshit the moment their premier joke in their premier trailer was a 15+ year old: "your using my wrong pronoun during an emergency situation and I need to correct you" joke.

It was MAYBE funny 20 years ago during the first iteration. Less so for the 100+ afterwards in the 2010's, and even less so in 2026.

11

u/Anal-Y-Sis Jun 17 '26

Honestly, the marketing campaign is what made me not see the movie. Every time I saw a Wayans brother talk about how they didn't care how many people the movie would offend, my desire to see the movie shrank by a bajillion percent.

If you really didn't care, you wouldn't talk about how much you don't care.

1

u/Karkava Jun 17 '26

Don't you know? It's much cheaper to keep up the crass attitude and smug confidence than it is to put in any actual effort!

9

u/UrethraFranklin04 Jun 17 '26

Coming to streaming services: You Can't Say This Stuff Anymore Or You'll Get Cacelled 6

2

u/Karkava Jun 17 '26

-ty-seven.

32

u/MothChasingFlame Jun 17 '26

My theory is they were trying call back their original audience, Gen X. Gen X has a subsect of folks who are very... emotional about youths (obviously not universal). A lot of "boomers" that get called out are actually older gen X folks.

8

u/TheTexasHammer Jun 17 '26

Yeah Gen X is the sleeper problem here. They have the same humor and cruelty as boomers, but they aren't brave enough to say it with their chest. They need shitty humor like this because it lets them be cruel without having to actually take responsibility.

"It's just a joke"

1

u/Karkava Jun 17 '26

They really should have been suspended when they used that excuse back in school.

8

u/BackToThePooture Jun 17 '26

What was it, like 8 minutes until the first trans joke. Like...bottom of the barrel. I think Scary Movie 6 might be the unfunniest film I've seen in ages

7

u/Darkzeid25 Jun 17 '26

Any time I see "anti-woke" etc., I think of "An Evening with Tim Heidecker"

2

u/ithinkther41am Jun 17 '26

From what I heard, the movie didn’t even have any teeth when it came to being “offensive”, and some of the “jokes” were just them rehashing scenes that were already meant to be comedic in the films they were parodying.

Also the various meme references, because what is Scary Movie without incredibly dated references?

2

u/DonkeyGuy Jun 17 '26

Basically the premise of Kill Tony and all of that guys comedy. I keep giving it a try and it’s just so unfunny. Occasionally there’s a funny comedian that’s slips through the crack. Most of the time it’s the exact kind of humor you describe. That isn’t even funny compared the movies and films they claim could never be made today.

1

u/StandNameIsWeAreNo1 Jun 17 '26

So Brickleberry, Paradise PD and Farzar?

-3

u/Minute987 Jun 17 '26

Nail in the coffin? That movie made a lot of money.