17 Comments
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Kalvin Ellis's avatar

I'll gladly be cringe if cringe means the freedom to be happy with who I am. Hell yeah!

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Debra Poole's avatar

I'm cringe AF in every possible instance, and I revel in it! If you can find a little sunshine anywhere these days, I say fuckin take it.

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Gabino Iglesias's avatar

Exactly!

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Victor De Anda's avatar

Great post! "Cringe" can go burn in a tire fire. Just let people enjoy what they like doing! Is that so difficult? No need to make fun of people for being themselves.

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Angela Daniels's avatar

A phrase that also needs to die for the same reasons is the godawful "Guilty Pleasure".

Who decides what qualifies as a GP and what doesn't?

To me a guilty pleasure means something you know you shouldn't do as it's not good for you, but you want to because it will make you feel great in the short term. Like helpijg yourself to an extra cookie or two when you're already full, or going "What the hell..." and staying at your friend's house for one more scotch, even though it's already 11:30 and you're on the early shift tomorrow.

What's not a guilty pleasure is reading a Jack Reacher as sorbet for the palate after finishing a book with particularly dark, grim or heavy themes; being pleasantly surprised that Todd Rundgren's "I Saw The Light" was my most listened to song of the year according to Spotify's annual slideshow thing; or completely unironically throwing Van Helsing on the Blu-ray player because while I know it's an objectively bad film I still always have a jolly good time watching it.

As I get older, the less I seem to care about what people I don't really know think about me.

For my fiftieth a couple of weeks ago my brother gave me some money. I immediately put all thoughts of savings and bills and sensible things out of my head and bought the commemorative 40th anniversary Dungeons & Dragons 8 inch Venger action figure. It arrived the other day - and he has pride of place on my desk. I bloody love it.

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Victor De Anda's avatar

Totally agree. Banish the words "guilty pleasure" from your mind!

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Gabino Iglesias's avatar

Agreed!

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Rie Sheridan Rose's avatar

Well said, Gabino! Yeah, I'm probably cringe too...

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Dustin Ekman's avatar

Hooray for the cringe lords!

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Paul Corman-Roberts's avatar

Perfect.

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Margo H's avatar

I feel like cringe is one of those words that people throw at you to make themselves feel superior to you and that in itself is the ultimate in cringe imo

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Fernando Ticon's avatar

Better be cringe trying to do something true and lively than being normal while doom-scrolling for jackpot emotions that you'll forget later on and will do nothing about.

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Mike Cook's avatar

Best thing I’ve read in a while.

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Gabino Iglesias's avatar

Thank you!

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Jackie Beard Robinson's avatar

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About your article about New York Book publishers NYBP

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Jesú Estrada, Ph.D.'s avatar

How the fuck are books cringe? Stupid.

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Michael Mohr's avatar

And Gen Z says collectively "LOL, Capitalism, Cringe."

Yeah. Absurd. You nailed it.

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