cringe

Rihanna just revived the early-2000s Bump-it, reports Bustle . It was only a matter of time...

“Home,” these other relics hark back to an unencumbered life outside of our performative digital panopticon.

Millennial commenters express a desire to rewind to that era of their lives; younger posters wish that they could have lived through it in the first place.

On TikTok, you can find montages of hipster imagery under the hashtag #2010snostalgia, including one eulogizing summer, 2012, “when life felt like an indie movie.” The images are all heavily filtered, as on early Instagram, and everyone in them has bangs. One TikTok simply features a series of yellow-tinted photos taken at Starbucks in 2010; it has... See more

“millennial sincerity is tiptoeing back into fashion,” pointing to the surprise revival of Noah and the Whale’s 2008 ultra-twee pop duet “5 Years Time” as the soundtrack to a pivotal scene in the new Superman , “its cringe” — whistling, nursery-rhyme lyrics and all — “wholly recuperated as commodity.”

many of the artifacts once mocked as peak “millennial cringe” are being reappraised in an age of polycrisis, hyper-mediation, and political polarization.

Gen Z has turned George W. Bush into an unlikely internet icon, with TikTok edits under the tag #Bushcore reframing him as a goofy, endearing “grandfather” figure. Viral clips of him saying “Now watch this drive” or dodging shoes in Baghdad are shared as comedy among fans too young to remember the Iraq War. Some TikTokers have even begun calling hi... See more

When the world’s on fire, we huff the copium through irony, detachment, and nihilism. But eventually the bit isn't funny anymore and suddenly, sincerity in all its cringe, sweaty, hopeful earnestness starts to feel intriguing. Misery loves company, but after a while you also get sick of your friend who won't help themselves. Not only is time a flat... See more

Irony is already a hallmark of Gen Z’s cultural expression and a coping mechanism honed in the hyper-visibility of the internet. When you’ve grown up always aware that anything you post could become part of a permanent digital footprint, doing something “ironically” offers a kind of social insurance. If it lands poorly, you were never serious. If i... See more