Millennial Humour: Political Satire and (Dis)engagement in the Age of Social Media

Abstract

In the age of growing precarity and ongoing crises of longstanding political institutions, disaffection and disillusionment have become the norm in the millennial experience in Canada. What kind of humour arises in response to this condition? This project combines in-person and digital ethnography, with in-depth, semi-structured interviews to explore the connections between millennial humour and the making of generational political sensibilities. In response to the increasingly hollow political discourse, my millennial interlocutors—a self-selected group of young, Anglophone Canadians who come together in digital spaces dedicated to leftist politics— seek out internet humour that looks and feels authentic, and that resonates with their lived experience. However, as that humour often focuses on issues such as rising inequality, economic precarity, and environmental disaster, the content that resonates most, often feels “too real,” “gutting” and perhaps paradoxically—unfunny.