fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #7102 ]

[ SECRET POST #7102 ]

⌈ Secret Post #7102 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Cringe is one of those words I want to put on a high shelf until people learn the actual definition. Everyone uses it to mean genuine or heartfelt these days.

So what's your definition

Cringe as a noun ala "this fic is cringe" means to be servile. The verb is to shrink back in disgust or fear. What people mean when they say that, though, is that it makes them embarrassed and they then displace that embarrassment on the creator of the "cringy" thing to try and make the creator embarrassed. These days they'll say that about anything genuine or not jaded because god forbid we have any kind of real human connection.

Cringe as a noun ala "this fic is cringe" means to be servile.

Can I ask where this definition comes from?

My understanding was that “this is cringe” comes pretty directly from “this makes me cringe in embarrassment”. But I can’t remember if that’s something that’s been clearly documented by linguists or not.

[Edit: I do still have a problem with the term, I don’t like that as an adjective/noun it implies “cringe” to be an inherent quality of the thing rather than a highly subjective emotional reaction by a viewer.]

Edited 2026-06-16 23:30 (UTC)

Sorry, another addition…

Everyone uses it to mean genuine or heartfelt these days.

That seems incomplete at best. There’s a clear negative connotation and I don’t think “genuine or heartfelt” is even a necessary component. I see people commonly call things “cringe” for being overly ironic too.

I've never seen anyone say that for something being overly ironic. Only things that aren't sarcastic or aren't polished.

Cool. But you see at least a few data points in the comments saying that they’ve seen “cringe” used for other things like people putting on pretensions, right?

I see them saying that in this comment thread. I have not run into this myself. My experiences are all I have to go off. I'm sorry my two sentence comment did not account for all of humanity.

Well, at the very least, you are now a second-hand anecdote in my personal dataset and they’re second-hand anecdotes in yours.

NTA
Cringe meaning "genuine or heartfelt" heavily depends on context and is mostly a contemporary/subcultural use. The only times I've seen it used for that is in a tongue-in-cheek way. Like, "this is cringe and I love it" or "I am cringe and free", etc.

I don't think people are literally using it to mean "genuine or heartfelt", I think they're using it in the understood sense of "gives me secondhand embarrassment" and they just find sincerity embarrassing.

Can I ask where this definition comes from?

From the dictionary. It's also how the noun was used in most novels pre the-last-twenty-years.

I can understand taking the verb, to cringe, and making it a new noun. But the verb is about the person talking, not the object. Let's take the close verb "flinch" as an example. I could say "That book was so flinch" and you could probably understand that I, personally, flinched when reading it. It doesn't say anything about the actual work. But people are trying to make cringe be something inherent to a work, and not to their reaction to it. "That work is so cringe" doesn't just mean that the person feels embarrassed for the creator but that the work itself is an embarrassment and the creator should feel embarrassed for doing it.

But if people currently saying “this fic is cringe” don’t actually mean “this fic is servile” in what way is that what the word means?

.... I started this whole thing by saying they were using it wrong. People can use "cromulent" to now mean blue, and I will still never use it that way because that's not what that means. I know languages change etc etc but I don't fucking care when it comes to cringe. I hate that people are so afraid of "being cringe" these days because by bowing and complying to the idea of "cringe" on the internet, they're actually being cringe, as in servile.

Do you ever refer to anything as "cool" without it being low temperature?

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(Anonymous) - 2026-06-16 23:56 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2026-06-17 02:44 (UTC) - Expand

Look, in my very first comment, I mentioned that I don’t like this usage. I don’t like that shift to “cringe” being a quality of the thing rather than a subjective reaction of the viewer.

I think that subtle shift from verb to noun/adjective does actually matter in people’s general perception.

I just also think that dragging in the sense of “servile” is irrelevant and confusing.

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(Anonymous) - 2026-06-17 00:00 (UTC) - Expand

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iff_and_xor - 2026-06-17 00:02 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2026-06-17 00:05 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2026-06-17 01:33 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2026-06-17 02:43 (UTC) - Expand

Your experience is definitely not universal.

wut? I have never seen that. Cringe as a noun is something that is embarrassing. The “I’m a cool mom” types are cringe. They’re also cringey.

Nobody uses it to mean genuine? People use it to mean awkward or embarrassing, as in "this makes me cringe."

ayrt is being sardonic; the people saying it don't mean "genuine" or "heartfelt", they mean the same "awkward and embarrassing" that you do, it's just that genuine and heartfelt work is, reliably, the main thing they get so embarrassed about.

Where are you hanging out that "everyone" does that?

Cringe has always meant something that gives the commenter secondhand embarrassment, nothing more, nothing else.

Sometimes people say that about genuine and heartfelt things, but IME it's usually the opposite. People obviously faking being cool or rich or smart, or someone speaking super confidently while completely factually wrong and everyone else knows it, are some of the things I see called cringe the most.

If they're only saying that it gave the commenter secondhand embarrassment then a thing could never be cringe. I rarely hear anyone say "this made me cringe" or "this gave me the cringes." I hear "This is cringey" a lot which makes the cringe a property held by the object, not an emotion felt by the commenter.

...why can't a thing give someone secondhand embarrassment?

I think Kash Patel's childrens' books are considered universally cringe. Why can't they be?

Things can give someone second hand embarrassment. The thing is not inherently embarrassing. And thus the person who made it is not embarrassing. By attaching cringe to the thing, the onus of the embarrassment is being shifted from the person feeling it to the creator of the thing. Otherwise why would OP be afraid of being cringe? If they create what they want, why would that be embarrassing? Why care about making something "cringe" unless the people who find it so are shifting that emotion onto the maker?

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