However, the same “law” applies to moments that are, let’s say, less than ideal. For example, having a brain fart on social media and sharing a bizarre status update, or going live on TV with an explicit item in the background. The subreddit ‘Hilarious Cringe’ is an excellent example of that. This online community is dedicated to collecting and immortalizing moments that make awkward seem cool. “Years ago, I commented ‘r/hilariouscringe’ on a r/sadcringe post, and it got so many upvotes that I decided to create the community,” they told Bored Panda. “It gained 1K members immediately and slowly grew to 10K over a year or two. The last time I checked, we were at 20K and steadily growing. I would describe it as a surprisingly active community in terms of posts, comments, and interactions. I’m always surprised by new posts.” “When I set up the community, I made it clear there are absolutely no rules besides Reddit’s rules and no self-promotion,” the moderator added. “This is because other cringe subreddits that already existed were extremely strict, and I find Reddit moderation to be the most cringe thing on the internet — just a bunch of Discord mods on a power trip to enforce their echo chamber.” “I admit I delete a few posts a year that are political jokes or borderline hateful towards minorities. I think entertainment should be an escape from real-life problems, so there is no reason for divisive content that could hurt someone’s feelings to exist in my subreddit (or on Reddit),” the moderator said, highlighting that r/hilariouscringe is definitely about secondhand embarrassment and not schadenfreude (the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune). Our bodies consider “negative judgement” to be a threat to survival, Burnett explained. “Our primitive brain reflexes don’t really discern between a physical threat (e.g. a nearby tiger) and a psychological threat (e.g. potentially embarrassing ourselves in front of others), so they trigger similar responses.” So when we find people cringeworthy, our bodies are essentially telling us to avoid them. Otherwise, we could risk becoming associated with them and being socially alienated from the pack. As repulsive as the feeling might be, the discomfort is actually a pretty neat social compass to possess! Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
