Vent: My nephew called my bumper stickers boomer humor

I was showing my 19 year old nephew my latest design at a family cookout last weekend. It's a play on a classic dad joke about vans and parking spots. He looked at it for like 5 seconds and said 'this is just boomer humor, it's not even clever'. That hit different because I thought it was pretty solid wordplay. Made me realize maybe I've been recycling the same joke structure for 15 years without noticing. The sticker market has changed too. People want shorter punchlines or straight up visual gags now, not a whole sentence long pun. Has anyone else had a younger person give your design a reality check? What did they say and did it change how you write?

2 comments

2 Comments

lily3941mo ago

Read an article a while back about how humor cycles get shorter and shorter with each generation. Said boomer humor is basically any joke that relies on a setup, a pause, then a punchline. Younger folks grew up on memes where the joke is right there in the image, no setup needed. Maybe your nephew just wants the punchline faster, not the whole story. I'd try running your next batch of designs by someone under 25 before you print them.

lewis.drew1mo ago

Yeah but did you ask him what he WOULD find funny? Like did he give you any examples of stickers he actually likes or just shit on yours and bounce?