#in fact a user called ulillillia had a decently well-known video on oddities in spyro 2

[vimbry]

I wonder what the secret sauce is that separates work worthy of public ridicule and work worthy of respect. of course, this is completely subjective and dependent on how each individual responds to different things emotionally, both internally and in their external behaviour. so there probably isn't one sure-fire way of escaping the notion of "cringe", especially since you can never please everybody and honestly cringe culture is stupid, anyway.

I think of this concept a lot, bc there's plenty of earnestly-made art out there that people may consider too "overanalytical" for its subject matter. you know, imagine your standard deviantart-hosted comic or writings about a children's video game series that takes the world way beyond its original tone, or categorises things in a way that the source material likely never intended anyone to care about. there's a very (in)Famous comic along these lines that I'm sure came to a lot of your minds right now that was mercilessly torn apart online, long before the creator did anything actually morally despicable.

the most noticeable thing to elevate work above "cringe" is definitely having competent skills. if you can prove you've put the effort in on the technical side, then this usually makes your art more acceptable, compared to a more crude amateur or beginner, which is somehow a bad thing to be.

but there also seems to be some sort of rule that if you pepper enough irony or self-awareness into the work, it becomes palatable regardless of skill or subject matter? and that's no criticism of art that does this. "mr boop" could be defined as ironic, and I love that thing. but you have to do something, whether it's evident in the style, or the artist's demeanour, to show you're not That serious about this. you don't care That much about what you're making or anything. it's just interesting that you seem to have to put yourself down first before you can be seen to openly enjoy anything.