#cringe culture rant

[sweetpumpkinmouse]

Cringe culture was just an excuse to bully neurodivergent kids. Think about it.

If you saw ANY cringe compilation at that time, you noticed a pattern. The original creators of the “cringe content” are young, “obsesses” over a fandom or character, and/or has trouble with certain social cues or standards.

Granted, did they do things that they weren’t supposed to do (nsfw, death threats, etc.)? YES! Most certainly. But why did people think it was a good idea to BULLY the person rather than explain to them why what they did or are doing was wrong?

I’m not saying to parent the person, just help push them in the right direction. And if they ended up ignoring you? Well…move on with your life. Block and report, if you wish, but there’s not much you can do.

Cringe culture was ESPECIALLY hard on older artists who didn’t fit their standard of “adult” or “professional artist” (even though people do it for FUN). Like, the ageism, man!

When I was younger, I would watch these cringe comps, treating it as what not to be as an artist. So, I would OBSESSIVELY try and perfect EVERYTHING. I would ridicule everything that wasn’t “perfect”. I was ashamed of my interests in fear of being bullied on the internet because it was my only escape from bullying in real life. Doing art and animations wasn’t fun anymore because I never allowed myself to improve or make a mistake.

Now that I’m an adult, I still have this compulsive need to perfect EVERYTHING. The moment I notice a mistake, it feels like the end of my “credibility” as an artist. I still scrutinize every little thing I do in fear of being made fun of. Even when I now know that my need for perfection is unhealthy.

Cringe culture RUINED any chance I had for improvement and creating because I was so scared of ending up in a fucking Youtube video spitting out slurs and unhelpful advice.

Whenever I think of cringe culture, I think of the ever present ableism of the internet. I think of this idea that kids have to act like adults the moment they leave the womb. That artists have to be perfect in their craft the moment they grab a pencil.

Cringe culture stunts a person’s ability to grow and improve due to the ever-present scrutiny of what their creations presents; whether they are affected or not. Even if you didn’t end up in those cringe comps, you still have that fear of ridicule.

Cringe culture has and will always DESTROY creativity and time for improvement. NOTHING will ever change my mind about that.

Cringe culture is DEAD, and should STAY DEAD!

[jimothy-salmonwich]

A little cringe culture rant (tw! Small mention of death threats and suicide threats)

a lot of people tend to think that anti cringe culture means that you need to like everything. It doesnt it just means don’t harass people for things they enjoy, like I don’t like the boyfriends comic and i understand and see the flaws with the creator and the comic itself but im not going out of my way to harass people and send them death threats for liking it, sure i might educate them on it but not tell them to kill themselves for it. Anti cringe culture can almost DIRECTLY be said as just anti-harrasment and bullying

[thatoneautisticfnaffan]

Oh, no!1! The scary self-shippers!!!!!! 😰😱😭😨

I can’t believe people are having -gasp- FUN with their OCs!!!! How dare they do that when I don’t like it!!! 🤬😡🤮🤢🥵

(Referring to OP here) You’re not funny for pointing and laughing at people just for doing something that doesn’t effect you at all. Maybe go outside?? Talk to people who aren’t chronically online killjoys?? I guarantee if you start talking to people in real about how "cringey Gacha kids ruin everything", they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about.

[youling-the-ghost]

Gosh I love small fandoms where everyone is equally insane and everyone's just making references to the source material.

Like, I can go "y'all I just saw a badger, I sure hope he doesn't become King of England" and everyone will get what I'm talking about while people who aren't in the fandom are confused as shit.

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[mommy-dust]

This. Isnt. Fucking. Cringe.

If you’ve ever judged someone for using a pacifier, aac device, their special interests, the way they talk, using fidgets when they’re “not trendy”, using noise canceling headphones, stimming, making “random” noises, if you’ve ever called them cringe, used autism as in insult, bullied an autistic person, made fun of someone for struggling socially or being nonverbal, even having verbal shutdowns, FUCK YOU! Ableism towards neurodivergent people (and ableism in general) is only getting worse, because these fucking middle school boys think that its funny, you can’t call someone or something sped, retarded, cringe, etc. (keep in mind that it’s completely okay to reclaim these words AS A NEURODIVERGENT/DISABLED PERSON)

And a friendly reminder that nonverbal autistic people have said that they don’t like people saying they “went nonverbal” because it invalidates their experience as a nonverbal person. There are many other things you can say instead of this, and these people need to be taken seriously.

Fellow autistics, feel free to add to this in the reblogs :) I LOVE YOU

[iorilvr]

"cringe culture" doesn't exist. people are just allergic to having fun

[gayferrari]

Charles is definitely a serial monogamist which some people think is a red flag but honestly there are many worse things to be

I totally get what you mean and I'm sorry to be a stickler over semantics but. some people are wrong <3 there are a multitude of behaviours that a handsome, universally beloved, extremely charismatic multimillionaire could display that I'd perceive as “red flags”. never being single for more than a few months is NOT one of those.

AGAIn nothing to do with you I agree and I think Charles's serial monogamy is very funny to mock!!! but every time people online bring up words like “red flag” or “love bombing” or “gaslighter” when they just mean your garden variety douche at the worst, an angel loses her wings :/ I wish we lived in a society where serial monogamy was the worst thing a woman in a het relationship had to worry about! which is what “red flag” is supposed to mean

[zootopiathingz]

“Cringe culture is dead!!” And then you go and bully people for liking Hazbin hotel

[i-am-creacheur]

being in a fandom but not being an artist is physically painful. There is so much you become unable to do- mock up headcanon designs, show off your OC, tell stories in engaging and easy to access ways, join drawing trends, not be able to do any individual ideas for drawings or animations you have yourself. It feels awful, like my wings are clipped, like I am a fish in a birdcage watching all the pretty birds flying around, calling out for others to join in- oh, and how I long to.

"Ooohh but you can just start drawing and posting your drawings whenever and whatever your skill level! No one will make fun of you-" WRONG. I have had multiple bad in-fandom experiences related to posting my practice art and people tearing me apart. I have seen beginner artists and, to my horror, disected their art in my head, judging it against everything I have seen in the past. It's awful, I wish I could stop, but sadly this kind of thing is hardwired into many non-artists (and some artists as well) minds. Sure, ten people may like my art and three people may praise me, but that's unknowable amounts more who saw it, ignored it, stared at and laughed.

And if you don't have prior experience drawing, or references, or any good materials/drawing mediums? If you are unable to keep up with drawing trends? Unable to perform or render or download any art or animation software? Well, you may as well be dirt. It's honestly feels like there's a whole cultural or class divide between artists and writers, as I once said I was branching out of writing and doing art, and got so much more praise than normal. All of this feels so fucked on so many levels. There is a reason I never post my art on my blog, besides it mostly being fuckass doodles, but even the pieces I am proud if never see the light of day.

I am just sick of how you automatically become "better" if you are a talented artist, and how everyone shits on beginners.

(This is based of my own experiences and I am tagging this with my own fandoms. Feel free to add on your own thoughts and expand fandom tags in reblogs.)

[gingaswag]

i hate how art and ocs and the community surrounding them has made it such a rule-based thing. "cringe culture is dead" but only if you abide to the rules of what proper art is. It's trendy when the popular furry artist makes messy mspaint art, but 'disturbing' and 'weird' when the autistic person who only draws traced Blaze the Cat in medical scrubs does it. You can make any sort of oc, but not anything based off of existing IPs (Nintendo loses 1 million every year from koopaling-inspired kinsonas) "cringe culture is dead" but more so in the sense that it's trendy again to make (well designed, normal, canon complacent) MLP ocs and Sonic the Hedgehog fanart and millions of pieces of fanart for whichever lab created fandom of the week is popular at the moment.

Everytime I see a kid on toyhouse panicking over if their oc looks too similar to a character from some random media they just learned of, I feel like I lose a year off my life. No one tells these kids to live and let live, but instead give them advice on how to change their creations' appearances further, how to avoid any sense of similarity, how to be more "original". How to keep being scared of breaking the rules.

[tampon-eater]

I remember seeing this post a while back about how when people hate on furries + therians that’s normally a really good way to tell that they’re not going to be kind about autistic/nd/queer people and. I totally agree. Like the idea that someone isn’t doing anything to hurt you or anyone else but is just “weird” and that makes you mad sure sounds familiar somewhere (read: every autistic kids interaction with a school like ever). But also this goes so much further than you think.

Like so many styles of dress are based off of being cringe. Decora, “bunny hat kids”, dreamcore, even scene are all about being unappealing and weird and intentionally odd. Literally the entirety of the lemon demon discography is this whole reclamation of being “cringe”. There is literally an aesthetic called cringecore.

So like when people complain about bunny hats or outfits with clashing colours or hyperpop or whatever I can’t help but take it a little more seriously. Like what are the chances that this is your personal taste and what are the chances that you’re going to yell at me if I do something autistic. Hmmm.

[herbal-tylenol]

"Abolish cringe culture!" until it's band/art/choir/drama kids, moms on TikTok, people on dating apps, adults without jobs, adults that still live with their parents, kids using internet slang, beginner artists (in music and drawing), awkward texters, people with bad hygiene, fans of popular media, the list goes on.

Cringe culture isn't just about fandom culture, or people that use terms like XD and rawr. It's about making fun of a group of people that isn't actively doing harm solely because you deem them "embarrassing". Don't say you dislike cringe culture if you stop at what YOU deem as cringe. Normalize doing whatever you want on the internet, as long as it's not hurting anybody there's no reason for you to be made fun of for it.

[mallgothchloe97]

Cringe Culture rant.

I have never understood this whole “cringe,” thing.

Like what is so cringe about people being authentically happy?

Like I know I did alot of embarrassing things, but I am not gonna sit here and bully myself for being authentically happy at that time.

“Omg your cringe,”

So?

Good.

I’m gonna continue being cringe.

Let people continue to do what they want and you don’t like it maybe you should maybe I don’t know know NOT FUCKING INTERACT WITH IT!

Simple.

But you “everything is cringe,” dudebros just can’t do that can you?

Well you wanna know what I have find cringe?

People being mean to someone who being themselves.

I also find the patriarchy cringe as well.

But whatever

Cringe Culture is dead!

Do what you want!

Just be you.

As long as you are not causing actual harm to other people, who cares.

Just be you.

You are a star.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

No but full stop. if you say anything like "Gen Alpha is being raised wrong/horrible to have in class/morally fucked-up/idiotic/doomed/just really really cringe" I will unironically lose all respect for you immediately.

all this stuff about "they're illiterate", "they have no respect for parents or teachers" "screens have rotted their brains" "they just speak in weird Skibidi Toilet Gyatt Rizz Meme Language" "the screens have made them have no behavior standards or morals" "the ScReEeEeEeEnsssss"

...you sound literally exactly like our parents' generation did with us. and elder millenials'/Gen X/even really late boomer's parents' generations did with them about video games and cable tv and...regular tv

and radio

and records

and. dime novels.

and it literally just goes back like that forever

OVID talked abt this stuff in the EXACT same way

so yeah, if you say that stuff without a shred of self-awareness, then I

1) do not think you can keep your commitment to "not fuck up future generations like we were fucked up", since you're contributing to that fucking-up right now by your words and actions.

2) will assume that you have a similar shortsightedness in other issues that require you to compare your own/modern-day views and events to historical ones, and lose faith in your interpretation of everything from aesthetics and online drama to world-altering current events because of that

3) genuinely I just have nothing but disappointment in people who say these things. anyone on this site who hates "icky gen alpha things" almost definitely did the same thing themselves.

They have "Gyatt", we* had GLOMPING, Yaoi Paddles, shitty mspa twerking gifs everywhere, and "Oh My God, Look At Her Butt"

They have "Rizz" we had "YOLO SWAG" and "I made you a cookie but I eated it" and those selfies where you held your camera up too high and then looked up at it from under your bangs

They have "Skibidi Toilet" we had SO MANY THINGS. Llamas with Hats. Charlie the Unicorn. Annoying Orange. Crazy Frog. Potter Puppet Pals. Minecraft Parodies if you're younger gen z. friCKING TOBUSCUS MUSIC, that man was a PLAGUE.

They have a toxic social media culture focused on heavily edited and unachievable beauty standards, enforced popularity culture, rigid aesthetic-based social groups, harmful rumors about health & beauty, a pressure on young girls to act mature, and underlying racism/classism, all leading kids who dont have adequate guidance to, AT BEST, try beauty "products" that arent meant for kids and are usually scams. We had... literally the exact same thing except our airbrushing was on celebs and models instead of coming from filters.

*I am older Gen Z (24 y.o.) but was so fucking sheltered until ~2014, and even then... I'm going off tumblr-history blogs, yt retrospectives and "my friend said so" to understand what "we" had

TLDR STOP BULLYING GEN ALPHA

...except about "Starpatch" or "Starface" or whatever it is. yes, ik its also popular/more popular with younger gen z. yes I'm literally making a post rn to bully(lh) yall JUST as hard about it. if it were my exact age group doing this I would be bullying yall. i dont care who does it, starpatch is so fricking silly.

[p1xel-ra1nb0w]

Okay gang I've been thinking abt this for a while and I must go on a rant abt it😜😜

While I do agree with this, I also don't really care if it's embarrassing.

Like, I do see a lot of my old obsessions as cringe. I was disgustingly obsessed with them. I watched edits, read fanfiction (even the bad stuff), made cringy scenarios in my head, made very bad self inserts, basically consumed any content on the media that I could get my grimy little hands on. I was the definition of a fangirl.

But that's okay, because I was having fun. Yes, I was staying up till 3 am reading x reader fanfiction at my grandmas house. It's embarrassing, but I was having fun.

I'll admit, I still engage in some of these things with my current obsessions. Yes, they might be cringy later, but I'm having fun, and enjoying the things I like. And that's all that really matters.