Gen Z Memes

For Gen Z, memes are an art form. Their memes reflect a sense of humor that is ironic, dark, quick-witted, and brutally honest. Gen Zers often reference politics, mental health, and socioeconomic issues while using dark humor. As expected, they also take part in the generational wars. While Boomers tended to be the main target of Gen Xers and Millennials, nobody is safe from Gen Z meme culture.

This article takes a deeper look at some of the elements of Gen Z memes to decipher their meaning, provide better understanding, and simply have fun. Yes, we’ve included several funny memes below.

“In summary, a typical Gen Zer is a self-driver who deeply cares about others, strives for a diverse community, is highly collaborative and social, values flexibility, relevance, authenticity and non-hierarchical leadership, and, while dismayed about inherited issues like climate change, has a pragmatic attitude about the work that has to be done to address those issues.”

Roberta Katz, Stanford scholar

Understanding Gen Z Humor

Before you understand Gen Z memes, you need to get their jokes. Here are some of the themes that are at the core what this generation finds funny.

Sarcasm And Irony

Gen Z uses a lot of sarcasm and irony in their humor. This is how they get beneath the surface of things to address deeper issues. They also use it as a reason to laugh at life’s absurdities.

Relatability And Self Deprecation

This is a self-aware generation, and it shows in their comedy. Gen Z memes often reflect a self-deprecating style that pokes fun at this generation’s struggles, quirks and shortcomings. Because of this, we feel their memes have an undeniable sense of authenticity, fun and relatability.

Notably, while other demographics tend to get defensive when they are criticized, the comments on Zoomer memes tend to be more easygoing with Zoomers showing they know their own shortcomings and can joke right along with them.

Surrealism And Absurdity

Some people struggle with Gen Z memes because they don’t always follow a linear path. Instead, the memes they use embrace surrealism and absurdity. These random and unpredictable memes often cause raised eyebrows from other generations. Gen-Z doesn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing. They aren’t making memes to entertain or win approval from other generations.

Meme Mashups

If you pay attention to Gen Z memes, you will see that they play fast and loose with meme formats. It’s not unusual to see various references, classic memes, and formats mixed and matched into a single meme.

Nihilism And Dark References

This is a demographic of young adults that is facing the dark realities of climate change, economic devastation, and unmitigated mental health issues. It isn’t surprising that they use dark humor as a joke and a crutch to cope with life.

Niche or Hyper-Specific Memes

Some funny memes from Gen Z are difficult to get because they are made for a very specific subculture. This lack of broad appeal can create a sense of community. However, it can frustrate older generations who may find the memes frustrating or weird rather than funny. Those who dislike this approach are well-advised to stay out of the comments as they will quickly find those to be even more esoteric than the original joke.

Most Popular Gen Z Meme Formats

Meme formats are structures or templates used to create memes. A format might be an image or collection of images arranged in a specific structure. That is then customized with text to send the desired message. Here are some of the most popular formats for this generation. Yes, many of these originated with Millennials.

Dank

Dank memes are intended to be absurd and nonsensical. They are often based on inside jokes and use distorted or grotesque imagery. Stonks are an example of this.

Format Memes

Drakeposting is one of the most popular of these memes. So is Galaxy brain. Both involve someone using a familiar format to express disapproval and approval of a different but related concept found in the same meme.

Reaction Meme

A reaction meme centers around someone having a reaction to something. The context of the meme can change depending on what that something means. For example, in the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme, the girlfriend reacts with a mixture of shock and annoyance when she catches her boyfriend looking at another woman. Captions are used to add context and sometimes different faces are superimposed over the original boy and girls in the meme.

Video

Some funny memes aren’t cartoons or graphics. They are videos. This includes vine compilations and TikTok trends. To be funny memes, they need to be in short format.

Text-Based

Just like the name implies these are memes that rely mostly on text to communicate a point about something. They may be extracted from existing web content that is trending, like a post in a Twitter thread. Another example of these is the incorrect or misattributed quote. For example, a quote that accompanies an image of a celebrity.

Relatable

Some memes unit people who are part of the same social group. These include “How it Started Vs. How It’s Going” and “Starter Packs”.

Event Memes

Sometimes a meme is born out of a single event. They express a unified reaction to that event, or they use that event as a means to comment on a serious problem or particular issue or matter of relevance. One of these is the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap. Once an event has been memorialized this way, you can be sure people won’t forget it.

Related reading: 15 Gen Z Slang Terms for Love and Romance

Sociopolitical Issues And Gen Z

Gen Z often uses funny memes as a way to comment on their life challenges and concerns. Here are some of the sociopolitical issues that are common themes.

The Climate

Gen Z often posts memes about climate change and pollution, often with a fatalistic sentiment. Gen Z environmentalist Greta Thunberg is a common fixture in these comments. Climate-themed memes often reflect a divide between Gen Z, the stereotypical boomer, and Zoomers. They express frustration at the world that has been left to them, and at the way older generations ignore or even mock their concerns.

Late Stage Capitalism

These are another common topic in memes that reflect a sore spot between Gen Zers and older folks. Often, they address low wages, student debt, high rents, and how out of touch older folks are when talking about people who are struggling.

Mental Health

This group has picked up the work where Gen-Y left off in normalizing conversations about mental illness. Mental health memes address going to therapy, taking meds, confronting past traumas, and fighting off dark thoughts. The difference this time is that this demographic tends to relate to memes that are a bit darker.

Political Critique

This is a demographic of kids that is absolutely frustrated with the political system. They may lean progressive, but largely distrust mainstream politicians and media. Their memes and comments on politics often point out hypocrisy and dishonesty in politics today.

Technology And Privacy

Gen Z has a very fatalistic view of the world of tech and privacy. They see tech entrepreneurs as power hungry oligarchs with few meaningful limits on what they can do. They also see government as both participating in and facilitating a widespread loss of privacy. This is seen in the “My FBI Agent” memes which suggest that each person has a long-suffering government agent who stays busy keeping tabs on their mundane behavior and life.

Related reading: Are You a Dry Texter? Change Your Ways!

Younger Vs. Older Generations

When it comes to memes, Gen Z and Millennials often go at one another like siblings who are too close in age. However, there are times when both remember that they have shared enemies among boomers and Gen X.

Generational Differences in Memes

Make no mistake Generation Z and Millennials have more in common than they have differences. Still, the differences that do exist are significant. Let’s dive into the ones that divide young people and not so young people.

Platforms

TikTok is where it’s at for Zoomers. Many are also hanging out with Gen Alpha on Discord as well. They also use Instagram, Snapchat, and to a much lesser extent, Facebook.

While Millennials treat Facebook with disdain, they still spend time there. They join with kids in Gen Z to spend some time on Instagram and Snapchat every day. However, while Zers are active on Discord, Millennials are sharing memes on Reddit.

Meme Formats

Some formats are timeless and widely understood. These are used across generations. The difference between Gen Y and Z is that Gen Z tends to place fast and loose with meme formats. Additionally their memes often cycle in and out of popularity quickly. This is often because someone will post a meme and have it go viral quickly, then just as quickly the moment is over.

Millennials tend to stick with classic formats, still images, and captions. They are the gen that popularized the likes of rage comics and advice animals.

Pop Culture References

Folks born in the late eighties thru the nineties tend to look to nostalgia when creating internet memes. They often focus on the tv shows, music, movies, and fashion trends that defined their middle school and high school years.

Generation Z is mostly influenced by internet culture. They focus on trending content, viral videos, and current events that impact them the most. They tend to produce and distribute memes at a rapid fire pace, even inserting them into the comments.

Sense of Humor

Both generations prefer dark, sarcastic comedy. Millennials tend to use linear jokes while Gen-Z embraces absurdity, nihilism, and surrealism.

Boomer And Gen X Memes

Boomer humor is often mocked for its tendency to be reductivist, schmaltzy, and out of touch with life. Some of the common themes like the joke, “I hate my wife” or implications that younger generations are spoiled and entitled are rightfully criticized. They also tend to target segments of the population they feel are inferior to them like fast food workers or overworked sales clerks. On the other hand, an honest look at their memes also reveals a sweet sentimentality and a desire to provide lightness and comic relief.

Meanwhile, Gen X tends to focus on shared childhood experiences, early independence from tech, and musical nostalgia. Much of what they share also reflects what they see as incompetence around them (e.g. “You Had One Job” or “why are you booing me? I’m right!”). They tend to be critical of younger generations, buying into the notion of the lazy Millennial. However, boomers receive equal treatment when it comes to neglectful parenting, destruction of the planet, and a sense of entitlement.

Related reading: Funny Relationship Memes to Help You Get Through

Final: Funny Memes to Enjoy

Here are those memes we promised. We hope you enjoy looking at them. We certainly laughed while selecting them.

Emily in Paris

Boomer V Millennial V Z-er

Self Deprecating

Vlad The Inhaler

Expanding Brain

Drakeposting Meta

Distorted Spongebob

I’m Gonna Tell my Kids

Don’t Remember Asking