University has always been a place where students, from every background, can come together, collaborate, share ideas freely, and feel accepted as their whole, authentic selves. The foundation on which the concept of university rests is the ability to gain more life experiences, knowledge, and perspective through higher education. This in itself has provided students with the tools they need to go out into the world, succeed, and know who they are.
It would be nice if this were actually the reality of college.
Welcome to the 21st century version of university education. Raising your hand in class is embarrassing. Being opinionated – it’s a no. Getting to class early is just showing off, and attending office hours is for try hards and nerds. Skipping class is the norm, sleeping through class is the expectation. Homework? Who cares? Going out will warrant much more social credit than those straight A’s ever will.
My entire life, I was ready for college. I despised middle and high school. I hated taking classes I had no interest in, and worse, failing those classes because of my lack of motivation. I barely cared about anything my senior year of high school, and when graduation came around, I wasn’t even enthusiastic. I just wanted to be done.
Fast forward to college. I had mental images of the excitement of choosing classes, of being around people who understood me and had the same passion for their studies. All the TV shows and movies depicting smiling young adults headed for college were exactly what I thought my first year was going to look like.
In the end, it was I who realized that the majority of university students have one common fear. It’s a fear that drives us, forces us into coercive behaviors, and ultimately has the capacity to destroy our mental health and career prospects.
It’s the fear of being cringe.
For those who have trouble locking down a solid definition for the term “cringe,” I feel you. In essence, “cringe” is defined as having an inward feeling of acute embarrassment or awkwardness. This innate feeling of discomfort may relate to an action being performed or secondhand cringe from someone else’s behavior. It’s completely natural and very much normal to experience feeling cringe, whether it be toward yourself or others.
Typically, when we encounter cringeworthy behavior, even if it’s a thought in our own brain, it’s something that breaks a societal norm (i.e., outrageous, unprecedented action). For example, a teenager might “cringe” at their parents singing in public. We might feel “cringey” when we see overly “authentic” posts on social media. Public oversharing or trauma dumping when you’ve first met someone? Sounds like a direct road to feeling cringe.
My point is, experiencing “cringe” emotions is part of our everyday lives, and it used to be, for the most part, up to the individual whether or not they deemed an action as such. Part of being a human is having the capability to be completely unique in your thoughts and perspective.
The sad part about today’s world? We have developed a herd-like mentality of what we “as a society” determine as being cringe. And, unfortunately, this mindset penetrated college campuses a long time ago.
If you’re a university student or even in high school, I want you to think about your biggest classes. For some, this may be a 200 person lecture, for others, maybe a 30 to 40 person recitation. Either way, I want you to consider the amount of talking we do during these classes. In many of my classes, students, including myself, don’t raise their hands or share their opinions. We rarely talk amongst each other during dedicated work time, and we’re faced with the awkward silence when the teacher asks someone to volunteer to share their answers. We avoid eye contact, instead focusing on the screen in front of us, pretending to work.
I’d like to point a finger at the fastest growing phenomenon of younger generations: cringe culture.
Cringe culture, a tad different from “cringe,” is the concept of people shunning someone for being weird, awkward, or otherwise socially unusual, more often than not, over the internet. It goes hand in hand with another rising trend, surveillance culture, the cultural phenomenon of widespread monitoring.
Let’s put this into perspective. If you’re someone who likes to post fun, creative, and entertaining content on social media, you’re bound to post often, and your content might not fit into the larger societal norms of aesthetics. Then, one day, someone stumbles upon your page and finds it “cringe.”. They troll you in the comments, screenshot your video/post, and spread it around in a harmful way. Suddenly, you no longer want to embrace authenticity and begin to hide yourself, conforming to the standards everyone else lives by.
The fear of being rejected by our peers, but also the potential to be recorded and mocked at any moment, keeps many people, including college-age students, in boxes.
This is why, when I walked onto my college campus and realized the growing conformity of ideas and opinions, I stayed quiet. I don’t raise my hand in class or share my thoughts because no one else does.
Choosing to be unique as a university student, even if it’s just speaking up in class, feels like pushing through a thick wall made of judgment, negativity, and hurtful perceptions. Cringe culture forces us into corners where we have no choice but to stay complacent.
Now, this article in no way is meant to generalize the experiences of individuals, but rather comments on a growing trend that I’ve noticed in classes. When we were younger, we had no inhibitions when it came to sharing our thoughts and personalities; things are just different now. And social media has done no favors in making us all feel comfortable with who we are.
I encourage you not to let the idea of being “cringe” limit or dilute your success as a student. Post what you want. Wear what makes you happy. Raise your hand in class because your voice matters. Look at everyone with as much kindness and respect as you want to be seen with. Remember that it takes a village to create change and make authenticity the norm again!