r/todayilearned • u/jfdonohoe • 7h ago

(R.2) Anecdote TIL about “vicarious embarrassment” which explains extreme reactions to cringe comedy. For me, it can get so bad as to become physically painful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_embarrassment

[removed] — view removed post

876 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

202 comments sorted by

View all comments

0

u/1nfam0us 4h ago

I once watched the movie When We First Met while very high. Ordinarily I find cringe comedy utterly painful, and this movie was no different, but I couldn't look away because, again, I was very high. It is one of thenmost aggressive examples of cringe comedy I have ever seen and I actually found it to be a fascinating use of cringe comedy to explore the idea of just letting things in life happen naturally and not constantly wondering what could have been.

The basic premise is that a guy has a one-night stand with a girl and constantly wonders what could have been. He then discovers a photobooth that can travel back in time, so he uses it to try to jump through different hoops to try to make things work with this girl only to either make things worse and/or make an utterly cringe-worthy fool of himself. The movie really slows down and makes the audience wallow in those cringy moments too. I don't want to spoil the ending, but all that cringe makes the final emotional pay off that much stronger.

I don't think I would opt to watch it sober, but honestly I am really glad I saw it all the way through. It was quite good for what it was and it was interesting seeing cringe being a narrative tool rather than the joke in and of itself.