TV isn't making us laugh anymore. 3 comedians tell us why.

In a sketch that opened the 2025 Emmy Awards, host Nate Bargatze pokes fun at the nominated series The Bear, calling it a “laugh-out-loud” comedy that is also a “heartbreaking look at the emotional toll of trauma.”

“That sounds like a drama, sir,” Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang responds.

“And yet it is not,” Bargatze replies. That’s the joke — there aren’t many jokes in The Bear at all. The comedian, and many disgruntled comedy fans on the internet, know that the series about a traumatized chef and his traumatized restaurant employees isn’t very funny, though it received six nominations as a comedy this year.

But unlike its previous years of total domination, The Bear didn’t win a single award this time around. Maybe that’s because it’s not as good as it used to be, or maybe people are getting sick of the fact that under current Emmy rules, anything can be a comedy as long as the producers say it is. Many of its potential wins went to more overtly wry entertainment industry satires Hacks and The Studio. Maybe The Bear is finally facing the consequences of the discourse that pops up every time it’s nominated: Comedy in general feels like it just isn’t that funny anymore.

I spoke with three comedians to pinpoint what’s behind the shift from belly laughs to shrewd cultural commentary. They shared their theories.

Theory No. 1: ‘Humor is actually quite objective’

The general feeling that comedy isn’t funny anymore is more than just an opinion — there’s evidence. Of the eight shows nominated in the Comedy Series category, none have laugh tracks. Only a few conjure laugh-out-loud runs of jokes. Most are just situationally awkward and amusing.

Michael Halcomb, a writing professor and stand-up comedian, doesn’t think comedy is subjective at all. He tells Yahoo that humor is not just a matter of taste — there’s structure to it.

“A joke can fail, just like a wrongly played note can,” he says. “Humor is actually quite objective. Now, whether individuals like certain types of humor or not, that's certainly subjective.”

Whether or not jokes land varies from person to person, but the fact that shows like The Bear are so lacking in jokes in general is impossible to avoid. Plenty of people don’t find Hacks hilarious, but it’s at least consistently attempting funniness, despite very seriously portraying the mentor-mentee relationship between its 2025 Emmy-winning stars Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder.

Some shows might have been designated comedies solely because they’re more likely to win in that category, or because their runtime doesn’t seem long enough to push them into the drama category, Halcomb says. Emmy nominees don’t necessarily reflect the entire state of comedy, but they are what the Television Academy has deemed prestigious. That reputation bears weight when it comes to what gets produced at studios and streaming services competing for clout, which can sustain a show even when it can’t compete with the ones churning out the most views — largely older, rewatchable series with familiar characters.

Theory No. 2: Comedy got less silly. Blame politics.

Going for laughs these days can feel like “walking a tightrope,” Halcomb says, as people try to avoid cultural land mines like stereotypes and offensive jokes that even outrageous comedies from the recent past like The Office and 30 Rock deployed. For what it’s worth, they won a combined 21 Emmys during their runs.

Maybe a fear of cancellation isn’t what’s driving comedy these days as much as a sense of duty.

Nate Clark, a sketch and improv comedian who’s now working toward a PhD in the political science department at UCLA, surveyed comedy writers during the summer of 2025 about the state of humor during President Trump’s second term.

Because of the time that it takes to write, film, edit and promote a show, there’s a clear delay between what audiences are clamoring for and what comedy writers produce for them, Clark tells Yahoo. That’s why there was a rash of prestige comedies in the last decade that appear more serious — because that seemed to be what the people were craving at the time.

In his survey, he found that comedians said they increased the sociopolitical messages in their writing.

“Even when comedy is not overtly political … they felt obligated to speak to the fears, cultural and social issues that we’re all sort of grappling with,” Clark says. “As a result, comedy got less silly … but there’s been a real pushback against that because audiences are so fatigued by the heaviness and the weight of that content. Audiences are, for better or worse, tired of it.”

Based on his recent conversations with comedy writers, Clark senses that “comedy is trending in a sillier direction.”

“People [living through] the second Trump administration are really fatigued, and they feel artistically constrained … because it feels impossible to satirize what's happening in society or politically because it's already so absurd,” Clark says. “They’re also personally and emotionally affected and weighed down by it, so they’re looking for more silly storylines.”

Theory No. 3: Forgetting the audience

Mary Houlihan, an actress, writer and stand-up comedian, says a bigger problem with comedy is the fact that people are “chasing power and prestige,” trying to win more awards by making the kinds of shows they know will appeal to Emmy voters, like series about “rich people being rich assholes.”

She’s baffled that people seem to have forgotten that 30 Rock, a show that is incessantly giggle-inducing, used to sweep at the Emmys a decade ago. Her theory is that the people making comedy TV just aren’t as scrappy anymore.

“I think comedy writers are richer than they used to be. They grew up rich and went to elite colleges … and haven’t had a lot of time mingling with mixed groups of people,” she says. “They haven’t had the survival day jobs where you’re … learning how to make everyone laugh.”

Houlihan was moved when Seth MacFarlane, the comedian behind some of her favorite comedies like Family Guy and American Dad, told Ted Danson on his podcast in August that he thinks TV should be more lighthearted and depict the kind of people you’d hope to someday be.

“We're not doing the best job right now telling those stories in a way that gives people hope,” MacFarlane tells Danson. He described driving down the street in Los Angeles and only seeing billboards for shows that were “dystopian, horror, negative [and] pessimistic.” That’s not the TV landscape he grew up with, and he’d like to get back to that.

To Houlihan, that’s the point of comedy. “We already know society is bad!” she says.

“I think life is hard, and when I do stand-up, I always think about how one person in this room had an awful day … and hopefully I can say something that makes them feel just a little better,” she continues. “That’s what TV is — for a bigger audience. People are tired. They have hard lives. Let’s give them something that makes it freaking bearable.”