Cringe is Dead and We Killed It

Sergio Lozano - February 17th

When the word “cringe” is brought up nowadays, we usually think of, well, cringy stuff. Most of the things we think of we’ve seen on the internet, whether that be on YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or any social media. Maybe some of the lucky ones will have a memory of someone being cringe or even yourself acting cringy. (I know I do) But in recent years, things like cringe compilations on YouTube aren’t as popular anymore. Of course, things that people can consider to be cringy do still exist, just not more widely known. Why is that? What happened?

Well I believe that the Golden Years of Cringe™ was on YouTube during 2016-2019. During this age, I think there was a certain trend of negativity online, or at least more than usual. Cringe compilations got bigger, providing content for people to laugh at. Videos poking fun at kids content, SJW stuff, and later on kpop fans, were also blowing up, especially among commentary channels. The routine was simple: find a video, make another video where you pick apart and insult whoever's in the video, profit. Extra points if that person in the original video responded, cause that equals more content! YouTube and other parts of the internet were like this and to say that it changed how we perceive certain people and groups would be an understatement. It started the whole “anti-SJW” movement in the first place that lasted for many years and still lingers today. The stereotype of the “crazy kpop fan” (which, as a new kpop fan, is kinda true) also began here. People base a lot of what they think on what they’ve seen on the internet, and I believe this era contributed the most to that idea.

So if this was super popular and profitable, why did it fall? Well I believe I have a good number of reasons why. Reason 1: The personalities. The Youtubers that covered topics like these, people like LeafyIsHere and even Keemstar, revealed themselves to be pretty terrible people in real life and being a jerk to everyone isn’t good for your image or for business. And another part of the community, channels like Pyrocynical, moved on from that kind of content into more in-depth and quality videos. Reason 2: The victims. The people that were the center of attention in “cringe” content usually went one of three ways, 1: Continue spreading the fire, 2: Embrace that fire and go with the joke, or 3: Just ignoring it and moving on with their lives. I’d say a good majority of them picked the third option. Bigger groups would see the hate that they would get and would become quieter, no longer giving the people ammo for more insults and attention. And finally, Reason 3: The audience. This is the most positive reason, or at least I think it is. People just got tired of cringing. They were tired of seeing the same thing over and over. Maybe they even empathized with them.

A factor that I believe contributed to the fall of “cringe” is empathy. I believe we empathize more with the people being laughed at. We saw ourselves in their shoes at one point in our lives, especially as kids, and decided to not consume content mocking them. Acceptance is another factor. The internet makes everything seem like it’s moving at 10x speed, so things change rapidly. Even though it was only a couple of years ago, I believe we are more accepting of new and different things now than ever before. We saw differences and chose to accept and laugh WITH it, not AT it. And once we did, it made the world a bit happier. And I believe that’s the moral of this whole story, don’t kill the part of you that's cringy, kill the part of you that cringes.