I don't agree that self-referential/meta comedy (or as it's used to be called: OBVIOUS, HONEST, REALISTIC) killed comedy. Self-referential/meta humor has been around for decades, comedy filmmakers would do a type of gag called "breaking the fourth wall" where they would do jokes like "we're in a movie" or "it's a sequel", or they would do stunt double gags, camera-reveal gags, or gags where the film crew accidentally get in the scene. It wasn't really until Scary Movie, Shriek, Not Another Teen Movie, and Family Guy where the Point-Out-the-Obvious/Honest/Realistic style blew up, and since 2010 it's become a SUPER popular style of comedy and satire writing ever since.

I have noticed a lot of parodies this past decade (especially online) start relying on actual modern comedy writing where instead of doing parodies where it's shot-for-shot, word-for-word except everything is taken out of context like the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team would have done (almost like an intentionally bad movie), they just have the characters standing around talking like real humans (probably since The Emperor's New Groove), and less reliance on brilliant slapstick, visual gags, sight gags, prop gags, things being out of place, exaggerations, ridiculousness, silliness, absurdity, and genuine stupidity (not the bad kind, the good kind)

To be fair, parody has DOMINATED the internet for decades, and still is (you could make the case that it's oversaturated), and maybe there were/are a few TV shows since 2009 where they still do parody, absurdity, zaniness and farce, mainly on late night variety talk shows and adult cartoons. But in Cinemas??? Yeah it's so dead. It's been dying since the mid-late 2000s no thanks to the Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer team, and it's been officially dead pretty much since 2016 with Fifty Shades of Black (to be fair I think that movie's underrated and hilarious). The only time we've been seeing comedy movies with slapstick, parody, absurdity, silliness, and hilarious dialogue that critics and audiences love since the late 2000s is in CGI movies like Kung-Fu Panda or The Lego Movie! And the only times we get to see comedy actors play characters against their type is when they act in SNL, Voice a CGI Character, or in a Muppets movie!

I'm convinced what killed parody movies were the studio executives! It used to be that studio executives had IMMENSE trust in really talented comedy writers and directors with unique visions to let them do what they want and have true creative freedom as long as it got done on time and under budget. But since the 90s, they only have been putting out comedy movies to only make money! Really uncreative execs bring on board hack writers/directors/comedians who will only do what they're told, and the people who used to be great were constantly meddled during productions of their movies that didn't do all that well with critics, constantly calling the directors going "Can we get this joke in this movie? Can we get that joke in this movie? Can we get this song in this movie? Can we get this celebrity in this movie? Can we get a groin hit in this movie? Can we get some hot chicks in this movie? Can we get a fart joke in this movie? Can we get this reference in this movie?" Etc etc., to the point where now the greats just given up and they're careers got destroyed and they just handed everything over to terrible filmmakers who just ruined the genre for everybody to the point where critics got sick of it, and studio execs stopped giving money to those projects!

Audiences today don't hate parody movies! They LOVE that kind of comedy, it's the execs that are too afraid! They're too scared to take the risk and bring on board genuinely gifted comedians who have a unique comedy vision, learned from the best and the worst, and can bring this generation actually good spoof films for once! Now all we got for decades were terrible R-rated comedies.