“To be cringe is to be free.”
It’s a slogan that Generation Z loves in meme form, but in practice, they’d rather play it safe.
Gen Z − the cohort born in the years 1997 to 2012 − is obsessed with cringe, or more aptly, with avoiding it.
From the curated Gen Z pout to the polished “influencer accent” flooding TikTok’s For You Page, the goal is to appear nonchalant. Across TikTok, Instagram and group chats, young people are constantly editing themselves, trimming anything that might come off as try-hard, awkward or embarrassing.
That pressure is shaping behavior on and offline.
“We’re definitely seeing social anxiety on the rise with Gen Z, and part of it is because people are online so much more, you can really worry and fear this judgment,” says Lauren Cook, a clinical psychologist and author of “Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World.” “It becomes this vicious self-fulfilling prophecy of, ‘I’m afraid to do anything because it’s going to get made fun of.’”
The horror of looking cringe
An April Yahoo/YouGov poll found that more than half of adult Gen Zers have avoided expressing themselves online for fear of coming across as cringe. The impact goes beyond the internet, with 55% saying that the same fear has stopped them from opening up to someone emotionally.
Online, this aversion to cringe has taken many forms.
There’s “cheugy,” the word Gen Zers use to make fun of out-of-date trends, which often targets millennial fads like skinny jeans or chevron print. There’s the viral “ick,” the feeling of becoming suddenly (and, usually, irreversibly) repulsed by someone you once found attractive.
The trend reflects Gen Z’s tendency to be more risk-averse than other generations.
Young people are drinking less, having less sex and going to fewer parties. While those things can be positive, they’re also indicators of increased social isolation. Much of Gen Z missed out on pivotal years in the classroom or office during the pandemic, impacting their ability to socialize.
Forero and Cook say these fears spill into people’s everyday behavior in real life, whether it’s hesitating to ask someone out or being afraid to share opinions with friends.
“When you can realize, ‘I am who I am, I own it, if you have a problem with it, that’s your problem,’ that is such an empowering place to be,” Cook says. “But I think for Gen Z that really feels like a free fall and they’re so afraid of what will actually happen.”
What do the Gen Z pout, influencer accent, silent scream say about young people?
The cringe discourse is increasingly visible in Gen Z’s physical slang.
Perhaps the most recognizable example is Gen Z’s selfie face of choice – an overextended upper lip and tucked under lower lip, popularized by stars like Lily-Rose Depp, Rachel Sennott and Ariana Greenblatt and dubbed the “Gen Z pout.” You might call it the millennial duck face’s understated younger sister.
“It does reflect a level of nonchalance, mysteriousness, an interest in looking like you don’t care, while also going out of your way to make a face that people deem pleasing,” Forero says about the face.
The same instinct shows up in the lifestyle creator influencer accent, characterized by uptalk and the lengthening and extra stressing of words. There’s also notably been the “silent scream” and viral skits about the “Gen Z girl with no personality.”
Even when performing, the idea is to look understated or unintentional.
These gestures are shaped by a mix of influencer aesthetics and pop culture. While they often originate online, they quickly spread into common behavior.
“I would argue, at this point in time, the backbone of most children’s social experience is online,” Forero says. “It’s like, ‘This is absolutely integral to my experience as a young adult, but I don’t want to be seen caring too much.’”
It’s a stark contrast from the heavily filtered, contoured photos of the 2010s. Now, photos are supposed to look unplanned and happenstance, even when the content is carefully staged.
“People want to act like nothing is premeditated anymore,” Forero says. “The curated Instagram posts, as someone who does this myself, they are far more premeditated than the selfie I posted with a filter back in 2017.”
How Gen Z can climb ‘cringe mountain’
Some Gen Zers are fighting against their fear of cringe by “climbing cringe mountain.”
The phrase, coined by 33-year-old content creator and consultant Erica Mallett, refers to embracing those hard feelings. To get to the land of cool (read: success, fame, money), one has to climb cringe mountain (read: embracing embarrassment, failure and discomfort).
“What you are forgetting is that everyone who is now cool or good at something has at some point had to climb cringe mountain,” Mallet explained in a March 2023 TikTok.
And the people hating are never hating from the land of cool, they are always hating from the land of base camp, according to Mallet, who went on to found the Theory of One to teach content creators how to overcome their fear of cringe.
“Nobody who has ever been through the climb will hate on someone who is still climbing, ever, because they know what it’s like to climb cringe mountain,” she says in another TikTok. “These haters … they are not brave enough to start climbing.”
Forero had to climb that mountain herself when she became an influencer, blowing up rapidly in 2023 from less than 100,000 followers to more than 1 million, a year she says was one of the “most difficult” of her life because of the criticism she received.
She wants young people to know that criticism is inevitable, but that they can change the way they let it impact them.
“If you’re not living for yourself, you’re living for others, and others are not nearly as concerned about your happiness and well-being as you would like them to be,” Forero says. “To be cringe is to be free. I’m not the first person to have said that, but I do truly believe in that.”
Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Gen Z pout, ‘influencer voice’ and the horror of ‘looking cringe’
Reporting by Rachel Hale, USA TODAY / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
