Goodbye, 'brat summer.' It's time for 'cringe summer.'

USA Today

a day ago

"The Summer I Turned Pretty?" More like "The Summer I Turned Cringe."
Unlike last year's "Brat Summer," all about dancing out our messy side to Charli XCX's album, Summer 2025 has been one cringey moment after the next. Kissing billionaires teetering on water taxis at the Bezos Venice wedding. The unrelenting eye contact of a Labubu (or Lafufu). The shuddering horror of the Coldplay couple. President Donald Trump's awkward moment on stage with Chelsea after the team's FIFA Club World Cup victory. Travis Kelce wearing a construction vest in the ocean.
All these moments have us covering our eyes – but not necessarily for the same reason. What's "cringe" to one person may not bother another. Plus, for all you know, someone might think you're cringe. And some argue that's actually worth embracing. If the zeitgeist is so "cringe," should we all just lean into being ourselves?
'I'm feeling embarrassed for you'
"Cringe" happens when we see something awkward or humiliating and internalize that discomfort, according to Alicia M. Walker, professor of sociology at Missouri State University.
"You're doing something that is so gauche and so tacky and so lacking in self-awareness and you have no idea," Walker says, defining the term. "You're not feeling embarrassed, so I'm feeling embarrassed for you."
We shudder, blush, giggle because we take on that embarrassment second-hand, Walker says. Take Lena Dunham's Netflix series "Too Much," it's sex-obsessed characters made audiences recoil as they candidly discussed intercourse at work functions. Or "The Summer I Turned Pretty" fans watching through their fingers as mismatched characters slow danced at a college frat party.
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The unabashed interactions in these shows make us reflexively cringe because they remind us of somewhere, sometime, we've been the gawky one, Walker says. We've all been the uninvited guest or the too-passionate dancer or the one caught on camera, and seeing these buried memories recast in pop culture takes us right back to that terrifying social trauma.
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It's important to ask why we have such a strong aversion to being called cringe or seemingly cringe things, says Cassie Willson, 30, a Brooklyn-based comedian and content-creator.
We post "cringe" in social media comments to shame each other's idiosyncrasies, almost to the point it "that becomes a little scary and dangerous," Willson says. Take how the internet mocks millennial cringe compilations, tallying the ways 30-somethings are un-cool.
"If you have a cringe reaction to something, it is worth listening to," says Willson. "Write it down. Figure out the actual definition of cringe for you. We have to pay attention to how we react to the things we see."
'Cringe' can be cool
Some are taking to social media to say that "being cringe" can be empowering.
"If you have to be nonchalant around your friends, those aren't your real friends," said one TikToker encouraging others to "be corny" and be themselves out loud.
"We are discouraging them from setting themselves apart in any way," another TikToker said. "Fear of cringe can create a fear of curiosity and discovery."
As summer turns to fall, take the opportunity to be cringey self, Willson says. We're "climbing the cringe mountain," and no matter if people call you embarrassing, she says, you're being yourself.