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Remember The 2010's Cringe Culture?
3 years ago
General
Okay so normally I know journals are used for life updates but instead I'm going to use it for questions and stuff - I'm in an oddly conversational mood rn. (I'm only now trying to unpack whatever the fuck that last decade was) SO - let's discuss this suspiciously specific topic.
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My question is: how did it affect you? Do you find yourself sub-consciously concerned how people? Were you part of the cringe culture back then? Did you just watch it? How did you move on after it lost its meaning and impact? Indulge me, I'm curious.
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The below post gets a bit ranty in the second half btw:
For reference on my perspective: I was a young-to-mid teen back when it gained prominence. I feel like it messed with me in multiple ways, both consciously and sub consciously. You know how it is 'you can't do this' or 'you can't do that' and 'you gotta stick to the looorrree'. Especially when it came to things like oc x canon or heaven forbid your character got labeled as a Mary Sue - because having non-serious fun characters is apparently a sin. We all know now that this mentality is... misguided at best right? And yet I still keep accidentally checking myself. I'm bloody 21-nearing-22 years old and yet I'm still haunted by it.
Like, if I make something mega self-indulgent (mostly shipping stuff), I can't help but really hate it afterwards (post-indulgence clarity?) and I'll think things like, "why did I make that? What it wrong with me?" or "Why did I think this was a good idea?" How do people move on from that? Only recently I'm trying an oc x canon ship but I never directly stated it as so because I found it extremely embarrassing (even though my oc is fully fleshed out and exists outside of the relationship). Keep in mind it doesn't matter if it's SFW or NSFW - it's still extremely awkward to me. It's so hard to express myself in that sort of way that I'm kinda jealous of the people that can without a second thought. And I honestly think It stemmed from how people harshly judged others for having some fun. Maybe I internalized some of that toxicity, and I can't really overcome it. Every step I take, I end up taking it back retreating into my shell again and pretend it never happened.
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Am I the only one who feels this way? I hope this doesn't come off as too weird from me - but I'm not sure how to address it otherwise.
-
My question is: how did it affect you? Do you find yourself sub-consciously concerned how people? Were you part of the cringe culture back then? Did you just watch it? How did you move on after it lost its meaning and impact? Indulge me, I'm curious.
-
The below post gets a bit ranty in the second half btw:
For reference on my perspective: I was a young-to-mid teen back when it gained prominence. I feel like it messed with me in multiple ways, both consciously and sub consciously. You know how it is 'you can't do this' or 'you can't do that' and 'you gotta stick to the looorrree'. Especially when it came to things like oc x canon or heaven forbid your character got labeled as a Mary Sue - because having non-serious fun characters is apparently a sin. We all know now that this mentality is... misguided at best right? And yet I still keep accidentally checking myself. I'm bloody 21-nearing-22 years old and yet I'm still haunted by it.
Like, if I make something mega self-indulgent (mostly shipping stuff), I can't help but really hate it afterwards (post-indulgence clarity?) and I'll think things like, "why did I make that? What it wrong with me?" or "Why did I think this was a good idea?" How do people move on from that? Only recently I'm trying an oc x canon ship but I never directly stated it as so because I found it extremely embarrassing (even though my oc is fully fleshed out and exists outside of the relationship). Keep in mind it doesn't matter if it's SFW or NSFW - it's still extremely awkward to me. It's so hard to express myself in that sort of way that I'm kinda jealous of the people that can without a second thought. And I honestly think It stemmed from how people harshly judged others for having some fun. Maybe I internalized some of that toxicity, and I can't really overcome it. Every step I take, I end up taking it back retreating into my shell again and pretend it never happened.
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Am I the only one who feels this way? I hope this doesn't come off as too weird from me - but I'm not sure how to address it otherwise.
-> People / popular media often mistake cynicism for depth/maturity.
-> Social media unfairly puts people (especially young'uns) on blast for figuring themselves out.
-> The biggest social media sites are engineered to reward dunking on people being sincere, which kills creativity, hampers growth and spreads to other spaces.
All that to say, I think we need to give people more room to be goofy.
But yeah, cynicism and criticism are definitely mixed up a lot.
At least in my days a lot of the terror was contained to forums or ye old IMs.
From a very broad sociological perspective, cringe culture is a modern way to exert group and social cohesion, which is a fairly natural social process.
But, with the advent of the Internet, it extends way beyond your local group and into... Well, the Internet at large. You can see the beginnings of it in places like Something Awful or imageboards back in the day. And then, with the Web 2.0 and social media, it became mainstream.
I think that it is unfair; you should have the right to be as eccentric of social norms (or weird, or cringe) as you want, as long as you're not harming others, and others have the right to criticize it if you choose to go public about it, as long as it's not harassment, toxic, or abusive.
There's a problem when highly impressionable folks trying to find themselves and their place in society are exposed to this, i.e. teenagers, which leads to a waaaaay more judgmental place than your average teen life (and life in general) so it can lead them to sheltered views or doubling down on their positions (i.e. radicalization) and a lot of other things, so it's important to know that cringe culture at the level of the Internet last decade isn't really... real, or beneficial.
It was a bit more of a opinion train of thought on the general subject than to your specific question, though, and there's certainly a lot more to talk about the subject and the surrounding issues!