What is ‘cringe’ and why can’t we look away?

Leftie youtuber Natalie Wynn does a philosophical dive into the emotion of ‘cringe’, distinguishing between self-cringe (embarrassment at your own behaviour), other-cringe (embarrassment at someone else’s behaviour), and in-group cringe (embarrassment at someone else’s behaviour because they’re making the rest of us look bad).

Wynn coins the term ‘morbid cringe’ for when we get fixated on a particular type of cringey behaviour – when a stranger’s embarrassing actions bother us way more than they should. She says this reaction is worth paying attention to, because it usually signals something we’re secretly afraid of – “is that how I look to other people?”

I know I feel disproportionate cringe when I see someone correcting another person’s spelling on social media. It’s rude and shows a kind of clueless inability to parse a social interaction and pick up on what’s important from it. As a neurodivergent person, it’s the kind of mistake I used to make all the time. My cringe reaction is disproportionate because I see myself in it.

Like every Natalie Wynn video, the uncomfortable topic is explored with kindness, lush lighting, and a tonne of self-deprecating humour. Watch it here.