Don't Like - Repetitive Self-Referential Jokes

There’s been a terribly unfunny trend in comedy lately where someone makes a joke and then they, or someone else, makes a joke about the joke so that you can be sure that the joke was made. If that feels like a lot of work for a joke that’s because it is. And yet, this seems to be an incredibly popular way of making them right now. This fairly ubiquitous Volkswagen ad is an unfortunately good example of what I’m talking about. The idea of getting a kid to laugh by sitting in a car and having Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” automatically play could make for a nice laugh. However, it’s also the first thing you see in the ad. Next, you see Dad get into the car and he’s having a laugh because the kid is laughing and it makes him happy. But that isn’t that funny of a gag, so he keeps doing it over and over until the camera pans to Mom in the window as she gestures for them to leave. Finally, Dad gets in the car, the song plays one last time, and he drives away. Instead of ever building up to a moment and then having a punchline, the “joke” (if it can be called that) is made over and over again until the ad ends. A similar-style joke is made in Barbie when Barbie has to choose between a Birkenstock sandal and a high-heel stiletto to go to the real world. Instead of picking the Birkenstock, which is so clearly the obvious choice and the right place to end the joke, Barbie instead chooses the stiletto so that she and Weird Barbie can repeat the joke until the scene cuts. This style of humor is not just relegated to these two examples. It’s all over the place from Deadpool to Thor to A24 comedy horror movies to sitcoms to podcasts and more. This style is being done to death ad nauseam. What happened to just making the joke?