Hello, I just want to casually remind everyone that follows me that cringe culture is bad! And I mean really, really bad. I need you to take a moment to understand what these things do to people. By sinking into this nonsense, you are taking people’s interests, hobbies, things they legitimately enjoy, and ruining it for them.
Totally innocent things. Like certain fandoms that there’s really legitimately nothing wrong with! Certain types of OCs like self inserts and characters that are related to canons and things like that! Making fun of people’s portrayals of canon characters, or telling them that canons suck and that you should be writing strictly OCs! (< this one isn’t so prevalent in the tumblr rpc, usually it’s the opposite (which is bad too), but it happened to me a long time ago somewhere else.)
Making fun of people’s art for having a style you don’t like! Straightup sending people hate for it! Making fun of literal children for having OP characters and stuff when they’re just starting out, which is perfectly normal by the way!
You are crushing these people. Often times before they even really get started. You’re crushing them, making them self-conscious. They get scared to ever show their work to anyone else. They start doubting themselves. None of their art or writing is ever good enough. It’s cringy. It’s all cringy and doesn’t deserve to be shown to the world.
Can you just take a moment. Take a moment to just let it sink in how horrible, how toxic this is. For children, who are just starting out. For teenagers, who think they’re finally getting somewhere only to be made to feel like everything they do sucks all over again. Even for adults, because it doesn’t just happen to kids and teens. It can happen to everyone.
For the people that get so much excitement and joy out of their fandoms, only to be told that they shouldn’t like that thing because it’s horrible and cringy and it makes them horrible and cringy to like it. Only to get made fun of, ridiculed, until they can’t enjoy it anymore.
Please. Please take a moment to think what you’re doing to these people. Think how they must feel. How bitter can you possibly be to take these things away from people who are just having fun? What did they ever do to you other than exist? Why? Why is this a thing that ever became a trend? It’s horrible, awful, despicable.
I see so many PSAs going around about not doing this or not doing that because it’s toxic, abusive, etc etc. Well I’m here to tell you that this might as well be just as bad. And it’s still out there! No matter how many people claim to be against it, there’s still being people told that their fandoms are cringy. Their OCs are cringy. Their art is cringy. Their writing is cringy.
It starts with you. I’m practically pleading with you to cut the word ‘cringy’ out of your vocabulary entirely. What reason is there to use it at all? It’s too light for things that are actually bad, and far, far too severe for things that are just innocent fun.
End cringe culture. End it permanently. Don’t subject anymore people to this. Please, I’m begging you to make an effort to stop this. I’m begging you as someone who has gotten incredibly self conscious about my writing and art because of it, as someone who’s seen my friends be crushed by it and lose all of their confidence.
Please, please stop this. Before it starts getting any worse than it already is.
