The Cult of “Cringe”

By Eloise Nickson

In the words of amazing video-essayist Mina Le, we are living in a ‘girl economy’. 

Everything is “teenage girl,” everything is “baby girl”; “girl walks,” “girl dinner,” “girl room.” Have we finally pushed away that internalised misogyny, that prayer to be “not like other girls”?  

It seems that finally, we live in a society where girls seem more united than ever thanks to the era of Taylor’s Version and the Barbie resurgence. But there’s still a lingering stench of bigotry in the air, and that is the male-led cult of cringe. 

So, you like Taylor Swift? Oh, you like overpriced coffee from Starbucks? Do you get giddy and excited when you see your girlfriends and run to hug them? Is the word “slay” in your vocabulary? Do you own anything pink? What about Rom-Coms; are you partial to those? If you answered yes to any of these, I’m afraid in the brain of a boy, you are cringe, you are basic, and you are not a “cool girl,” as coined by Amy Dunne of Gone Girl. 

 I can guarantee you every girl has had a conversation with a man about Taylor Swift, and the only responses are either about her “many” exes, or how “Kanye is better” (a sexist joke I am personally bored of.)  

Turn up to your uni lecture in pop-star merch, I dare you -- see how the boys in the room react. You’ll be judged by someone in a Ronaldo shirt, and you will be made fun of for fangirling over a “slut.” They, however, will be seen as cool even if their shirt is, in light words to save myself from a libel case, idolising a very problematic man.  

I can hear the men saying already: “but he brings so much to our country’s football economy,” or, “he is an inspiration, the best there is,”. I could combat this and tell them that if Swift was to cancel one night (yes, just one) of her Era’s Tour in the USA it would crash the economy of the city it was meant to be in, but I am sick of having men roll their eyes at me. They ignore me, belittle me - simply because Taylor is ‘uncool’ and I am just a teenage girl who knows nothing about economics and doesn’t understand why we can’t “just print more money.” 

The history of pop culture is as follows: fangirls are ‘weird’ to men. They’re obsessive, they’re creepy -- you can trace it back to the girls who fawned over Elvis or The Beatles. The fact that teenage girls loved them made them “cringe” to men.  

Maybe fangirls are creepy but when their favourite musician loses out at the VMA’s, there is not the spike in Domestic Violence that is seen when a favourite footballer misses a goal. But girls who have posters on their wall are the crazy ones, right? 

 When I interviewed the girls in my community, 81.8%onfessed that they had been called ‘cringe’ by men at some point in their life; meaning the majority of young women have been ridiculed and made to feel embarrassed of their interests.  

In a world where the male gaze is as prevalent yet as invisible as oxygencategory of “not like other girls.”  

 I understand why this pressure to hide ourselves exists and I wanted to delve deeper into the minds of multiple women together their experiences and opinions in order to highlight the way women are united together against the issues still faced in every-day life. 

Are we shocked that when giving examples of when they were ridiculed or called cringe by men, over half of the women included being ridiculed for simply hating Taylor Swift? Because I am not surprised at all.  

One woman even stated that: “My ex used to call me cringe and said it was to "protect" me and for me to learn how to manage those hyper fixations or my intense feelings towards something so other people who were not him would not make fun of me,’ This broke my heart.  

I already wake up most days with the woes of womanhood on my mind -- but this struck a chord with me. Why do we feel as though we have to morph ourselves for the love of a man? Why do we have to change the fundamentals of ourselves to appease them?  

If you aren’t already angry, 36.4% of women said that they were ridiculed by men for being ‘fangirls’, while the men themselves were wearing football kits, simply fanboy merch. 

Huh? 

I asked these women why they think men behave this way about female interests, and the results ranged from jealousy to blatant sexism and a desire to control women. 

One woman said: “Women have an allowance to express strong feelings towards things men don't and unless it is "manly" things like sports. So, men have jealousy towards us. Also, the patriarchal normalisation of being sexist and an idiot towards women.” 

 Another told me: “Boys and men create problems about anything that they’re not used to, they can’t accept that women and girls can have interests that aren’t just trying to please boys and men.”  

I ask you to analyse yourself, have you ever been guilty of this? 

I know for me, when I was younger, I used to insist in school that I hated pink. I wanted to be different -- as did 90% of the girls I interviewed. Whether it was so they would find us more attractive, or simply so we didn’t have to defend ourselves to those who didn’t understand -- we still did it, and in doing it, we let them win.  

But we are moving away from this; we are showing up to a cinema in pink, we are shouting about Taylor’s Version and why it matters. Me and my friends even made a pact to each other, to never be ‘the cool girl’. The narrative is tiring, the ridicule is boring.  

As one woman points out to me, it is equally, if not more, tiresome and boring, “hearing a girl call someone cringe or basic than if a guy were to say it. Us girls should support each other, not support patriarchal stereotypes. I don't care what men think of me.” I think that’s the key; the learning not to care. 

My therapist once said to me she loved it when she entered her forties, she became invisible to men, and she could do what she wanted -- it was the most liberated she felt. But why should we spend 40 years suppressing ourselves for the male gaze? They choose to pay attention to us, we don’t even ask for it.  

If they want to give us that attention, surely, they should make sure they actually like us, and not just fetishize us first.  

“Besides, there are people out there who will love you for your interests and those are the people you should attract,” one woman says to me. 

“By denying yourself the pleasure of loving what you love, you are losing out on so many amazing friendships and conversations about girlish things. There is such a big comfort in embracing your womanhood and being able to share it.”

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this piece by the author are their own – they do not and are not intended to represent the beliefs and opinions of Plymouth University, University of Plymouth Student Union or the Plymouth Gazette.  

Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons