So when Schumer, in a set that aired on her show, comments with purposeful nonchalance that “we’ve all been a little bit raped,” she may be making viewers laugh. But she is, much more importantly, making us squirm. She’s daring us to consider the definition of “rape,” and also the definition of another word that can be awkward in comedy and democracy alike: “we.” She’s making a point about inclusion and exclusion, about the individuality of experience, about the often flawed way we think about ourselves as a collective. This is comedy at only the most superficial level; what it is, really, is cultural criticism.

So is the work of Key and Peele, who make productive fun of racial politics. And of Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, who make fun of a culture that’s obsessed, at varying levels of ingenuousness, with authenticity. And of Sarah Silverman, who makes fun of religion. And of Patton Oswalt, who makes fun of civilization. And of Louis C.K., who makes fun of himself. And of Nick Kroll, who explored the deep cultural influences of reality TV. And of Stephen Colbert, who satirized the equally deep influences of partisan news networks. And of Jon Stewart and John Oliver and Larry Wilmore, who take the Roonian rant to its apotheosis, blurring whatever line there might be between “comedy” and “commentary.”

Which, on the one hand, puts the current crop of culturally influential comedians in league with pretty much any human who has ever, in the face of an awkward silence, decided to make a joke. The point of comedy has always been, on some level, a kind of productive subversion. Observational comedy, situational comedy, slapstick comedy, comedy that both enlightens and offends—these are forms of creative destruction, at their height and in their depths, and they’ve long allowed us to talk about things that taboos, or at the very least taste, might otherwise preclude. Long before Jon Stewart came along, there was Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers and George Carlin. There were people who used laughter as a lubricant for cultural conversations—to help us to talk about the things that needed to be talked about.

The difference now, though, is that comedians are doing their work not just in sweaty clubs or network variety shows or cable sitcoms, but also on the Internet. Wherever the jokes start—Comedy Central, The Tonight Show, Marc Maron’s garage—they will end up, eventually and probably immediately, living online. They will, at their best, go “really, insanely viral.” The frenzy to post a John Oliver rant after it airs on HBO has become a cliché at this point; its effect, though, is to create a kind of tentacular influence for an otherwise niche comedy show. Some people may watch Oliver’s stuff live, or DVRed; but most watch it while riding the bus, or waiting for a meeting, or eating a sad desk lunch, delivered via Facebook or Twitter or the Huffington Post. Most people watch Schumer’s stuff that way, too. And Wilmore’s. And Stewart’s. Comedy, like so much else in the culture, now exists largely of, by, and for the Internet.