Draft Jokes and Drone Strikes: The Dark Humor of a Doomed Generation

WWIII Is Trending Again—And Gen Z Is Laughing Through It

By Olivia Julianna

It’s been splashed across every major news outlet in recent weeks: President Donald Trump was on the verge of launching the United States into another forever war; this time with Iran. Politicians and pundits quickly drew comparisons with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Even Trump’s usual allies, such as Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, voiced strong opposition, warning that the country was on the brink of repeating one of its greatest foreign policy failures.

So, when news broke that Trump had followed through on his threats and ordered airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan—the media went into overdrive. TV panels, op-eds, and official statements flooded the airwaves, many framing the move as the beginning of a new global conflict.

Democratic leaders responded swiftly. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned Trump’s decision to bypass Congress and demanded a full briefing with concrete evidence of an imminent threat—a prerequisite for a president to legally override Congress’s war powers. Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) went a step further, filing articles of impeachment against Trump for abuse of power.

While lawmakers debated the justification needed to wage war and potential global fallout, a carnivalesque conversation was unfolding online.

In the digital world, young Americans responded with memes and dark humor. TikToks and tweets joked about getting drafted for WWIII, dodging recruiters, and how to survive nuclear fallout. Outsiders might peg the reaction as apathy. It’s not; it’s a coping mechanism. For a generation raised on the internet and shaped by crisis, nihilistic humor isn’t just comedy, it’s emotional survival.

When the bombs dropped in Iran, the shock was palpable—especially among young people. For Gen Z, whose worldview can be heavily influenced by social media, their first response wasn’t silence or panic—it was memes. Not because they don’t care, but because that’s how they cope.

Some of the memes were shallow and insensitive. One gif showed a person dancing behind the words “Fat people can’t be drafted, we’re saved!” paired with a GIF of a person dancing, or jokes about people with mental illness being exempt from service. These jokes walk the line between darkly humorous and tasteless.

Yet scattered among the crude jokes were others that, when unpacked, revealed deeper cultural critiques. Like all good comedy, the viral memes took something rooted in reality and stretched it to absurdity. Viral memes about military recruiters using Call of Duty kill/death ratios to enlist soldiers played off the U.S. military's use of video games to enhance recruitment figures. That overlap between gaming and military culture isn’t imaginary. In 2002, following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Army released America’s Army, a first-person shooter game designed explicitly as a recruitment tool. The game, in all its iterations, was downloaded over 42 million times. Furthermore, the Army has its own esports team. Originally launched in 2019, the team focuses on games such as Overwatch, Call of Duty and Halo and is made up of active-duty soldiers and reserve members.. For many young people who are enthusiastic about video games—particularly young men—the team is an effective advertisement for military service.

So how did Gen Z arrive at a place where dark humor is the go-to language for coping?

Part of the answer lies in our generational perspective—but a larger part comes from the digital ecosystem that raised us. For many of us, war wasn’t a chapter in a history textbook—it was background noise. We were born after 9/11 and raised during the War on Terror. We saw it play out on TV, and, later, on our phones—through YouTube videos, memes, and TikToks casually calling George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden “war criminals.”

As the Afghanistan and Iraq wars dragged on, technology advanced. Algorithms started feeding us a never-ending stream of tragedy—airstrikes, mass shootings, refugee crises, and political collapse—all just a scroll away. Over time, the shock wore off. We didn’t stop caring, but our brains aren’t wired to process that level of constant, unfiltered suffering.

That desensitization doesn’t stop at war. It extends to every facet of modern life: school shootings, climate disasters, economic instability, and the healthcare system failing in real time. It’s in the GoFundMe pages that go viral because someone is begging strangers to pay for cancer treatment. It’s in Supreme Court decisions that threaten basic rights. The trauma is everywhere, and social media turns it into content.

For Gen Z, dark humor isn’t a sign that we don’t care. It’s often a sign that we care too much in a world that never shuts off.

Dark humor offers a way to confront overwhelming realities—like death, injustice, or war—without collapsing under the weight of them. It provides emotional distance, a sense of control in powerless situations, and, importantly, a sense of connection. Humor helps people bond over shared pain and generational disillusionment. Sometimes, it’s easier to say, “I’m dead inside” than to admit you’re struggling—but the truth still lives in the joke.

Still, coping mechanisms come with consequences. When the only way Gen Z knows how to process trauma is through jokes, it risks turning tragedy into entertainment. The same systems that push people toward humor as a defense also commercialize and commodify pain. In that cycle, we risk further desensitizing ourselves to the suffering we’re trying to survive.

If dark humor becomes our only way of engaging with trauma, it can stunt healing and emotional growth. It fosters a casual relationship with hardship—one that can dull empathy and make it harder to process real-world suffering. In that way, dark humor isn’t just a response to the problem, it becomes part of the problem.

That doesn’t mean the answer is to scold young people for how they cope. Mocking or lecturing Gen Z won’t change reality. But it does mean we should think more intentionally about how we talk about pain and allow space for something more than irony. Coping with humor is valid—but healing also requires room for seriousness, softness, and collective care.

Olivia Julianna is a Texas Democratic Strategist and Gen Z firebrand. She is an abortion rights activist, democracy organizer, and political influencer. With over 1 million followers across TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, her content has accumulated over 1 billion views, changing the political landscape and putting youth voices front and center in the fight for our future.