Many teens today would be quick to categorize themselves as the most progressive generation, especially in terms of internet use, justifying this title by pointing to their online activism, awareness of mental health, and advocacy for greater representation in media. If you’ve been online for any period of time though, you’ll know that the same teens posting these uplifting Instagram infographics are the ones partaking in perhaps the internet’s most discriminatory practice: cringe culture. -- Ava Rukavina, 10th Grade
Many teens today would be quick to categorize themselves as the most progressive generation, especially in terms of internet use, justifying this title by pointing to their online activism, awareness of mental health, and advocacy for greater representation in media.
If you’ve been online for any period of time though, you’ll know that the same teens posting these uplifting Instagram infographics are the ones partaking in perhaps the internet’s most discriminatory practice: cringe culture.
Cringing is defined as having an inward feeling of acute embarrassment or awkwardness. When used in the context of online spaces, its definition is similar, but a little more fluid – online culture is an intangible, ever-changing thing, and the extreme extent to which social media platforms curate your individual feed muddles the mainstream consensus. (For a deeper dive on the contemporary meaning of “cringe”, YouTube essayist @Shanspeare has an interesting take in her video, Cringe Culture and the Advent of the Internet.)
Cringe culture has, in some cases, been a positive thing. Certain creators and online niches have been able to discredit harmful ideologies by labeling them as cringe. Youtube comedy creator, @Chad Chad does this on her series “A Twinge of Cringe” where she uses her platform to discuss numerous toxic internet fads, often relating to misogyny and gender stereotypes.
More often than not though, cringe culture is a way for the online mainstream, or a popular subset of the internet to other an already oppressed group of people. Youtube essayist Ro Ramdin aptly summarizes the strategies of those promoting cringe culture in her video, The Politics of Cringe: “Cringe, in this case, is a wholly political social stratification that seeks to marginalize those who can not express themselves in parity with established social order.”
The most notorious source of this is most certainly YouTube cringe compilations, which feature an array of marginalized people creating content that they would likely be praised for, had they been of identities traditionally accepted by Western society. The most targeted groups are often neurodivergent and physically disabled people, the impoverished, the queer community, and plus sized individuals, especially people at the intersections of any of these identities.
What’s interesting is that many of these videos are prefaced with a statement instructing viewers not to send hate to the original creators and that these compilations are all in good fun, which is absurd; the action of compiling and reuploading mostly harmless content to be publicly shamed and relentlessly mocked on the internet is inherently a very harmful thing to do.
When cringe culture isn’t being homophobic, ableist, or fatphobic, you can bet it’s at least being shallow.
Tiktok and YouTube comedy creator, @themusingsofacrouton, commented on this superficiality in a recent video, saying“There is nothing the internet hates more than an ugly person. You can be an abuser, a criminal, an Iggy Azalea fan, any number of horrible things, but as long as you are still hot… [people] will use your mugshot as their profile pic[ture]. But god forbid you are conventionally unattractive or fat, or both, and you post a video talking about, ‘I think I look good today,’ the comments are gonna be [extremely hateful.]”
In recent years there has been a push for this othering to stop with the “cringe culture is dead” movement also referred to as, “counter culture.” This is the idea that we as a society should stop commenting on and mocking the actions of others, so long as their behavior isn’t causing any harm. Unfortunately, this idea was really only backed by the people who were being targeted by or at least not promoting cringe culture in the first place, and those who perpetuated cringe culture continued to do so.
Legally, social media has no responsibility over what their users post, thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, though most platforms have guidelines that do restrict hate speech or inappropriate content to protect users and maintain the site's reputation. Violations of these guidelines can result in posts being taken down, suppressed, or in more serious or repeated cases, user bans.
In an attempt to reduce some of this bullying on their platform, in March of 2020, it was revealed that Tiktok instructed moderators to suppress videos created by users who appeared “too ugly, poor, or disabled,” according to leaked internal documents obtained by The Intercept. Tiktok prioritized the erasure of those who were being bullied, rather than addressing any of the users who were spreading this hate in the first place, and imposed this policy anyway, because it benefited them – the more attractive their content creators are, the more desirable their site is to potential users. What makes this worse though is that the suppression of various marginalized groups means that the average user isn’t as exposed to or informed about certain identities, causing them to be viewed as even more foreign, which could incite even more cyberbullying.
Tiktok isn’t the only platform guilty of this either. In December, Twitter owner, Elon Musk claimed that “hate speech impressions” had fallen dramatically since his takeover. However, according to data collected by the Center for Countering Digital Hate on Twitter that same month, “the daily use of the n-word under Musk is triple the 2022 average and the use of slurs against gay men and trans persons are up 58% and 62%, respectively.” Musk then clarified in a tweet that he was referring to the amount of views that hate speech posts were receiving. Though it’s less tied to cringe culture, and more an issue of straight-up harassment, the recent rise in hate speech on Elon Musk’s Twitter, is just another example of social media’s tendency to ignore the issues of cyberbullying on their platform, and paint themselves as a positive space.
It has long been debated whether the censorship of online content will solve the issue of cyberbullying, or if it is even ethical in the first place, but that’s not really the issue here.
Whether you believe it’s censorship or not, social media sites have already and will continue to restrict certain posts according to standards agreed to by the users. The issue is the approach taken by companies like Tiktok and Twitter to combat hate speech and bullying, which don't come from a place of ignorance or misunderstanding either. The fact is that so long as it doesn’t damage their reputation, which it rarely does, tech companies will continue to be complicit or even encouraging of cringe culture and the toxicity it promotes on their platforms.
If you’ve been online for any period of time though, you’ll know that the same teens posting these uplifting Instagram infographics are the ones partaking in perhaps the internet’s most discriminatory practice: cringe culture.
Cringing is defined as having an inward feeling of acute embarrassment or awkwardness. When used in the context of online spaces, its definition is similar, but a little more fluid – online culture is an intangible, ever-changing thing, and the extreme extent to which social media platforms curate your individual feed muddles the mainstream consensus. (For a deeper dive on the contemporary meaning of “cringe”, YouTube essayist @Shanspeare has an interesting take in her video, Cringe Culture and the Advent of the Internet.)
Cringe culture has, in some cases, been a positive thing. Certain creators and online niches have been able to discredit harmful ideologies by labeling them as cringe. Youtube comedy creator, @Chad Chad does this on her series “A Twinge of Cringe” where she uses her platform to discuss numerous toxic internet fads, often relating to misogyny and gender stereotypes.
More often than not though, cringe culture is a way for the online mainstream, or a popular subset of the internet to other an already oppressed group of people. Youtube essayist Ro Ramdin aptly summarizes the strategies of those promoting cringe culture in her video, The Politics of Cringe: “Cringe, in this case, is a wholly political social stratification that seeks to marginalize those who can not express themselves in parity with established social order.”
The most notorious source of this is most certainly YouTube cringe compilations, which feature an array of marginalized people creating content that they would likely be praised for, had they been of identities traditionally accepted by Western society. The most targeted groups are often neurodivergent and physically disabled people, the impoverished, the queer community, and plus sized individuals, especially people at the intersections of any of these identities.
What’s interesting is that many of these videos are prefaced with a statement instructing viewers not to send hate to the original creators and that these compilations are all in good fun, which is absurd; the action of compiling and reuploading mostly harmless content to be publicly shamed and relentlessly mocked on the internet is inherently a very harmful thing to do.
When cringe culture isn’t being homophobic, ableist, or fatphobic, you can bet it’s at least being shallow.
Tiktok and YouTube comedy creator, @themusingsofacrouton, commented on this superficiality in a recent video, saying“There is nothing the internet hates more than an ugly person. You can be an abuser, a criminal, an Iggy Azalea fan, any number of horrible things, but as long as you are still hot… [people] will use your mugshot as their profile pic[ture]. But god forbid you are conventionally unattractive or fat, or both, and you post a video talking about, ‘I think I look good today,’ the comments are gonna be [extremely hateful.]”
In recent years there has been a push for this othering to stop with the “cringe culture is dead” movement also referred to as, “counter culture.” This is the idea that we as a society should stop commenting on and mocking the actions of others, so long as their behavior isn’t causing any harm. Unfortunately, this idea was really only backed by the people who were being targeted by or at least not promoting cringe culture in the first place, and those who perpetuated cringe culture continued to do so.
Legally, social media has no responsibility over what their users post, thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, though most platforms have guidelines that do restrict hate speech or inappropriate content to protect users and maintain the site's reputation. Violations of these guidelines can result in posts being taken down, suppressed, or in more serious or repeated cases, user bans.
In an attempt to reduce some of this bullying on their platform, in March of 2020, it was revealed that Tiktok instructed moderators to suppress videos created by users who appeared “too ugly, poor, or disabled,” according to leaked internal documents obtained by The Intercept. Tiktok prioritized the erasure of those who were being bullied, rather than addressing any of the users who were spreading this hate in the first place, and imposed this policy anyway, because it benefited them – the more attractive their content creators are, the more desirable their site is to potential users. What makes this worse though is that the suppression of various marginalized groups means that the average user isn’t as exposed to or informed about certain identities, causing them to be viewed as even more foreign, which could incite even more cyberbullying.
Tiktok isn’t the only platform guilty of this either. In December, Twitter owner, Elon Musk claimed that “hate speech impressions” had fallen dramatically since his takeover. However, according to data collected by the Center for Countering Digital Hate on Twitter that same month, “the daily use of the n-word under Musk is triple the 2022 average and the use of slurs against gay men and trans persons are up 58% and 62%, respectively.” Musk then clarified in a tweet that he was referring to the amount of views that hate speech posts were receiving. Though it’s less tied to cringe culture, and more an issue of straight-up harassment, the recent rise in hate speech on Elon Musk’s Twitter, is just another example of social media’s tendency to ignore the issues of cyberbullying on their platform, and paint themselves as a positive space.
It has long been debated whether the censorship of online content will solve the issue of cyberbullying, or if it is even ethical in the first place, but that’s not really the issue here.
Whether you believe it’s censorship or not, social media sites have already and will continue to restrict certain posts according to standards agreed to by the users. The issue is the approach taken by companies like Tiktok and Twitter to combat hate speech and bullying, which don't come from a place of ignorance or misunderstanding either. The fact is that so long as it doesn’t damage their reputation, which it rarely does, tech companies will continue to be complicit or even encouraging of cringe culture and the toxicity it promotes on their platforms.
