Is 9/11 a punchline to Gen Z? Experts weigh in

SALT LAKE CITY ( KTVX ) — Content creator Kaeli Dance has seen a new trend emerge on social media in the last few months. The punchline? The Twin Towers falling on 9/11.

She described the trend as a “bait and switch” joke in which social media users will say, for example, ‘gym bros in 2024’ and describe a normal day, then switch the caption to ‘gym bros in 2001’ and show them staring at a TV with actual footage from 9/11.

“This sort of bait and switch joke seems very drastic, as if the graveness and the seriousness of those deaths is not being respected,” she said.

A few months ago, a Reddit user posted in the Xennial subreddit, which is mainly for people born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, asking if users thought 9/11 jokes were funny. One user responded by saying their Gen Z son jokes about 9/11.

“I don’t think the whole generation is stupid but I clearly failed somewhere,” they wrote.

“When 9/11 becomes fodder for someone that doesn’t really understand that day, that’s when it stops being funny,” said another Redditor.

Comedic videos and memes referring to the 9/11 tragedy in 2001 are not new to the internet. However, trends such as “they hit the second tower” or “people in 2024 vs 2001” have put a dark-humored spotlight on the tragedy in recent months.

This has caused a divide between those engaging in the trend and those who find it offensive, in bad taste, and even disturbing.

Gen Z’s use of dark humor

Experts say recent trends surrounding 9/11 are primarily made by Gen Z users, and that while jokes may be offensive to older generations, the content is likely not created with malicious intent. Rather, it is being used as a way to cope with the world.

Professor Avery Holton , the chair of the Department of Communications at the University of Utah , said three factors likely play into the surge of 9/11 memes in recent years.

First, he said the majority of people who post this content were very young or not alive in 2001, meaning there’s distance between themselves and the tragedy. This leads to the next factor of historical connectivity — or seeking to connect to a historical event in order to make sense of it.

He said it’s interesting to watch people who were not alive at the time of the terrorist attack plant “themselves within the conversation” to better make sense of the tragedy. Holton said this can “actually bring [the event] back to the forefront so that it’s not forgotten and it still remains something that we talk about.”

Finally, he said dark humor is a way this younger generation has learned to process the tragedies they see through social media on a daily basis, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Gen Z is just more exposed to all sorts of events, good and bad, but especially those that are negative on a daily basis,” he said. “One of the ways to cope with that is humor, whether we agree with that or not.”

While Holton said he does not believe this form of processing is wrong or inherently offensive, he recognizes dark humor is better understood by younger generations as a way of communicating and creating community, and older generations may see it differently and find it to be harmful.

Holton suggested having open conversations about social media content and trying to “see through generational lenses.” He said social media is just a platform that reflects those lenses and differences.

Educators role in remembering 9/11

Now, 23 years after the 9/11 terrorist attack, some educators are first-hand witnesses to this generational divide.

Shawn McLeod, the principal at Hidden Valley Middle School in Jordan, Utah, said students see the tragedy as “history book information as opposed to something that happened in real life.”

For that reason, he has enacted programs and morning ceremonies in his schools for more than a decade to recognize the day and help students “get an experience,” or as Holton said, connect with an event to make sense of it.

“As an administrator, I felt like it was important to talk about it and do something to pay tribute,” McLeod said.

Andrea Stringham, a spokesperson for the Granite School District, covering a large portion of Salt Lake County, said the greatest shift they are seeing now in regard to 9/11 is that many newer teachers have no memory of the event, which may lead to a variation in teaching across classrooms. Regardless, she said, “It’s still being talked about, still being discussed.”

Dance mentioned that the latest 9/11 trend has videos with millions of views and high engagement. While the majority of comments on these videos tend to be humorous reactions, not all Gen Z users see eye to eye.

For Dance, this is not a trend she chose to partake in.

“At the bottom of it all, I think that empathy gives us our humanity, I think that empathy is what makes us human,” she said. “And so if there’s a joke that is taking us away from empathy, I don’t want to be a part of it.”

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