I swear like 2-3 years ago I didn't find the 'adulting is expensive' humor that funny, but now I'm scrolling through Instagram Reels and TikTok and everything about affording rent, groceries, and literally anything else just hits different. Did something change about how we joke about money or am I just getting older and sadder?
I'd push back a bit - the jokes themselves haven't really changed, but your circumstances probably have, which means you're actually *living* the punchline now instead of laughing at it from a distance. Stuff hits different when rent actually ate your paycheck this month.
The cost of living actually spiked noticeably between 2021 and 2024, so it's not just you getting older - your rent, groceries, and utilities genuinely went up faster than your paycheck probably did. The trap everyone falls into is thinking this is purely about perspective shift, but there's real economics happening alongside the relatable humor: those jokes *do* hit different because the situations they describe got materially worse. You're not sadder for no reason - you're responding to something that actually changed in the world, not just in your head.
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