cringe culture and its consequences

cringe culture is killing fun. part of the reason everything is so boring now in terms of media is because the people who make it are afraid of being deemed 'cringe'. but what does it mean to be cringe? 

recently, it seems like being considered cringe is a crime punishable by death. but it also seems that there is no set in stone line marking the border between cringe and not cringe, it depends heavily on who the person committing the possible act of cringe is. its nonsensical. some are cringe for simply existing while others can do literally anything and never receive a shred of hate, theres no rhyme or reason to it. 

because theres no pattern to it, anything could become cringe at any time, creating a sense of fear within those who actually care about these things. in order to avoid the public humiliation that comes with being cringe, you have to adapt to be not cringe - its that simple. but as cringe culture progresses, the spectrum of what is cringe broadens with each passing day. because of this, theres only one way to avoid being cringe and that is to play it safe, be as non-offensive as possible, look/act/think like everyone else. 

and this seems to be just one of the many consequences of the internet and modern social media. while the concept of being cringe has always existed, the extent of the shaming of anything that dares to resemble cringe is fairly new. it also seems to be way more widespread nowadays. being cringe was never THAT deep before, sure people would make fun of things they found cringe but very few people would get so personally offended by anything that made them cringe. now, especially on tiktok, if someone finds you cringe you will probably get relentlessly harassed by the most boring people youve ever seen, the ones who hold themselves back from doing what they want because they care too much. 

this also seems to be translating into other things like music and film. it seems that nowadays, a lot of musicians in particular, take themselves too seriously and stop themselves from experimenting with different genres and styles for fear of being called cringe and outdated. ironically, this makes them slightly more cringe and outdated as they now cant seem to keep up with the trends and end up falling behind. this inability to evolve fucks these artists over in more ways than one, for example, amassing a fanbase will be much harder as they are outdated, they end up trapping themselves into a style that a lot of the fanbase they do collect wont take too well to change and people will get bored of them doing the same thing over and over. this also just makes everything boring and unoriginal. i also feel like this is a big part of the reason why there seems to be a disconnect between the media of today and the kinds of media people today like.