In Defense of Cringe AKA The Secret Pleasure of Sincere Things

It started with a Kenny Loggins album cover.

Well, actually it didn't.

It started with a feeling.

Sincerity.

Care.

Encouragement.

This I had felt when I was nine.

My world was smaller.

Brighter.

Bluer.

Black-and-blue parts existed, but they hadn't taken hold of me yet.

Then one afternoon a song appeared in my head out of nowhere.

"This Is It."

I hadn't heard it in years.

I don't know why it arrived.

Maybe some loose connection between old movies and old soundtracks.

Maybe memory was digging around in the attic.

Maybe part of me missed something I hadn't realized I was missing.

So I played it.

And then I found myself staring at a Kenny Loggins album cover.

Bright colors. Big hair. Unapologetic optimism. The sort of thing that modern culture often treats with a mixture of amusement and secondhand embarrassment.

Cringe.

The word appears quickly these days.

Someone is too enthusiastic.
Too earnest.
Too sincere.

They care too much.

They believe in something openly.

They are trying.

And trying, perhaps more than anything else, has become unfashionable. Caring is uncool. How stupid is that for society? How foolish?

It is unfortunate because many of the things we secretly love are built entirely from sincerity.

Lately I've found myself gravitating toward films and music from the 1980s.

Not necessarily because they are masterpieces. Far from it.

Not because I want to relive the decade. Again, FAR from it.

But because there was an “unashamedness” of their own hearts.

Life is messy.

People fall in love.

Friendships matter.

Dancing matters.

The underdog gets a chance.

The underdog wins! Over and over again.

The soundtrack believes every emotion deserves an anthem.

Nobody seems particularly concerned with appearing cool.

The movies are trying very hard.

And somehow that effort becomes part of their charm.

Watch Footloose.

Watch Dirty Dancing.

Watch The Karate Kid.

Watch Back to the Future.

Watch Say Anything...

There is a certain emotional transparency running through all of them.

They are not embarrassed by hope.

The heroes care.

The dreamers care.

The weird kids care.

The audience is invited to care too.

Perhaps that is what feels refreshing.

Modern culture often rewards distance.

We become observers of our own lives.

Commentators.

Curators.

We learn to place everything inside quotation marks.

Even our passions.

Especially our passions.

"I know this is silly."

"I know this is cheesy."

"I know this isn't cool."

A disclaimer before enthusiasm.

A protective shield against judgment.

Yet some of the most beloved things in human life arrive completely unprotected.

A mixtape.

A love letter.

A handmade gift.

A teenager learning guitar.

A grandmother keeping a scrapbook.

A gardener talking to her roses.

A friend sending you a song because it reminded them of you.

These things survive because they are sincere.

Not despite it.

Because of it.

Modern life seems to punish us for sincerity. And for caring.

Which is why I find myself increasingly suspicious of cringe as a cultural category.

Often what we call cringe is simply visible enthusiasm.

Someone loving something without enough protective irony.

Someone risking embarrassment in exchange for genuine expression.

Someone choosing participation over performance.

Maybe that is why Lloyd Dobler standing beneath a window holding a boombox remains such a strangely enduring image.

It is ridiculous.

It is earnest.

It is vulnerable.

It is trying.

The 80s? People fell in love with Mannequin (an Egyptian cursed mannequin) and Number 5 (a fragged military robot) and E.T. (he was creepy looking to say the least).

Xanadu….. uh, alien botanist?

And perhaps we recognize that what makes it memorable is not the grand gesture itself but the willingness to risk rejection.

The willingness to care publicly.

To love publicly.

To hope publicly.

To be a nerd.

Nerds. Nerds. Nerds. Nerds. chants in the background. Goonies! Hell ya!

Maybe what many of us are longing for is not a return to the 1980s.

Maybe we are longing for permission.

Permission to enjoy things wholeheartedly.

Permission to dance badly.

Permission to become obsessed with birds or books or herbs or old records.

Permission to create art that never becomes famous.

Permission to believe that friendship matters.

Permission to love things before we know whether they will make us look impressive.

The permission to return to innocence and sincerity.

Give me stories where friendship matters.

Give me music that believes in itself.

Give me movies where the kids get their happy ending.

Give me dancing.

Give me hope.

Give me the glowing orb.

Give me a soundtrack that isn't embarrassed to care.

Because perhaps the opposite of cringe is not coolness.

Perhaps the opposite of cringe is courage.

And perhaps the things that make us feel most alive have always required a little of it.

What would you love openly if you stopped worrying whether someone else thought it was cool?

What would you love without the world's approval?

I'd like to know.

Who were you before middle school?

Before high school?

Before college and student loans and twenty-four-hour news cycles?

Who were you before personal branding?

Before algorithms?

Before you started performing for Facebook?

Who were you before the audience arrived?

I’ll wait. I’ll be over here snacking on Cracker Jacks listening to my Walkman with the Flashdance soundtrack, wearing legwarmers with jellies, my hair in a side pony. Just hanging out. We did a lot of that back then.