Self-Deprecating Humor is Out. It’s Time to Self-Boast.

It seems that self-deprecating humor has been a long-standing pillar of comedy. You see it in your 90s sitcoms and in the past decade’s commercials.

You also see it today. Maybe now more than ever. It’s on Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, and it’s even in our daily conversation. And millennials and Gen Zs are the biggest offenders. Self-deprecation has become a way to be relatable to our generation.

It’s now cool to hate yourself, and that’s low-key toxic.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good self-deprecating joke and am guilty of it myself. But too much of a good thing can become a bad thing.

People use this type of humor to make fun of themselves and their flaws. I understand it — it makes them seem approachable and self-aware.

However, I think it’s led to a big problem. Millennials and Gen Zs have the highest rates of depression, anxiety and self-esteem issues. I’m not saying the frequency of self-deprecating jokes is the only cause of this phenomenon, but it’s certainly having an impact on its prevalence.

Dark humor is the result of deeper issues, but if you’re always laughing off those deeper issues, when and how will you be able to take steps to fix them?

They say that if you smile, you trick yourself into being happy. Let’s transition that same theory to our humor.

At its core, self-deprecating humor is making yourself the butt of the joke — being mean to yourself. Self-boasting humor is being nice to yourself, excessively so.

So if you’re always super nice to yourself and boast all the time, maybe you’ll start to believe it, too.

Some may ask, how do you make that into comedy? Where’s the joke? The thing is, there is no joke.

I’m just saying positive things about myself… Maybe because doing the opposite is so popular, that people think it’s just a quip?

I say things like this all the time:

“I’m the absolute best. There’s not anything I could do to make myself any better than I already am.”

“I’d love to say I never saw myself making it this far, but lying is the only thing I’ve ever been bad at in my entire life.”

“Wow, I’m so pretty. How haven’t I been discovered by a modeling agency yet?”

People laugh. They think I’m being ironic. Maybe the joke is — I’m not. I actually think this highly of myself, but they don’t need to know that.

Confidence is hot! If you’re not going to praise yourself, who will? Be proud of all your accomplishments and boast about everything that you love about yourself.

Self-deprecation is out. Self-boast!