Mixte Magazine

Last February, it’s with a heavy heart we found out that Arte France was parting ways with its most iconic and ambitious program to date: Tracks, a laboratory of the bizarre which first popped up on our TV screens in 1997, and which would unearth unusual, extreme, disturbing and sometimes downright embarrassing counter-cultures from the four corners of the earth. So it’s hardly a surprise that for its final episode, Tracks would come up with a special « cringe » edition: after all, this ultimate combo of « weird », « awkward » and « creepy » seems to have become a fixture of our daily lives of late. In other words, and “in its most broad and informal sense, cringe is a confused, negative emotional and physical reaction. It combines embarrassment, shame, and sometimes repulsion in the face of a real or virtual social interaction, which translates quite well into a so-called awkward situation », says Carine Farias, researcher and professor of entrepreneurship and ethics in the business world at the IÉSEG School of Management, who takes a close interest in the construction of ethical, moral and cultural norms and practices within groups and organizations. Literally, to cringe, derived from the Old English cringan, means « to cower », « to wince », « to recoil ». Anywhere you look, cringe reigns supreme, so much so that instances with varying degrees of intensity have been coming thick and fast lately: Outlandish debates on TPMP? Cringe. (ndlt: TPMP is a popular talk show that critics view as retrograde, sexist, homophobic and racist) The evocation of the « brown bulge » of an « anus » in Economy Minister Bruno Lemaire’s latest novel? Cringe again. Tik Tok challenges, lip dubs, dances and other unsuccessful five-minute crafts? Welcome to Cringetown. Michel Houellebecq’s porn movie? Cringe overload…!

This strange phenomenon has spread across the globe to such an extent that we now speak of cringecore, very much on display in fashion and beauty, where weirdness, not to say downright ugliness and bad taste, has always managed to find its way into our wardrobe. An observation echoed in the essay Le Goût du moche by fashion journalist Alice Pfeiffer, who rightly draws on the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (cf. La Distinction, 1979) and quotes Italian writer Umberto Eco (cf. Histoire de la laideur, 2007): « What will be regarded as high art tomorrow might seem a lapse in taste today. » Looking at you. JW Anderson’s frog shoes; shaved or bleached eyebrows; Balenciaga stiletto Crocs; Louis Gabriel Nouchi’s tee-shirt with its faux sweat-stained collar… As an antidote to the banality, minimalism and « no fuss » culture embodied by normcore, vanilla girl and BC-Beige G, cringecore is seen as a liberating movement, calling on us to embrace our darker side: « Learn to live alongside cringe, » said singer Taylor Swift – not exactly one to step out of line – upon receiving her honorary doctorate in art from New York University in May 2022. And the edgy British magazine Dazed & Confused is talking about a wave of uggo-weirdo looks dubbed « Ketamine chic »… So, ready for the great shiver of embarrassment?

An embarrassment of riches

When it comes to non-conformist trends, media and screens of all sizes have always acted as a magnifying glass. In the cringe family tree, we find the Belgian show Strip-Tease, reality TV shows and series such as Seinfeld and The Office, which have all contributed to the emergence of the « cringe comedy » genre, where forced laughter is never far from dismay. With its slew of reality TV-style dating shows, Netflix has made this its trademark, to the point where “Netflix and Chill” has now been upcycled into “Netflix and Cringe” by Internet users, followed closely by the expression “cringe-watching”. And yet, unsurprisingly, social media remains the place where cringe thrives best: « Content qualified by the hashtag #cringe is abundant and popular, adds Carine Farias. Although a fairly new category, this kind of humor is in keeping with bloopers, where people laugh at spontaneous moments of bewilderment, falls, missteps, slips of the tongue, etc… All of which are at odds with the expected course and normalized behavior in a given context. When it comes to cringing, a social interaction is taking place in which a person, often unwittingly, transgresses the social codes of propriety, thus provoking a sense of discomfort. This emotion then elicits an ambivalent laugh, which has more to do with a discharge of negative emotions linked to the embarrassment or awkwardness we feel vicariously for the person who has broken the rules of etiquette. » Journalist David-Julien Rahmil, head of the media section at L’ADN and web culture specialist, adds: « It’s the very essence of the Internet. We’re constantly testing our tolerance threshold. Sharing cringe content isn’t new within the 4Chan or Reddit forums.

 » In fact, in September 2016, a new unit of measure assessing the degree of embarrassment of a given situation was established on the 18-25 forum of Jeuxvideos.com (Videogames.com translator’s note). Called “the Villejuif scale” it stems from a video made in Villejuif (a city in the southern suburbs of Paris, translator’s note) in 2013 to mark the 50th anniversary of a supermarket chain. In the video, employees in cheap Disney costumes attempt to sing and perform a song from Beauty and the Beast to the deathening indifference of busy customers trying to pay and bag their groceries. Cringe rushes in where angels fear to tread… So much so that nowadays, this time-consuming content has become as scripted as the 36 seasons of The Bold and the Beautiful, far from its amateur beginnings. The go-to app to spread the cringe? The Chinese platform with 1 billion+ users worldwide: « While Instagram capitalizes on beauty, aesthetics and photogenics, Tik Tok is definitely the one institutionalizing the cringe, » adds David-Julien Rahmil.

Who benefits from the cringe?

These early birds producing content and chasing their 15 minutes of fame (shower included) of course! While they may not necessarily make a living out of it right out the gate, these content creators gain in visibility and boost their popularity in the meantime: « This race in which anything goes is a reminder that the Internet is a tool allowing people to break out of their loneliness and isolation, even if it means putting aside their pride to get people’s attention, » says David-Julien Rahmil. Indeed, socials have become a space of choice for people to vent, as demonstrated by this onomatopoeia-turned-popular-hashtag: the #ick or #icktok, boasting over 53 million views on Tik Tok, was originally used to represent the sudden shift from attraction to disgust during a date. Today, the Chinese app has become a catch all, where overdoing it to attract attention is commonplace. A risky double-edged strategy, according to Carine Farias: « Watching cringe content has a socializing and educational purpose. Transgressing social norms may be rewarded and perceived as innovative, and at the same time, cause discomfort and be socially looked down upon. » Consequence: « You can easily be robbed of your image and turn into a meme. As a result, the risk of misunderstanding social codes and becoming a laughing stock is considerable.” This beloved Star Wars kid which David-Julien Rahmil managed to track down can testify to this.

In 2003, his classmates posted, unbeknownst to him, a video that immediately went viral with 37+ million views on Youtube. In this video, the now 35-year-old Canadian can be seen going wild using a ball-picker as a lightsaber, which didn’t exactly fill him with joy at a time when, like any other teenager, he was winding his way through the awkward age the way others do the Gobi Desert. Hence our question: are viewers laughing with or at someone? For if there is any feeling of awkwardness, what emerges above all is the immense relief of not being the person making a fool of themselves – what our German neighbors so nicely call Schadenfreude. Isn’t cringe ultimately a form of contempt cynically reinforcing class and gender stereotypes? In the line of fire, these are people once considered « Internet freaks », such as those found on Chatroulette, and who are referred to nowadays as “the French Dreamers” –after the Youtube channel French Dream TV, which compiles cringe videos from ordinary people, typical of this peripheral, suburbian France – and are tagged « K-sos » (from “cas social” meaning “weirdo, degenerate, misfit” translator’s note) in the comments. « One of the archetypal French Dreamers is the Magalie: an out of shape mother living in an unattractive suburban residence, posting about her children as often as she shares her supermarket discount deals, » says David-Julien Rahmil. And yet, the Magalie can see the glass as half-full: even when the circulation and sharing of her videos on social media is purely for mocking and contemptuous purposes within groups of condescending and disdainful Internet users, she’s already won this round by finding a community and a resonance chamber.

“I’m cringe. But I’m free”

This expression has become the rallying cry of all cringecore enthusiasts. Marie Dollé, digital marketing expert and author of the forward-looking newsletter In Bed With Tech, says: « This extreme bad taste is all the more in keeping with the fringe and the rejection of the norm, as it frees us from conventions, self-censorship and the straitjacket of hegemonic good taste. In short, it unleashes creativity and inventiveness. » It’s also been described as more inclusive, since it validates the right to make mistakes, to fail and to be « perfectly imperfect ». Should we see this as a social critique and an identity stance on the part of the younger generations in relation to their elders? « There is indeed a rejection of all that is bland and uninteresting. The ugly, the cringe, are concepts that elicit questions and conversations, adds Marie Dollé. In an age when generative tools like Chat GPT, algorithms and AI promote perfection and seek to supplant us in every field – writing, photography, music… Being cringe is to break free by refusing to do what is expected. At the end of the day, embracing imperfection is what makes us human. »

Another point brought forward by pro-cringe celebrities, such as new fashion icon/dark bimbo Julia Fox, who declared that « ugly is in », or singer and rapper Doja Cat, spotted with a tumbled facial make-up during one of the recent Paris Fashion Weeks: the necessity to turn beauty standards on their head and redefine femininity by relying on man-repellent finery. And yet the cringe movement undeniably remains a young people thing. According to David-Julien Rahmil, « youth culture has always been and will remain a pioneer in trends and -core. » Goth Lolita, seapunk, tecktonik… (got it?) It may seem cringe-worthy years later, but this audacity still permeates pop culture and our collective unconscious. So keeping in mind that we’re all someone’s cringefest might be a good idea. In 2011, psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience researchers from the Philipps-Universität in Marburg, Germany, and Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, found that vicarious embarrassment (i.e. witnessing, rather than acting upon, a cringe situation) activated areas of the brain associated with pain. Who said empathy was dead? Heart hands all around folks.

This article was originally published in french in our fall-winter 2023 issue AUDACITY (out September 26th 2023) and was translated by Manon Massué.