Gen Z's cringe obsession is getting out of hand
Gen Z is obsessed with cringe content as a defense against being embarrassed online. But is it actually helping them relax, or just making things worse?
Katie Whitney has 2.5 million TikTok followers. Last month she posted a video that made her sound like she was talking to a puppy — but she was actually addressing Cynthia Erivo, the Wicked star. "Hi baby. How are you?" she cooed at the camera, her voice soft and deliberately awkward. The comments poured in. "I feel traumatised," one person wrote. Others shared photos of what they imagined Erivo's horrified face would look like if she actually watched it.
Welcome to CringeTok, where the whole point is to make yourself uncomfortable on purpose.
Whitney started posting this kind of "weird skits" at 20. Now 25, she's built an entire following around intentionally awkward content — the stuff that makes you want to hide behind a pillow. But here's the thing: this entire corner of the internet exists because young people are genuinely terrified of being cringe in real life.
The fear is real and it's everywhere. Walk into a school or office and you'll notice it — people holding back, afraid to dance, scared to show they actually care about something. Everyone's got a phone. Everyone's got a camera. One wrong move, one moment of genuine enthusiasm, and you could end up as a screenshot shared to millions of strangers who'll laugh at you.
So some Gen Z folks flipped the script. If being cringe is inevitable, might as well lean into it on your own terms. Post the most deliberately embarrassing thing you can think of, own it completely, and suddenly you're not a victim of cringe — you're in control of it. It's a coping mechanism dressed up as entertainment.
But there's a catch. This arms race of awkwardness means fewer people are willing to just... exist without worrying about how it looks. Dancing at a party? That could go viral for the wrong reasons. Trying something new and failing? Documented forever. Being enthusiastic about a hobby? Cringe.
The question nobody's really answering is whether CringeTok is actually helping Gen Z escape the fear, or just giving it a different shape. Trading genuine embarrassment for performed embarrassment isn't quite freedom. It's more like choosing which cage you'd rather sit in.
