What is Cringe?

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A word that gets constantly thrown around these days is Cringe! What does it mean though?

What is the meaning of Cringe?

In plain English, cringe is the feeling of second-hand embarrassment. It’s how you feel watching a person doing something that they are really bad at, but think they are the best and are smug about it.

Someone trying too hard to be cool and failing at it is also incredibly cringy for example. Big corporations or church trying to be hip and cool often comes off as cringe as well.

There is a lot of cringe content on the internet. Below is a list of some of the most popular cringe we see everyday.

People posting selfies of them crying

Where do I even start with this? Let’s look at this objectively. So you have a bad day and for some reason, you start crying since it’s just too much to hold it in. At what point do you go, “wait, you know what would make this situation marginally better? If I post a picture of me crying on social media.” Turning a private grief moment into a selfie opportunity? Now that’s real creativity.

Taking a selfie would be the last thing on their mind if a person goes to the point where they’ve been brought to tears. But for people who are in desperate need for attention all the time, it’s just another day.

People recording themselves doing something generous

The whole of the internet is full of these videos where people go up to people to help them and record them. Most of the time however it feels like those people are being helped just for the sake of views. It just feels too cringeworthy.

Don’t get me wrong, people getting helped for whatever reason should be appreciated. The whole thing looks so much cringe is all. Most of the time the camera lingers on to their faces almost asking them to cry and be thankful. It’s just so uncomfortable to watch someone’s poverty being used for fake points on the internet. This Gus Johnson video comes to mind whenever I see these types of videos.

A lot of Tik tok and Instagram

The mother of all cringes is TikTok videos of teenagers doing incredibly stupid things in the name of prank and fun. TikTok cringe needs no other explanation, you just have to watch some of it to understand what it’s all about.

There is something incredibly uncomfortable watching kids do stupid things online and other millions of kids finding it funny. Not just stupid, TikTok is filled with a lot of sexist videos that make kids think of them as normal.

Videos of people caught lying

When we watch someone lying and getting caught we tend to feel fear and cower down a little. Them getting caught would certainly not do any harm to us but we still experience a little sense of fear. Have a look for yourself.

Videos/ pictures of guys biting their lips, trying to be sexy

My blog will not have pictures of guys biting their lips. Go search and see for yourselves.

There is just too much cringe on the internet and if written in detail, this whole website would be about them. I’ll instead just list some I think are in the ballot hall of fame.

This song and most pop songs, if you listen to their lyrics

George W Bush speaking in Public

There is so much cringe online that it’s unavoidable. It is almost everyday that you come across it in one form or the other. So watch out for it and run as far as you can on the first contact or enjoy it. Whatever floats your boat!

if you want more cringe content then I suggest going over to r/crintopia and r/fellow kids on Reddit.

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