Everyone's trying to be funny.

Way back in the day - when the internet was young and social media was not so popularized - blog posts and posts anywhere in general were not as forcefully funny as they are now.

This isn't a diss by any means! I would love to be as funny as internet people, I just don't have the skillset. I'm an average replier and commenter, and that's just how life is.

The difference in how people present themselves is very interesting. About me pages were all the rage with likes/dislikes and favorite bands (now pinned posts with links), people wrote in a vastly different way and internet slang wasn't everyone's universal language (no bros, yass queens, or slays! just some lols and lmfaos). Maybe that's why I think so many people are funny now - internet slang is ever evolving but adaptable and flexible.

A turning point might have been the creation of Vine. Allowing anyone to make videos but giving people such a drastic constriction (6 seconds! what a world we lived in) forced funny people to be funny quicker - it was either that or no punchline at all. Twitter's constriction came in writing (140 characters? insane) and notably is where I think many people failed to be as funny back then. But, again, the forced brevity in interactions and content creation feels to me as a reason why humor has become more prevalent everywhere and by everyone. If people can learn how to be funny in one sentence, then more people will say funny things more often, and those things get shared, and eventually I will see the things and laugh, which will put me right back at the beginning of this post, ad infinitum.

I wonder if brevity and internet slang is the winning formula that tickles my funny bone, or if it's something else unreachable to me at this point. All I know is, everyone is trying - and succeeding - at being funny online.

Except me, of course. But hey, someone has to be in the audience!