Serious What makes things "cringe"?

Setsuna

Setsuna

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    So before anything else, I don't know if this needs a serious tag but I'm unsure so I'm adding it to play on the safe side.

    Title pretty much says it all. I'm working on a project and need public opinions but I also just wanna have a discussion with people about it. Why do you think people see things as "cringy" or similar? Honestly this could be extended as far as why do people dislike things, if you wanna go that far.

    I feel like "cringe" is a term people throw around to describe things they dislike or think are strange, but tend to use it when they don't want to go in-depth about reasons, and would rather use it as a term to describe how they see something. I want to understand what those reasons are, and be able to fully talk about them.
     
    At this point, the word "cringe" is interchangeable with the idea of discomfort. While certain things can make someone cringe by virtue of being hard to swallow - such as surfing TikTok and finding nothing but Belle Delphine imitators, or thinking back to your middle school days - it's easier for someone to point at something they just don't understand and call it "cringe".

    Case and point: Whenever I hear people idolize internet personalities who play video games and not the video games themselves, I call it cringe. I find it as trashy as someone idolizing a goddamn Kardashian...
     
    I think it's meant to be something that gives you second hand embarrassment.
    Personally, as long as you aren't harming anyone, cringe away.
     
    Contrapoints has actually made a video on this very subject, which might be interesting for your project.

    Basically she posits there are two types of cringe: embarrassment cringe and contemptuous cringe.

    Embarassment cringe is cringing with someone: it's your secondhand embarassment type of thing, which is mostly harmless. On the other hand, contemptuous cringe has a more judgmental tone to it and in fact, when aimed at a person, is often based in some form of prejudice and/or insecurity - specially against people who aren't neurotypical.

    I don't think it's all coincidence that communities that indulge the most around the latter form of cringe - like 4chan, Kiwifarms, and so on - will often use slur, and attack anyone that tries to call them out.

    Now, while I do think the latter form of cringe can be nocive, and often is when taken to the extremes that those communities take, it's also relatively common and benign in moderation because it's in human nature to judge things.

    As an example, in this very thread we've had people essentially say that "liking a certain artform is cringe". While I do think it's an extremely reductive view of art - and I'm fairly certain they wouldn't like to have this judgement turned around on them - people do this all the time. It's mostly harmless as far as things go and most people would just classify it as a preference harshly stated instead of something more harmful or morally dubious.
     
    tbh I don't find much of anything cringy. I've always rather wanted to use the word uncomfortable, since I've always felt the word "cringe" has extremly negative connotations and don't wanna use it, so I don't.
     
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