Every generation has their pop-culture gods.
For the Boomers, it was rock stars like Mick Jagger and John Lennon. For Gen X, it was pop stars like Madonna and Michael Jackson. For Millennials, it is comedians. In a recent interview with Vulture’s Good One podcast, comic Jay Jurden spoke with host Jesse David Fox, where Fox challenged Jurden: “Defend being a millennial.”
His defense? Millennials are the generation that forever changed comedy.
“Ooh, millennials, we’re the generation that made you become better at comedy,” Jurden replied. “There is no comedy boom without millennials. So, if you want to get famous from standup, from sketch, from internet videos, millennials are the only reason that is an income source.”
That might sound like a bold statement if you grew up loving the standup of people like Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin. They were at the top of the standup world, famous in the way rock stars were—but Jurden’s point becomes sharper with some context.
In Ken Jennings’ book Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture, the author cited a 2012 study about how people define themselves. That Nielsen survey found that 88 percent of millennials do that through their sense of humor. Furthermore, 63 percent would rather be stuck in an elevator with their favorite comedian, rather than their favorite athlete or musician.
That Planet Funny info lends credence to Jurden’s point, which he continued to expound on for Fox.
“If you think a Millennial cringe comedy is terrible, some of it is, some of it is, but you have to thank us for creating a landscape that both focused on comedy being popular and made comedy better,” Jurden continued. “Everyone’s comedy acumen now is higher because of Millennials. So, you have more discerning taste because of us, because of 30 Rock, because of those years at SNL, because of Lonely Island, because of the fact that late night shows started to be like, we have to be pretty good now. We can’t just have a guy come on with snakes all the time. We love snakes, but we have to write some sketches.”
When Millennials came of age, their personalities, interests, spending habits, consumer behaviors—all of it was shaped by comedy far more than previous generations. Now, as Gen Z take the mantle of shaping dominant culture, it might best time ever to make it as a comedian. It is easier than ever to find an audience in the digital age. As Daily Show host and stand-up Josh Johnson recently pointed out on Trevor Noah’s podcast What Now, there’s no need to be “number one” in comedy in 2025. Instead, you just need to find your own crowd who will stream your specials, engage with your TikToks, and buy tickets to your shows.
Unlike Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Millennials didn’t grow up consuming comedy through algorithms that hand fed you. As Fox said, “not having algorithms,” to curate your consumption based on what you like, but instead just having to turn on Comedy Central and just watch whatever was on because you like stand up, developed a Millennial appetite for comedy that grew a small segment of the entertainment industry into a major stakeholder.
Jurden clarified that a lot of the comedy consumed by Millennials featured Gen X talent. That intake and obsession with comedy is a-now permanent ripple in our society. “There’s a reason why people go every month: ‘These are my favorite clips from 30 Rock. These are my favorite Key & Peele sketches.’ cuz it’s not going away,” Jurden continued.
Comedy is now so ingrained in our society that it has even changed advertising. A 2022 study from Ipsos revealed that 81 percent of consumers like when brands use humor. In fact, comedy is so central now that 80 percent of respondents would also see a brand “in a more positive light if they partnered with their favorite comedic content producer,” the study noted. For Gen Z and Millennials specifically, that stat jumps up to 90 percent.
There’s also just more comedy available to consume now versus even just a decade ago. A 2024 report from Bloomberg noted that standup comedy has nearly tripled in size, from a revenue standpoint. In 2012, gross revenue from touring stand up comedians in the US was $371.4 million. In 2023, it was $909.6 million.
“When I started, there were three or four active comedians who could fill even a small theater,” Mike Berkowitz, the co-head of comedy at talent agency WME, told Bloomberg. “Now there’s hundreds.”
A lot of this boom can’t exclusively be credited to Millennial consumption habits; while that generation might be the most likely to define themselves through their sense of humor, it’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Just one year after the Nielsen study came out revealing Millennials’ sense of self is primarily understood through what they laughed at, Netflix started funding new stand up specials.
In 2013, the streamer giant purchased specials from Mike Birbiglia, Iliza Shlesinger and Aziz Ansari. By 2017, the platform released 50 or more specials per year, effectively changing the entire stand-up market. Now with Reels and TikTok, finding new comedians has become even more accessible—and YouTube has allowed comedians to build entire followings and make a living from just posting on that platform.
Millennials can’t get the credit for sole credit for changing the comedy industry, as Jurden’s defense suggested. But it is clear that without the “cringe humor” generation, there would have never been a market for the boom—tech and otherwise—that comedy now benefits from.
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