Comment by rightbyte
4 days ago
I agree.
There is a need for the word 'cringe' for wannabe, fake, dishonest, superficial etc. expressions that are embarrassing. But it is way over used and should not be used on people who are trying to mock them. It is way too easy to be a critique.
Do we need a new word? We already call fakes fakes and the dishonest dishonest. We already have embarrassing embarrassed.
Really, I suppose it's not the words so much as the useage. People used to call some of the same perfectly normal things embarrassing rather than cringe in order to try to police behavior; like when telling your kids you love them in public is suddenly some sort of sin or when macho men aren't allowed to defer to their wives' expert opinion because "their friends say it's embarrassing"