Are high Ethereum gas fees a joke?

I'm an ETH hodl investor and don't do much transferring and/or exploring Ethereum Dapps. So, my only encounter with Ethereum gas fees has been social media where people will say things about network congestion and unbelievable gas fees. Today, out of curiosity, I went and figured out how many gwei 1 ETH is, and how much the gas fees are in USD. It's a tiny transaction fee!

Is this some kind of running gag in the Ethereum community to make a big deal of it?