Why Do People Say 'Conservatives Only Have One Joke'? The Common Internet Refrain Explained

For over four years now, there has been a prevailing sense, particularly in left-leaning online circles, that "conservatives only have one joke." It doesn't help that when people point this out to a person supposedly making the "one joke," they will often double down and make the same joke again.

But where did this memetic phrase and sentiment come from, and how did it first originate? Here's the history behind this curious internet axiom and why it's so prevalent online today.

What Is the 'One Joke' Conservatives Tell?

While it's not entirely accurate to say that conservatives only have "one joke," there is one punchline that many of them have repeated in various forms time and again. Basically, the punchline is that the idea that there are "more than two genders" is ridiculous.

The "one joke" axiom originated in an exchange between Ben Shapiro, Twitter user @9_Volt_ and a Shapiro fan. On May 12th, 2019, Ben Shapiro tweeted, "Happy Legal Guardian of Unspecified Gender Day!" This is a joke he had made multiple times on Mother's and Father's Days over the previous decade.

In response, @9_Volt_ remarked, "You guys have like one joke you tell over and over again." User @ArnavChopra11 then rebutted, "We have as many jokes as you do retarded genders," to which @9_Volt_ said, "This is the same joke again."

While the two jokes are obviously not identical, the target of the punchline is the same, as each attempts to show how ridiculous the idea is of there being genders beyond "male" and "female."

9_Volt_ wasn't only going after Shapiro with their initial salvo (though Shapiro was, in fact, telling a joke that he has repeated multiple times). Right-leaning online circles had been making jokes with essentially the same punchline as Shapiro's quip for years, to the point in which multiple memes spread with the same premise.

Among these are pretty common formats aimed at gender fluidity like "There are only two genders," the memetic phrase "I identify as an attack helicopter" and the catchphrase "Did you just assume my gender?"

How Has the Idea of the 'One Joke' Spread?

The exchange between 9_Volt_, Shapiro and the Shapiro fan seemed to prove in the minds of many that conservatives only have "one joke," and entire communities centered around pointing out this phenomena spread online in its wake.

For example, the subreddit /r/onejoke (now privated) has gained over 68,000 users since its creation. On September 4th, 2021, a Redditor in /r/forwardsfromgrandma posted an image of a man wearing a shirt that said they "identify as vaccinated," titling the post "/r/onejoke," with the post gaining over 3,300 points in two years.

Adding to the phenomenon, there have been multiple instances in which conservatives have been accused of only telling one joke, and then will respond with a variation on the same joke.

One such example occurred when a Twitter user pointed out that the right-wing satire site The Babylon Bee had run multiple headlines featuring the "one joke." Following this, conservative Twitter user and owner of The Babylon Bee Seth Dillon then tweeted, "We identify as funny," to which the account @ConSelfOwns remarked, "Literally one joke, still."

The Meme Today

In November 2023, The Daily Wire posted a trailer for a movie called Lady Ballers, a comedy based on the premise that men take advantage of the idea of gender fluidity to infiltrate and dominate women's sports.

Myriad figures who have been accused of hammering the "one joke" to death, including Shapiro, Matt Walsh and Ted Cruz, notably appear in the film.

The meme can also be seen as a lefty rebuttal to the claim that "The left can't meme," which spread during the mid-2010s — the same era memes like "attack helicopter" and "Did you assume my gender?" were popularized.

Comedy has become a site of an ideological battle in recent years, with the right, in particular, attempting to make headway in it (with mixed results — see "The right is getting better at comedy and it's making lefties nervous" meme).

There are, of course, myriad other jokes right-wingers commonly tell, but pronoun and gender-based humor have been a staple of many Republican politicians and talking heads for nearly a full decade at this point, which has made many onlookers both tired and seemingly able to boil down the entire right's scope of comedy to "one joke" as the axiom continues to spread.

For more information, check out the entry for "Conservatives have one joke" on Know Your Meme.