Thinking about it, there might be a modern obsession with comedy. Mainly memes and such. While comedy is meant to be easy and for the lowest denominator (which makes it widespread) it became apparent that people in this day and age are simply obsessed with it.
From my own experience I can tell barely anyone takes anything seriously especially those of the young cohort. While the youth has been forever apathetic and cynical the proportionality has massively increased.
Perhaps is it a symptom of helplessness? It is widespread these days as the belief in the power of the demos decreases. There is also the aspect of the fact that it's cheap and thus can be easily inoffensive. Most of the internet does operate under an attention- competitive economy. Being "funny" is an efficient way to garner attention so you would subconsciously gravitate towards being "funny".