Does the Humor Essay Still Matter?
You have to be a little unwell to write a humor essay. Not wild-eyed or quirky. Just quietly off. The kind of person who notices that vending machines always have the same hum no matter where you are, and then wonders what that hum’s been trying to say all these years.
It’s not about jokes. Not really. Jokes are easy. Set-up, punchline, move on. A humor essay is slower than that. Stranger. It hangs around too long and notices the weird way people say “no worries” when they clearly have some. It points at the ordinary and says, “You see that? That’s insane, right?” Then it sits down next to you and doesn’t leave.
This isn’t stand-up. It’s not banter. There’s no stage here. Just a page and someone behind it who can’t quite let something go. A duck. A neighbor. A waiting room. Whatever it is, it won’t stop buzzing.
The good ones start small. Something harmless. A badly-designed soap dispenser. A dog that won’t stop barking three houses down. Then it starts to spiral. Not upward… outward. And somewhere between the rant and the tangent, you realize this isn’t about soap or dogs. It’s about being a person. About how weird and hard and funny that is. How lonely it gets sometimes, even in a crowded grocery store.
A humor essay doesn’t ask for a laugh. It just hopes for a nod. The kind where your mouth says “huh” and your brain says “yep.” It doesn’t try to fix anything. It just sits with it. Points at the mess and shrugs, like, same.
There’s a tone to it. Wry. Tired but not bitter. Like someone who’s seen too much customer service training and still believes in basic decency. Sometimes it tilts toward sharp. Other times it lands on something that stings a little and doesn’t back away. But even then, it’s trying to connect, not correct.
People treat humor like it’s disposable. Like it’s what you do when you’re not doing something serious. But it’s the opposite. Humor is how we handle what’s too weird, too painful, or too stupid to carry around unwrapped. It doesn’t announce its importance. It just shows up in the middle of everything and says, “Here’s what I noticed. Maybe you’ve noticed it too.”
And in a time where everyone’s shouting or selling or self-optimizing, a good humor essay still finds a side door. No hashtags. No hot takes. Just something quietly human. A crack in the wall where a little light gets in.
So yeah. It still matters.
Even if no one’s laughing.
Especially then.