While cringe content is nothing new online, there’s still, somehow, absolutely no shortage of it. The Cringe Pics subreddit, which has the tagline “when it hurts just to look,” has been around for over a decade now and has amassed an impressively large and loyal following. With 1.5 million members, this subreddit is the perfect place to go when you want to feel a little bit better about yourself, yet simultaneously lose a bit of faith in the rest of humanity. Anything from embarrassing posts on social media to screenshots of texts that should have never been sent, buckle up, because you’re in for a boatload of cringe, pandas!  

Although r/cringepics has been around since 2012, the moderators recently posted new rules for the group, as it has just “reopened.” Nowadays, only 3 types of posts are allowed: “photos of people cringing, photos of Spez, and drawn/artistic/written words ‘Cringe’ to take Cringe pics literal.” There are a few more rules to keep the group civil, such as no content involving minors, remove all personal data and no content involving mentally ill people. But as long as the content is harmless and cringeworthy, members are encouraged to “get creative!” 

I remember sitting in a movie theater in San Antonio, Texas, watching the Bo Burnham film Eighth Grade with my mother and brother and feeling intense physical pain from cringing too hard. As a woman who was once an insecure and sad middle schooler desperate to fit in, I felt sick watching that film. Knowing that I too had been in Kayla’s shoes was heartbreaking, embarrassing and unsettling. I liked the film, but I remember sharing immediately after that it was almost a little too cringey for me, as someone with similar experiences to the main character.

Cringe, particularly cringe comedy, is incredibly popular, though. Shows like Nathan for You, PEN15, Impractical Jokers, Fleabag, The Eric Andre Show and countless others gain massive audiences through making viewers uncomfortable. So what’s the deal with all of this second-hand embarrassment? And why can’t we get enough of it? Alison Herman wrote a piece for The Ringer breaking down the allure of cringe comedy, where she explains that the two involuntary responses this genre causes (laughing and wincing) create a powerful combination that we can’t resist. 

Herman notes that the reason we respond so strongly to cringe comedy is due to having empathy for whoever we’re watching. We can relate to their experiences or we’ve lived through essentially the same situation before, and we know how awful the subjects we're viewing must be feeling. But rather than feeling joy about the sufferer we’re watching, we feel their pain too. There’s no schadenfreude here, it’s just second-hand embarrassment and laughter due to discomfort and possibly the relatability of the scenario. Nathan Fielder may not come off as incredibly likable or relatable, but seeing his interactions with innocent people who have no idea what’s going on makes audiences feel pain for them both. We’re so glad it’s not us, but we can’t look away!    

Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is another pioneer in the field of cringe comedy. From Da Ali G Show to Borat to Who is America?, Cohen seems to have no limits when it comes to making audiences, and participants in his shows, incredibly uncomfortable. Part of the reason shows like these do so well, Herman explains, is because “our vicarious embarrassment isn’t on behalf of a made-up person we then assign authentic emotions; it’s felt for real people, requiring fewer steps to a more visceral payoff. The same setup that makes these stunts so effective is also what opens them up to ethical challenges, though their defenders argue cringe artists only call attention to the exploitation others perform unthinkingly.”

According to Dr. Tara Quinn-Cirillo, cringe is not a clinical term, but it is understood as the “physiological and emotional response [we have] to awkward or embarrassing situations.” And there’s a wide variety of things that can create this reaction, “from being embarrassed about your or another’s behavior, being disgusted at something you have seen or heard, shame around past behavior or appearance or a particular subject you are uncomfortable with such as intimacy or physical illness/injury,” Dr. Quinn-Cirillo told HuffPost. This often happens when we can’t physically run away or remove ourselves from a situation, so our body does everything that it can to tell us we want to flee.