Ask someone to tell you a joke. A Boomer will probably talk about how he’s such a harassed husband. A Millennial might joke about low-rise jeans and The Simpsons. Gen Zs will ask you to check the 10,000 unopened Reels they already sent you. A Gen Alpha might say something like skibidi toilet or 6-7 (and fall over themselves laughing, because the butt of the joke is you, who didn’t get it).
In 2026, we’re laughing differently. Jokes are absurd, self-deprecating, and don’t make sense if you aren’t chronically online. So, what do we find funny now, and who are we laughing at? Pick your fighter: Bwahaha, LOL, Lmaoooo, or a string of skull emojis. Oh, yes, we’re laughing at death, but not in the way you think.
The source
Then: Siddhi Palande, a book blogger, recalls spending the summer holidays with her cousins in the ’90s, passing around pun books and Tinkle Comics, and making each other laugh. “We’d memorise the best puns and punchlines to tell later on, and earn a reputation for being witty.” Everyone read some version of 101 Jokes for Kids or 100 of the Punniest Jokes of All Time or Life’s Like That in the Reader’s Digest. Their comic heroes: Suppandi and Shikari Shambu from Tinkle Comics. The agents of chaos: PG Wodehouse’s Wooster and Khushwant Singh’s Santa-Banta.
Now: We’re not telling jokes, we’re sharing them. “Young people prefer humour with heavy visuals rather than verbal or written jokes,” says Khyrunnisa A, who created Butterfingers for Tinkle. The laughs are drawn from reaction GIFs, movie stills, everyday moments that we all thought were unique to us but weren’t really, even referencing a shared annoyance: “Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday”. Are we all living the same life? Seem like we do, and that’s funny. Meanwhile, “Indian parents are still getting a kick out of forwarding bad jokes” on WhatsApp, says comedian Aditi Mittal (@AddyMitzy).
The drama
Then: The Great Indian Laughter Challenge (2005-2017), one of India’s first televised live comedy shows, had Raju Srivastav and Sunil Pal making fun of arranged marriages and lampooning Sardarjis. Kapil Sharma’s show had cross-dressing characters such as simpleton wives and raunchy old ladies. “Mainstream TV comedy still does this,” says Mittal. “The jokes are aimed at older audiences, so it uses those exaggerated stereotypes because they enjoy it. But younger people prefer jokes that are observational.”
Now: Marriage jokes don’t cut it in an age where most people are struggling to even find the right partner. On Reels, women use the beard filter to describe Ways to Rage Bait a Cricket Obsessed Man; Gay influencers judge heterosexuals. Everyone hates on corporate life, capitalism and class divides.
The stereotypes
Then: It was a limited assortment: Henpecked husband, nagging wife, overworked engineer, topper student. Punjabis were loud; Goans tipsy. All of south India seemed to have the same accent and devotion to dosa.
Now: Heavy migration within India means we’ve seen through these one-dimensional sketches. “We’re all mocking the entitled building-society uncle and gym bros now,” says Mittal. Content creator Reenu Debnath @Reenu_Debnath, who has created some 60 eccentric urban characters, says people love jokes about the overthinking mom, the toxic bestie, the sus colleague, the rangoli-obsessed office HR, and the Gen Z diva who’s out of touch with reality. “You need to come up with a character that’s so specific that you feel you know someone like that,” says Debnath. “But it also has to be something people across communities can relate to.” Everyone’s favourite scapegoat: Gen Z. “Our style of speaking and mannerisms is easy to gently mock.”
Comedian Aanchal Agrawal (@Awwwnchal) makes jokes about growing up in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. “When I first started talking about life in a small town, I didn’t think so many people would relate to it,” she says. “Turns out, people love to feel seen, and say ‘Oh my God, that’s exactly me’.”
The formula
Then: The set up helped you get to the punchline.
Now: The punchline is the whole joke, says Khyrunnisa; the set-up is life itself. Laughing at a catchphrase or a shared cultural moment requires you to know the context, the lore, the history of memes themselves. It’s an #IYKYK moment, only the whole internet is in on it. The terms “galaxy brain moment” and “clock it” only make sense to the chronically online. And it’s fast. “You can’t lead with a big, dramatic setup anymore,” says writer Rohan Monteiro. Twitter’s brevity forced everyone to get to the point faster. Dally even for five seconds in a Reel now and the viewer scrolls away. On stage, if you drag out the set-up, even a paid audience will pick up their phones to seek something better.
The worldview
Then: In the late ’90s, Chris Rock would be on Saturday Night Live, joking about mall culture taking over America. Up until 2014, Jay Leno had hot takes on world news. Ray Romano joked about raising kids (”They use sleep deprivation to break you”). You listened to comedy shows to laugh at others, not yourself.
Now: A joke can now make light of childhood trauma, abuse, or poke fun at your failures, and it’s not TMI but the easiest way to make someone warm up to you. “Self-deprecation has levelled up,” says comedian Aanchal Agrawal, who spent her school life as a bullied outcast and has made it part of her routine. Even a current-affairs joke is from the common man’s POV. So, jokes about Meeting Your Favourite Pothole On Your Way to Work or Flexing Your LPG Cylinder. “More than ever, jokes are now a response to what’s happening, especially since our reality seems to be getting more ridiculous,” says Rachita Taneja, the cartoonist behind the Sanitary Panels comic strip. “If we don’t laugh at reality, we would cry all the time.”
The forbidden fruit
Then: In Flop Show (1989) and Full Tension (1994-1995), Jaspal Bhatti openly mocked government corruption and failed economic policies. On satellite TV, Shekhar Suman mimicked political figures in his late-night comedy show, Movers & Shakers (1997-2012).
Now: “If you target political or public figures, you never know what will happen,” says Taneja. But everything else is game. Gen Zs are making memes about the US-Iran war (GRWM for WW3!), the Epstein Files, or the Metro slab that collapsed in Mumbai in February, killing one and injuring three. “Sometimes you laugh at a joke and then pause and think, ‘Oh my God, this situation is actually terrible’.”
The shelf life
Then: Jokes would be told and retold for years. Grandpas had a repository of Knock-Knock wordplay, Little Johnny jokes, medical humour (“Doctor, why do I feel like a curtain?” “Just pull yourself together, you’ll be fine”), Rajinikanth and Confucius puns. Mittal loved the animal ones: “Somebody said you sound like an owl. The person replied, ‘Whooo?’”
Now: The algorithm decides what’s funny. “You see something online one week and laugh, and the next week it doesn’t work the same way,” says Palande. Everyone’s got eyes on everything, so the time to strike is always now. Jokes about Timothee Chalamet’s ballet comments won’t be interesting a month later. “Today’s humour is both instantly relatable and instantly forgotten.” Except for cats. No one’s tired of AI-generated kitty adventure-dramas yet.
From HT Brunch, March 21, 2026
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