I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the entertainment industry. It’s not really a novel realization, and it’s been hit on by quite a few critics and commentators, but it’s really beginning to bother me. Human creativity seems to be waning in such a dramatic way in recent years. There are so many formulaic attempts at comedy which seem to become cash cows. Look at how many hacks out there can say one funny line and suddenly make millions. It’s led me to believe that perhaps the real problem is we’ve just run out of good material. Look at all the re-hashing and lame attempts at remakes that have been drowning us recently. We’re living more off of nostalgia in these past couple of years than anything actually new.

I think the reason we end up laughing at jokes that are stale and were never really that funny to begin with is that after a while, you just have to laugh at something, even if you only laugh at it because of how stupid it really is. So much is aimed towards the lowest common denominator, and despite critical attempts to call attention to this landslide and calls to reverse this horrific decline of human wit, our entertainment is growing into an ever expanding cesspool of inane, over-recycled garbage.

So is the lack of humorous material a product of sheer laziness? If it sells, why put any real effort into it. Or are human beings just becoming stupider by the minute? Is creativity becoming a less and less truly understood concept? I don’t think so. It’s mostly in the mainstream that the decline is really having its effect. There is definitely a great deal of creative and talented individuals in the world. The trouble is most of their material comes from poking fun at or outright chastising the ever-degrading popular culture.

I’d like to think that we haven’t run out of good ideas. I’m not sure we have. But why have we become so lazy? I know there are plenty of directions I could go with this, but I just wanted to sort of sound off on this generally before I go off in a particular direction with any argument. But I am definitely seeing a lack of truly humorous material being produced, or perhaps I am truly missing something.