memes

Being mean is willfully making people around you feel worse. Being cringe is negligently making people around you feel worse. Once you're aware you're cringe, if you do nothing to mitigate it, you're being willfully negligent, which is just as bad as doing something intentionally.

Cringe is just vicarious embarrassment. You are feeling embarrassed on behalf of someone else. Unlike empathy, where you share the emotion someone else is experiencing, cringe is generally embarrassment for the actions of someone else who is not embarrassed.

I suspect this is an instinct that helps us create social norms. We are embarrassed that someone else is acting in a way that would embarrass us, so we are encouraged to let them know that what they’re doing isn’t right. This is helpful if someone has toilet paper stuck to their shoe, or their fly is down, or they have some food stuck in their teeth.

But it isn’t helpful if the thing they’re doing is intentional, harmless, and they’re owning it. Let people live their lives, and work on your response to their behavior or appearance rather than policing them to make yourself feel better.

NB: I am not a psychologist.