Can we be cringe yet?
It's time to stop thinking about ourselves so much
There’s less emotion and sincerity in the world today. Even when you do come across it in the wild, it’s usually prefaced with a self-deprecating announcement (‘cringe!’ or ‘not to be too earnest here, but…’). And respectfully, I’m sick of it.
Explicit body positivity and implicit body negativity have been trending in the cultural hegemony for decades. The introduction of body neutrality represented a breath of fresh air - yes, we have bodies, yes we’ve all been thinking about it a bit too much, it’s time to calm down. We — particularly women, who are constantly bombarded with messaging about how our bodies should look — were afforded a socially acceptable space to consider that there is more to us than our bodies, and for the first time we were told that it’s fine to feel neutral about the way you look. Obviously it’s not quite as easy as that, but at least it’s a start.
I want the same thing for cringe.
I’m a long-standing fan of Shit You Should Care About, and a while ago they posted an incredible AMA piece: What it’s like to be the ‘ugly friend’. It’s a beautiful piece. The author, Lucy Blakiston, is compassionate, relatable, and vulnerable - but only up to a point. Towards the end of the piece, as she’s advising the asker, she says
Your brilliance does not only exist when it is validated by others. It (cringe) literally comes from within you.
Firstly, I’ve never had a nose for these things, but I don’t think that’s cringe. Sure it’s earnest, maybe a little cheesey, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. Secondly, I understand that the internet can be a horrible place, and Lucy Blakiston is an incredibly intelligent and empathetic woman who needs to have certain defence mechanisms in place (such as calling something cringe before anyone else can). But thirdly, so what if it is cringe? Maybe it is legitimately cringe and I’m missing the point, but I don’t actually care.
I don’t mean to always bring my points back to Margaret Atwood, and yet:
Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.
I’d like to take this one step further. There’s a woman inside your head too. There’s a hive mind of every it girl, clean girl, and cool girl - every woman you’ve ever thought was pretty or had her shit together. And she’s watching everything you do, considering and judging you for your actions: Is this too earnest? Is this too cringe? God forbid, did someone else see? The panopticon is real and it’s living inside your head.
I have been known to be cringe, to a degree that makes my gut shrivel and my memory censor itself with a big pop art-style YIKES. So this argument is definitely self-serving. But I’ve seen enough women label themselves or their actions as cringe — just so they can get ahead of the curve and make sure no-one else calls them cringe first (because the only thing worse than being cringe is to be cringe and un-self-aware) — to think that this is something that applies to all of us.
I will agree that there are definitely times for self-restraint, or at least a pause to consider where exactly you’re spouting your cringe. For example, I will wear my cheugy little knock-off ugg slippers around my home and feel like a million bucks, but I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing them in public. I will write poetry for my partner, and tell my friends how much I adore them in long, unhinged rants of affection, but consider it a sign that I’m being held hostage if I ever post about my emotions on social media (Substack doesn’t count and I’ll die on this hill).
But something else I will never do is undermine myself by calling my work or my emotions cringe. There’s so much going on in the world, and in the immortal words of Jemima Kirke - it’s time to stop thinking about ourselves so much.
It’s not that deep.
B.
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“Panopticon” what an apt metaphor, a zesty zinger description of what it’s like to exist in the gaze (male gaze, societal comparison etc etc). A brilliant piece. Also, you are so right - we should never dismiss our work or emotions and crime so we beat other people to the chase.
I literally love ur pieces sm I try to restock one every time I read it ur just so earnest and cute and I love it!!!!!!!!!!