{"id":38678,"date":"2025-09-26T09:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/38678\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T09:02:09","slug":"why-does-everything-online-feel-so-embarrassing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/38678\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does everything online feel so embarrassing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one thing to get on a plane you think is heading to France and end up bound for North Africa. It\u2019s another thing to post that big oops on the internet<\/a> to millions of people ready to laugh and scrutinize your foolishness.<\/p>\n

This is reportedly what happened earlier this month when two American women traveling from Rome told an airline representative they wanted a flight \u201cto Nice,\u201d and the employee supposedly heard them say \u201cTunis,\u201d as in the capital of Tunisia. They posted the video of the sitcom-esque saga \u2014 from the pair cracking up<\/a> as a flight attendant explained the error to their journey<\/a> after they elected to stay on the flight \u2014 to TikTok, and it quickly went viral. While many laughed at the farce, some were left confused as to how the women made such a huge mistake. One would assume that there were a few indications at the airport that they were boarding a plane to Tunis \u2014 including the fact that they were flying on Tunisair.<\/p>\n

The whole \u201cTo Nice\u201d versus Tunis fiasco feels emblematic of a sort of shamelessness that seems to fuel our most-watched content these days. This past year, it seems like the primary way to be online is to be kind of embarrassing, if not fully indulge in a rising subgenre of what we can only call \u201cembarrassment porn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most obvious example is the Jet2 holiday memes<\/a> where TikTok users uploaded videos of themselves getting thrown off towable tubes, surfboards, and engaging in other accidental physical comedy set to a cheery advert for the British budget airline. But that\u2019s mortification on the fun, easy, and only-physically-harmful setting. Other entries in the genre include everything from posting about the sorry state of your marriage<\/a> to announcing your lack<\/a> of knowledge<\/a> about a sporting event you\u2019re attending (let alone at the very costly US Open<\/a>). The past year has seen one viral TikToker eagerly share their disregard for the boundaries and norms of the therapist-client relationship<\/a>, while another was willing to broadcast that they were kicked out of a party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It raises some questions for a generation known for dictating the boundaries of what is awkward behavior and what isn\u2019t<\/a>. What exactly counts as embarrassing nowadays? Is anything truly shameful in our ever-chaotic age?<\/p>\n

To be clear, embarrassing content is not a new phenomenon. One of the first viral offerings of the early YouTube era was a woman standing on a table in wedge heels while belting a song, and subsequently suffering a violent fall (otherwise known as \u201cScarlet Takes a Tumble<\/a>\u201d). The calamitous Jet2 Holiday memes mimic the decades-spanning clip show America\u2019s Funniest Home Videos and the popular game show Wipeout. In fact, the entire genre of reality TV<\/a>, dating back to the 1940s, is built on average people being humiliated via planted microphones and later planted cameras.<\/p>\n

Cornell University professor and social researcher Brooke Erin Duffy also connects this sort of mortifying content to a bygone paparazzi culture.\u00a0She says our collective glee in watching\u00a0celebrities get caught looking foolish was \u201cinflected with privilege\u201d and had a \u201ctransactional\u201d nature but it\u2019s now trickled down to the average person.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always been a grotesque fascination with seeing people at their worst,\u201d says Duffy. \u201cThe paparazzi industry was predicated on capturing the rawness and vulnerability of famous people, people not like us. It\u2019s interesting to see how that provided precursors for this era of vulnerability and where celebrities are managing their own social media presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the saturation of this content hasn\u2019t totally normalized it, as young people are simultaneously if not equally concerned with what\u2019s socially acceptable behavior and what\u2019s not. Nothing is seemingly more undignified than coming off as \u201ccringe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her viral 2020 video essay<\/a>, YouTuber Natalie Wynn (aka ContraPoints) describes cringe as \u201can electric shock, the emotional punishment for being awkward.\u201d Cringe notably describes secondhand embarrassment by the person observing the behavior, not the feeling of shame experienced by the person doing the action. That said, cringe is relative and dependent on your environment. According to my 17-year-old-niece, markers of cringe include being a \u201cGen Z Trump supporter\u201d or engaging in nerd cultures, like anime. If you look online, certain derided archetypes like \u201cpick me\u2019s\u201d and \u201cperformative males<\/a>\u201d can fall under the cringe category.<\/p>\n

When it comes to a certain age group, though, Gen Z has curated a much more specific moodboard<\/a> for what\u2019s cringe. According to various social media posts, including TikTok accounts dedicated to the aesthetic of \u201cmillennial cringe,\u201d practically any hallmark of the late 2000s and early 2010s carries this mortifying sheen. Skinny jeans are cringe. Avocado toast is cringe. The pause before millennials start speaking in a selfie video is cringe. The Fox show Glee is cringe. The Broadway musical Hamilton is cringe. Millennials who feel targeted by these definitions might find themselves baffled to see Zoomers eagerly posting their own Ls online.<\/p>\n

Kaley Mullin, a youth and trends insight lead at YouTube and a contributor to the newsletter Cool Shiny Culture<\/a>, says that cringe often just encompasses anything that feels outdated to Gen Z. \u201cA lot of it seems like it has to do with language and affect, slang like \u2018pupper,\u2019 \u2018doggo,\u2019 \u2018but first, coffee\u2019 seems especially ripe for Zoomer ridicule. An overly effusive, quirky affect feels like it gets dinged in the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n

That effusiveness speaks to the most common understanding of what causes \u201cmillennial cringe,\u201d or possibly just cringe writ large: anything earnest. When the 2010 Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes song \u201cHome\u201d went viral last month after an X user declared it was the worst song ever made, it seemed to highlight an extreme level of sincerity, a disregard for seeming awkward, maybe just unabashed joy.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an ungenerous way to read all of this: that being ignorant or clumsy has a social currency, but being enthusiastic and genuine does not. The reality isn\u2019t that simple, though. Gen Z is plenty emotional and socially uncomfortable online; in fact, the current cohort of youngsters have built a reputation for crying on camera<\/a>, broadcasting their angry outbursts (labeled \u201ccrash outs<\/a>\u201d), and oversharing details of their personal lives and relationships. Yet, this vulnerability is often displayed with a level of social media savviness and self-awareness. Whereas millennials, as Duffy argues, \u201ccame of age lacking a sense of social media performativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This distinction, some argue, keeps these current soul-baring users from stepping into \u201ccringe\u201d territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s unique and cool about Gen Z is they\u2019re more aware that embarrassment loses its power when it\u2019s owned and shared,\u201d says Mullin. \u201cBeing the one to address an embarrassing thing you did by posting about it destigmatizes that thing. It turns it into an amusing anecdote versus something that keeps you up at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

For some, it\u2019s even more than an amusing anecdote, it\u2019s an opening. In 2024, when a TikTok user named Reesa Teesa shared upward of 50 videos about her experience being duped by her pathological-liar husband in a series titled \u201cWho TF Did I Marry?<\/a>,\u201d one can at least assume she was operating partly under an awareness that there\u2019s some sort of power, if not just attention, to be gained from publicly sharing these. For her<\/a> and others<\/a>, they have even resulted in career opportunities. The same can be speculated about the \u201cTo Nice vs. Tunis\u201d girls. It\u2019s probably not a coincidence that the poster<\/a> was already a fairly successful influencer, seemingly with an understanding of what would grab her feed\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

In addition to what can be gained from these moments, Duffy says that Gen Z may also feel like they have less risk in looking silly or embarrassing, specifically on an app like TikTok where posts are largely viewed by strangers because of the algorithmic system.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn TikTok, there seems to be less of a sense of fear over what we call \u2018imagined surveillance\u2019 because you aren\u2019t necessarily coming into contact with these people on a daily basis,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople have a following on Instagram and Facebook, but it\u2019s kind of predicated on individuals who you come into contact with in your offline life.\u201d<\/p>\n

To form a theory of Gen Z cringe would probably just mean looking to Gen Alpha in the next few years. So far, it seems like they\u2019ve mostly just accepted the trends that have been passed down to them from the past generation. A study<\/a> by marketing firm Acceleration found that today\u2019s kids are similarly interested in following average people who they perceive as relatable, as opposed to traditional, lofty celebrities.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, in a moment where Americans are purportedly more isolated<\/a> than ever before, there\u2019s a level of capital in being someone people can see themselves in, even at the expense of looking embarrassing. \u201cThe important thing to note about posting something cringy is that it reinforces relatability in an era where relatability is everything,\u201d Mullin says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially for influencers who are making serious money and getting amazing access to exclusive events, it\u2019s less cool to flaunt an unattainable aspirational lifestyle and more cool to show off how starstruck you were when a celebrity walked past you,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Maybe the rise in mortifying videos is a natural changing of the tides following a decade of tightly curated, highly airbrushed Instagram posts and the initial perfection-obsessed wave of influencers. The most cringe thing for Gen Z might just be pretending that life isn\u2019t naturally debasing.<\/p>\n