To learn more about this corner of Reddit, we contacted its only moderator, platform user Rookvrouw_Joke.

"Years ago, I commented 'r/hilariouscringe' on a r/sadcringe post, and it got so many upvotes that I decided to create the community," they told Bored Panda.

"It gained 1K members immediately and slowly grew to 10K over a year or two. The last time I checked, we were at 20K and steadily growing. I would describe it as a surprisingly active community in terms of posts, comments, and interactions. I'm always surprised by new posts."

Talking about content, Rookvrouw_Joke said, "The type of cringe usually posted in r/hilariouscringe is really all in the name. It's usually on the funny side of cringe, so it's more digestible for people who don't like to cringe."

"When I set up the community, I made it clear there are absolutely no rules besides Reddit's rules and no self-promotion," the moderator added. "This is because other cringe subreddits that already existed were extremely strict, and I find Reddit moderation to be the most cringe thing on the internet — just a bunch of Discord mods on a power trip to enforce their echo chamber."

However, as the saying goes, every stick has two ends and the moderator's choice to give people a lot of freedom has led to some extremist humor posted to the subreddit every once in a while. Nothing too substantial, though.

"I admit I delete a few posts a year that are political jokes or borderline hateful towards minorities. I think entertainment should be an escape from real-life problems, so there is no reason for divisive content that could hurt someone's feelings to exist in my subreddit (or on Reddit)," the moderator said, highlighting that r/hilariouscringe is definitely about secondhand embarrassment and not schadenfreude (the pleasure derived from another person's misfortune).

But pictures like these might be more than entertainment and could actually serve another purpose. Dr. Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist and author of Emotional Ignorance: Lost and Found in the Science of Emotion, thinks that at its core, cringing is a mechanism to deter us from behaving in ways that risk us losing status or gaining the negative judgement of others.

Our bodies consider ​“negative judgement” to be a threat to survival, Burnett explained.

“Our primitive brain reflexes don’t really discern between a physical threat (e.g. a nearby tiger) and a psychological threat (e.g. potentially embarrassing ourselves in front of others), so they trigger similar responses.”

"In this case, the unconscious desire to make yourself smaller to avoid detection or judgement means we cringe to minimize our presence until the ​'risk' has passed," Burnett said.

So when we find people cringeworthy, our bodies are essentially telling us to avoid them. Otherwise, we could risk becoming associated with them and being socially alienated from the pack.

"It's a regular reminder of what is and isn't acceptable or appropriate if we want to remain an accepted member of society ... People who don't get embarrassed by anything, who don't cringe at all, are often not very liked by others. They have no internal checks on their behavior or thinking, so end up disrupting group harmony and cohesion, and become less liked and acceptable as a result."

As repulsive as the feeling might be, the discomfort is actually a pretty neat social compass to possess!