By the 1880s, the genre had created some rules for defining itself:

Minimal costuming, often focusing on the female form.
Sexually suggestive dialogue, dance, plotlines and staging.
Quick-witted humor, lacking complexity.
Short routines or sketches, with minimal plot cohesion across a show.
In the 1930s, a social crackdown on burlesque shows led to their gradual downfall. The shows had slowly changed from ensemble ribald variety performances, to simple performances focusing mostly on the strip tease. The advent of various forms of pornography gradually replaced titillation.

In the 1990s and 2000s, there has been a large-scale revival of burlesque in the United States and Canada with "New Burlesque" performers like Dita Von Teese, Grotesque Burlesque, Dirty Martini, Kitten DeVille, Miss Saturn, Miss Indigo Blue, Sparkly Devil, Little Brooklyn, and troupes such as Fluffgirl Burlesque, The Boston Babydolls, Burlesque As It Was, The Velvet Hammer, Starshine Burlesque, and Burlesque Houston staging burlesque events. Annual burlesque festivals include the New York Burlesque Festival, Tease-O-Rama, The Great Boston Burlesque Exposition, Miss Exotic World and the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival. "New Burlesque" evolved out of the exotica/lounge music revival of the 1990s, which generated an interest in lost American pop culture.

This interest in burlesque has permeated mainstream pop culture, leading such bands as Panic! At the Disco to include burlesque performers in their videos and stage show.