ADVERTISEMENT

If there’s one thing the internet has taught us, it must be our enduring appreciation of a good cringe. Urban Dictionary defines the term cringe as “when someone acts/is so embarrassing or awkward, it makes you feel extremely ashamed and/or embarrassed.” But the feeling is way better felt than explained in words.

If you’re already a self-confessed cringe addict who dove down the cringetopia hole and experienced the most cringeworthy moments of life, then we've got this new treat for you. Welcome to The Cringiest Posts Twitter page that does exactly what it says in the title – shares the posts that make you curl up like a tortoise out of the sheer cringe and then cringe once more.

Below we wrapped up some of the funniest, I mean cringiest examples, so enjoy with caution!

If you've ever spent enough time browsing in the land of the internet, you must have inevitably encountered cringe-powered content at some point. It takes only one word, five letters, to be exact, to present the inexplicable feeling known as cringe. For some, it’s a curled upper lip, for others it’s a shake of the head, for the rest, it's curling into a ball that forgets any social norms.

According to Kaitlyn Tiffany, the term cringe took off on forums in the early aughts, when the practice of humiliating oneself online was still somewhat novel. Now, however, it’s absolute mainstream — it’s both an internet genre and a meme, as well as an insult of some kind. It's natural to wonder if we all suddenly became more prone to cringe as a group, or if there’s another reason why there’s so much cringeworthy content out there.

ADVERTISEMENT
#4

Cringe-Social-Media-People-Posts

cringestposts , twitter.com Report

Add photo comments
POST
Fembot
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

With all my training I can easily picture the ‘novelist’ biting their fist after that reply

View More Replies...
View more commentsArrow down menu

Well, in a piece for The Atlantic, Tiffany argues that “it’s because we’ve been given more opportunities to display our cringeworthy characteristics, and also to point out the cringeworthy behavior of others.” She adds that “Whereas people used to feel secondhand embarrassment on behalf of their friends and family, or wince at their own awkward behavior, they are now exposed to the potentially embarrassing behavior of entire social networks.”

#8

Cringe-Social-Media-People-Posts

cringestposts Report

Add photo comments
POST
Headless Roach
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh that's easy. You'll only need a crystal ball, a shroom picked at midnight and 3 roach heads

View More Replies...
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

As if that wasn’t enough, we have spent years, a decade, if not more, in this kind of environment. No wonder our sense of cringe has become heightened to the point where “we can sniff out the tiniest flaws in someone else’s public performance, dig them up, share them around.” Tiffany calls us “the connoisseurs of cringe,” and you may wonder if that’s even a thing to be proud of.

Meanwhile, according to evolutionary history, cringe is birthed by the fear of social rejection — a feeling similar in intensity to physical pain. Psychology professor Rowland Miller argues that people literally crinkle in embarrassment because the ability to “feel vicarious embarrassment is influenced by our ability to empathize with others.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Miller argues that people cringe for reasons beyond contempt; it can be compassion, too, for having experienced a feeling similar to that unfolding in real time. Cringe is then about secondhand shame and empathy — human emotions that define anything and everything we do.

#15

Cringe-Social-Media-People-Posts

cringestposts Report

Add photo comments
POST
Fembot
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What an asshat. Anyone looks like s**t photographed like that. He’s trying to get lifelong attention from bringing his wife down. And succeeding apparently

View More Replies...
View more commentsArrow down menu

Melissa Dahl, a senior editor at The Cut and author of Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness, suggests that cringe content is “a controlled way of facing this really deep fear.” She argues that “It’s funny to talk about being embarrassed during the year 2020 when there’s such scary things going on,” referring to the height of the pandemic. Cringe content, on the other hand, shows that there’s nothing scarier than being cast out on your own and laughed out of the group.

ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#22

Cringe-Social-Media-People-Posts

cringestposts Report

Add photo comments
POST
Ponypower
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I thought the NFT was a digital code attached or with in the picture. You own a line of 1's and 0's not the picture, which means the artist that made the picture doesn't get paid, because you never bought the 'picture'. Anyways nfts booooo!

View More Replies...
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#24

Cringe-Social-Media-People-Posts

cringestposts Report

Add photo comments
POST
InvincibleRodent
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Also, obvious bull aside- it bothers me way too much how many TikTok people have seemingly changed the meaning of "POV" to its exact opposite.

Tahani
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Goes along with the holocaust trend they did by pretending they were in a concentration camp...

xolitaire
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

yeah that was a tik tok trend for a while about... 2 years ago? Fake tears in front of the camera and some sob-scenario

DC
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You never had to act like you don't care. You had to act like you DO care, because what kind of useless excuse of a friend are you if not? Also, beating someone just because NEVER was considered legal, even in times it wasn't considered the same regardless of colour - still is in too many way, but that's another point to be made elsewhen. Imagine if it's the 1950's, and you see your friend, looking at you getting beaten, and acting like she doesn't care. Would you still consider that bidge a friend? Why? How?

Zull&Panda
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's nice that you're commenting so seriously a tiktok trend, when you were making fun three posts above of two people who've been murdered for real, but you know, they're italians, so that's funny to joke about it.

Load More Replies...
Kathryn Baylis
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

No. There were plenty of people—-of all races—-in the 1950s who did care, and would intervene, though they risked also being beaten up for it. By the 1960s, they were traveling south to help African Americans safely register to vote. Some even gave their lives to help. Though the lions share of any gains made from the Civil Rights Movement belong solely to the courage of African Americans themselves, there were plenty of people of all races who stepped up as well. Civil Rights is a human issue, though we have to address it one group at a time. As long as black lives are viewed as mattering less than others, we have no right to say all lives matter. Because all lives means ALL lives, not just a chosen few.

Francesca
Community Member
2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It’s awful there this other trend were you pick a disorder like adhd or dyslexia. pov’s used to be like a gun fantasy role play but now it’s just offensive or weird.

Wednesday
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Or you could risk your life to try to save theirs. I'd probably have been killed getting my lily white a*s in between some ignorant racist f**k and a friend. I was almost killed by a cop getting in between him and the Latinx man who had just totaled my car when the cop tried to hit him the second time. Not okay. Do your job and keep your personal feeling absolutely away from it or do a different job...

Shawn Barry
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes, to conform with the segment of society you will be most present in, it was necessary for social survival.

Amanita Muscaria
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I would normally suffer from second hand embarassment but the rest of this list has made me quite immune

Jp@nda
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Please please please come do this where i live, not in your cushy neighborhood where everyone probably looks like you

View More Replies...
View more commentsArrow down menu
#28

Cringe-Social-Media-People-Posts

cringestposts Report

Add photo comments
POST
Ozacoter
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As far as I know? Homo antecessor with about 1.2my but probably there are older undiscovered remains

View More Replies...
View more commentsArrow down menu