From awkwardness to empathy
"Cringe" has moved beyond internet slang to describe a familiar response: feeling embarrassment on someone else's behalf. It combines shame with sympathy, making us wince at another person's exposed moment while imagining how it might feel to be in their place. Adam Smith explored a related idea in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, arguing that we can use imagination to enter another person's experience.
Online, the word can also become a tool for judging or excluding people. Calling someone's interests or self-expression "cringe" may turn a moment of awkwardness into public ridicule. The term's reach raises a broader question: when does shared discomfort encourage understanding, and when does it become a way to police who belongs?
How art makes discomfort visible
Artists and filmmakers have long used awkwardness, social exposure and uneasy performances to explore the distance between how people see themselves and how others see them. Recent works such as Jordan Strafer's Talk Show, presented at the 2026 Whitney Biennial, draw attention to the uncertainty of how audiences should respond: with amusement, discomfort or compassion.
One useful distinction is between art that observes cringe from a distance and work that immerses viewers in it. The latter can make the audience feel implicated, particularly when it touches on online self-presentation, beauty standards or the pressure to attract attention. In that sense, cringe is not simply a reaction to bad taste; it can reveal the social expectations shaping our judgments.
Those judgments also change over time. Work once regarded as daring may later feel out of step with evolving ideas about representation and identity. Looking back with discomfort can prompt reflection not only on the artwork, but on the values that informed its reception.
Approached with care, cringe can encourage humility and empathy rather than mockery. As digital culture makes self-expression increasingly public, art's exploration of this feeling may help audiences consider how their reactions shape a more understanding future.
