Hot take… you SHOULD be cringe

Written by Scarlett Heikkila

Everyone is so boring nowadays! In this era of nonchalance and mystique being worshipped, I’m here to say that blasé is just blah. Look, I get it. No one enjoys feeling awkward or judged, but the second we embrace being cringe, life really gets.

If you want to hop onto the self-care train then learning to detach from outside judgements is the most freeing thing you can do for yourself. In high school, I had diagnosed social anxiety and I was terrified to be deemed cringe, weird, uncool, etc. Sure, you could say I succeeded in that, but I ended up becoming something worse than cringe: BORING! At every party I was too afraid to dance and in every conversation I watered down my personality. I had completely evaded all cringe allegations, but at the cost of being a fun, enjoyable person. Why did it feel so embarrassing to indulge in the simplicities of life? News flash, it wasn’t.

Once I matured a little, I realized that everything I was scared of was holding me back from truly having fun. If you constantly look around for a set of eyes judging you, you’ll miss out on the good times that await. So go dance at that party, even if you look a little crazy, and say whatever you want, even if it might be derpy; it attracts the right people. Now, my friends poke fun at me for being awkward and dorky but they love me, and I love being appreciated for my real personality.

Once you learn this lesson, everything falls into place. Allowing yourself to be cringe brightens your life in so many ways. Joy and whimsy will slowly creep in and even the most mundane things will sparkle. I realized that bogging myself down all the time not only made me seem boring, but it made my outlook on life boring as well. Since I didn’t allow myself to have carefree fun, no one and nothing else could be fun either. Constantly picking apart my own actions and judging what I had said or did was the start of a steep descent into picking apart everything else. 

Most people don’t realize that playing the role of the nonchalant, mysterious person who seems indifferent to life and unfazed by anything exciting requires convincing yourself that everything around you is inherently disappointing, because the only way to stop caring is to believe there’s nothing worth caring about. The only way to reverse this mindset and start finding the little joys in life is to free yourself from the shackles of insouciance. 

Now, I often find myself sifting for silver linings and showering my life in positivity, instead of constantly finding a problem or “ick” to complain about. I revel in the insignificant, appreciating the way the sun hits my wall or basking in the rustle of leaves on my walk to class. Yeah it might be cringe to tell your friends, “I really needed this,” while ordinarily hanging out, but the truth is that they most likely love feeling appreciated. Be the friend that makes your love known; it builds a much more sustainable friendship in the long run.

Although cliché, to be cringe truly is to be free. Even though I took that line from a TikTok slideshow, there is incredible truth behind the sentiment. So dance badly, laugh loudly, tell your friends you love them, and let yourself get excited about the little things. Personally, I’d rather be remembered for being slightly embarrassing than for being so afraid of looking stupid that I forgot to have fun, and hot take… you should too!