I wanted to peel my skin off and scratch my eyeballs out, but every time I caught a glimpse of myself dancing, it made me dizzy – probably because I had drunk four vodka sodas. This instance reminds me of how we begin to censor and inhibit our own behavior as we start to view ourselves from the outside. As Greig James wrote in Dazed earlier this year, “Because we’re now ever-presently surveilled, we’re also more conscious of being perceived as cringe-worthy. This goes both ways.”
“If people are creating content on social media, the instant feedback can increase self-awareness, often to toxic levels” – Dr Roger Giner-Sorolla
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According to Dr. Giner-Sorolla, self-awareness can often escalate to harmful levels on social media, with rapid and extensive feedback that is typically either highly positive or negative, surpassing what one would experience in face-to-face interactions. This can lead to a polarization of opinions and the interpretation of moral implications in every use of language or visuals, which is perilous as it transforms the response to embarrassing errors from a lighthearted laughter that includes the original poster to a cruel ridicule that isolates them and elicits shame instead of mere embarrassment. This inclination is a detrimental aspect of social media.
What’s remarkable about this particular swing of the pendulum after centuries of wrestling with taste hierarchies is the cultural stigma that has always come with indulging in bad taste. In a recent TIME article, Judy Bergman suggested that we have entered an era of “exuberant” bad taste, which seems to be shifting towards a more earnest cringe in general culture. It’s natural to care less about what others think as you age – altogether stopping at 46.
We uncover the underlying misogyny in the whole concept of “cringe” that makes it especially hard for us to feel validated in our own hobbies and interests, such as reality TV shows like the Kardashians, pop music, astrology, and Love Island. It is ironic that men insist on labeling these things as embarrassing or uninformed, when in reality, they often stem from their own failure to appreciate or understand them.