NiceMemes

After this morning, I’m convinced it’s a way to control us.

I was waiting in a line this AM for bagels. Place was going to open in 30 minutes and always had a line. This morning, the entire time I waited in line there was a very expensive AMG with its car alarm going off over and over, 6 or 7 times while we waited. People were pissed and complaining every time.

Eventually the dude came out of another coffee shop and I told him he needs to get his car alarm checked. He says “fuck off, it’s just my kids dude, who pissed in your coffee”. So this fucker had left his kids in the car while he got himself coffee, let the alarm blare 3 feet from a line of people, including kids.

I walked up to his window, looked him in the eye and told him he was being a dick, and should be more considerate to people in line, and maybe disable the alarm if he’s leaving his kids in the car. He just peeled out of there with a middle finger up.

The only people who said anything to me was “that was such cringe bro” and “lighten up man”.

So, despite people being pissed, and despite someone calmly trying to ask someone for grace, the only people who cared were the ones who thought I was unreasonable. So, it’s more acceptable to be a dick than it is to call someone out for it.

That cringe feeling can also be a self-defense mechanism. Cringe at yourself so you don't do the thing and make society turn on you.

The solution is to find people you can be open with. They ARE out there, I promise. For every subcategory of "weird", even the ones society hates.

(Of course, as you get more and more into "societally hated" territory, you'll need to find more and more fringe platforms to exist on. But they do exist. That's probably the most wonderful and most important thing about the internet.)

-- Frost

No it is a real emotion that I experienced well before I ever had a name for it. Sympathetic embracement is another word for it. The People Deciding that being happy is "cringe" are just miserable nihilists.

what if i only find hypernormativity cringe?

Don't get rid of the part of you that makes you cringe, get rid of the part of you that cringes.

You joke, but 'cringe culture' always has been and always will be a tool for the dominant elements of reactionary culture to reinforce normativity, punishing and othering anyone who doesn't conform.

The kids care. Look up “zombie concert crowds” - the kids don’t want to be “cringe” so they won’t DANCE AT CONCERTS. It’s wild to see

Watching a video or two of the phenomenon made me feel funny in my stomach

That’s exactly what I’d expect a bogan to say.

Its a long watch, but very much worth it IMHO.

Talks a lot about cringe and where that reaction can come from and why its worth pushing past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pt-hsvuakM

Unironically, yes. Someone using the word says everything about themselves rather than anyone else. The very thought of being uninhibited or "weird" makes them viscerally recoil, because they lack the strength and self-confidence to be open.

Often, yeah. Sometimes cringe is the result of trying too hard to be normal tho.

Counter point: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awT7o0gqgK8&pp=ygUdbWlsbGVubmlhbCBjcmluZ2UgY29tcGlsYXRpb24%3D

I care. Because other people's perceptions of me have a real impact on my life. It impacts the jobs I might get, the people I might date, the parties I might get invited to, and the people who might want to be my friends.

The thing about being weird and quirky is that it is art - and bad art is not appealing to almost anyone. A good "quirkiness" needs to hang together - it needs to have good execution, an awareness of the social norms around it even if it is breaking them. And the quirky person must play the role they have set for themselves - either as a deliberate act of art, or else by choosing to emphasize those features of themselves which naturally manifest most readily. And, doing this well, you can become a more appealing, unique, or endearing person.

But that doesn't mean that every impulse you have needs to be expressed at every time. Being the 35 year old in the IT department who wears a Naruto headband might be quirky but... why? There is a common cultural understanding that doing this is in bad taste - so even if you have other coworkers who like Naruto who you may very well like to be friends with, they will avoid you, because you are demonstrating an inability to either understand or abide by common social norms.

Which is what cringe is - similar to how something can feel painfully hot to warn us that we will get burned if we touch it, cringe is a feeling of pain to warn us that we will get hurt socially if we get too close to the source of pain. It is your mind-body telling you that this person is dangerous to your social standing in whatever group you are a part of.

Hence, Naruto-headband-guy has a quite poor work life. He may have some people who are friendly with him - but no real friends. Few, if any, more experienced coworkers want to mentor him. His supervisor is likely not very fond of him. And as a result, he is typically put on the worse projects, is never promoted, and rarely gets pay raises. Of course, maybe he just doesn't care about any of those things - but it seems difficult to imagine someone happy to take a $30k pay cut for the sake of a minor fashion accessory.