Why is joy embarrassing?

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

Over on tumblr, I said that cringe is just being embarrassed for someone else who doesn't feel embarrassed about their own joy. But then I asked the question, "Why is joy embarrassing?"

I wasn't actually trying to be that deep. I mean, it was a legitimate question, but I wasn't planning on answering it. But now that I'm thinking about it, I actually want to know.

Why is joy embarrassing?

I think part of it is that external viewpoint. You're watching someone experience such a strong emotion, and they're doing it nakedly - without hiding it at all. We're all used to keeping a veil over that kind of thing on a day to day basis. You can only show your honest emotions on special occasions or in private.

But "cringe" behaviour is public. It's there for anyone to see. Family, friends, strangers - you're allowing all of them to watch you filled with and expressing your emotion.

When someone is crying and we feel an emotional response to their pain, we call it empathy. When someone is angry and we feel an emotional response to that anger, we call that fear. But when someone is experiencing joy, we call our emotional response cringe and recoil away from it.

I don't want to run away from joy. I want to embrace it. I want them to share it with me and pull me under the umbrella of it. Let me warm myself with your joy against the cold, dark cruelty of the world.

I don't want to snuff that flame. I want to fan it. Turn it into an inferno. The world is crap enough. Let's let the happiness in when we can.

Comments

[laurelwisp]

I know in my own case, when I catch myself having those feelings, a lot of the time it's sort of secondhand embarrassment. Not exactly in the way that term is usually used, but sort of..."oh, this is not an Accepted Thing, you're going to get hurt" when someone is excited about a Wrong Thing (certain cartoons or Youtubers I could mention), or "oh you're going to be really embarrassed you did this in a few years" such as my cousin's very "stereotypical teenaged girl" love of BTS. Because I look back on when I used to engage in these things in the same way and I cringe at myself--though, like you said, there is the idea that you're jealous that you yourself, or someone else, could enjoy something fully and completely without feeling bad about it.

We do spend a lot of our lives getting told to tone it down, especially those of us who tend to be too enthusiastic about liking things and don't realize when we're going overboard. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I think that's 100% something to do with it.

Tone it down, relax, chill out. Why are you making such a big deal of this? I know, you've already told me this a dozen times.

All of those things chip away at us little by little as we hear them again and again. And I agree that a lot of it is a protective instinct, too. "Other people are going to think X and that's going to hurt" is definitely a part of it too.

This is another one of these revelations I'm having that are probably not news to anyone else but it's news to me because I'm finally starting to take time to think about things. I want to spend less time making happy people be quiet about their happiness. My time would be better spent telling those other people to let them be happy.

[slashfairy]

well said.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

❤

[(Anonymous)]

i realize i cringe most strongly at my past self. im pretty sure it's a trauma thing for me, i got made fun of for my interests and infodumping about them a lot. in therapy i learned that it might help to extend to my past self the same kind of empathy/compassion/whatever that i extend to others. because even people ive met and thought were cringe, once i got to know and understand them, i realized were for the most part cool fucking people who just like to have fun!

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

*hugs* infodumping is the best! I love hearing people tell me about the things they're interested in, even if I have no clue. I'm so sorry you got made fun of for it.

I can see why that would make you cringe, though. For me, I think it's more about people doing things that I'd never even thought of doing, for example public cosplay. The strangeness is what gives me that initial feeling of cringe and then I need to take that moment to reset my thoughts and realize what's happening in my brain and how I actually want to feel instead.

[laurelwisp]

I love this way of putting it. You can't really control your initial thoughts, but you can control what you do with them and where you direct them after that.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

Yes! I remember seeing a tumblr post forever ago about initial thoughts versus purposeful thoughts and I've really taken it to heart ever since. My first reaction isn't necessarily my true reaction or the reaction I want to have. Conscious thought might be required to get where I want to be, but that effort is worth it.

[unlovablehand]

Whenever I cringe, at myself or others, it's a self protective reaction. I feel like my train of thought is always "how can you allow yourself to be so openly vulnerable".

Like that 'mortifying ordeal of being known' meme? Expressing joy offers such a clear, unrestrained view of someone's personal inner world that my brain reads it as a giant soft spot to be armored asap. It's probably why I mostly cringe at myself, tbh.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

*hugs* yeah, that seems to be a thing for several people here in the comments. I think I had less of that because I wasn't online until I was in university so I could be vulnerable in a space with my friends without anyone externally seeing or commenting on it the way that it is now. Maybe?

but yeah, that meme hits deep

[unlovablehand]

thanks for the hug!

personally i was always just a weird kid too, so i can't put it only on online interactions, lol

i mean, it does all of a sudden feels like the 'audience' of your life went into the thousands but being online also felt like finding people who enjoyed the same things too. Though that was back on quizilla when we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed.

maybe we need a space like that where it's sort of an unspoken agreement that the content is the most joyous, egregious self indulgent stuff you can come up with; even personally? sort of a couple hours a day to give ourselves permission to be feral in peace (tho i think 'feral' is cringey now too lol)

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I'm leaning hard into cringe right now and feral is a pretty good word for how intensely I feel the need to just experience joy for a change, y'know?

[ms_katonic]

I never really got cringe culture and I think this might be why - I never found joy embarrassing. Joy's precious and we should make the most of it while we can, why would I begrudge it in another?

Of course, it also helped that I got into fandom as an adult and was past the teenage need to be seen as cool at all times. Suspect a lot of cringe culture's main adherents are still very much in that phase, and anyone who hates fandom will be all too keen to weaponise that.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

Same on both counts. I didn't even get online until I was almost 20 so my teen years might very well have been cringe-y but I didn't know that and no one was around to point it out.

[pikkugen]

There are few things I like more than seeing people who really enjoy themselves and who are contagiously excited about what they're doing. Then again I have a lot of non-neurotypical friends and I'm starting to wonder (at the ripe age of 44) that I might be somewhere on the scale myself, so not caring (much) about other people's cringe is something of a second nature to me. Then again I'm somewhat skilled in choosing the people I gush about MY things, so maybe I'm just lucky. I just wish every little teen had someone to talk with about all their favorite things, no matter how "cringe".

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

Oh man, the ableism involved in cringe culture is another topic I'd love to discuss with people. I've only started scratching the surface of it myself, but it's so true!

[touchingaheart]

This cringe feeling is even more enhanced in Asian cultures, or at least in my country. You'd hear someone laugh out loud on the train, or a couple of people chattering happily together at their table in a restaurant, or you see someone kissing their partner's cheek on the sidewalk, or two people exclaiming happily when they run into each other--and for some reason, the instinctive reaction would be 'ugh' and a roll of the eyes, or some form of disapproval.

Like it's shameful to see people's joy and happiness and those people experiencing it should be ashamed for exposing it to strangers.

Out in the world, for some reason there's some kind of weird unspoken agreement that you can't show too much of your feelings in public--the degree may vary according to the country but its the same in spirit. I can't for the life or me guess why, but I recognise that feeling when I see a group of teenagers giggling together in the back of the bus. A response of 'how dare they show that in public' because,naturally, eeveryone should be calm and quiet in public as to not bother other people.

Which is what it boils down to, I guess? That it's somehow a form of respect to conceal everything, not just joy but pain and anger and sadness too,so other people won't be bothered by it. As if having those emotions are a bother. And it doesn't escape me that this disapproval is usually directed at teenagers and youth, those who are too old to cling to their mother's skirts and therefore can be dismissed as childish, but not old enough to have absorbed those well-worn opinions of the composed elders.

I don't really know what I want to say haha. My whole life I've been hushed and told to be quiet or to lower my voice whenever I get (apparently) too excited or laughing too loud, and I feel that disapproval keenly. I've always asked myself at those times why it's bad that I'm laughing, and then realise that I'm beginning to feel that disapproval inside me when I see OTHER people, usually young, publically displaying any form of emotion.

I could say it's because you shouldn't show your happiness in case other people don't have it as good, so it's rude to show 'you're better'. It sounds stupid but it feels pretty correct. It allows the so-called 'better people' to feel good about themselves at the same time. Mostly, the better people are the wealthy, I'd say.

I think that attitude carries over into other parts of life. Happily gushing about your boyfriend or a gift you got or what you liked about a show--it's always met with disapproval and a sort of high-nosed frowny faced head-shaking reaction.

I'm rambling coz it's late ^^;; but I do think it's sad that I can't quite shake off that innate reaction of 'ugh do they have to be so public' when really, I think it's great when someone's happy. We're definitely living in a world right now where there's not much joy to spare.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

you might be rambling, but it's an exceptionally good ramble. that social pressure to avoid public emotion is so true and so powerful, too, and definitely shifts depending on cultural context. there's also privilege involved too because when I lived in Asia, I think I was forgiven a lot of the things that I did that would be frowned upon because I was A Foreigner(tm) and therefore expected to not know the social rules.

[touchingaheart]

(another aspect of this cringe I've noticed is the difference between Tumblr and DW. Like I have zero courage or will to ever send you an ask, or reblog a post with my two cents etc there because I'd cringe seeing it, but here I'm randomly commenting on your entries with rambling. What is it about the DW layout that changes that)

I wish I could say that being viewed as the ForeignerTM was an easy out, if most people here aren't doing it because they're just basically racist. Racism here is painted different from the West and Europe, I think, or at least from what I can comprehend through the disparity of being in US-centric fandoms vs living in an explicitly non-US country.

Being (a little) more awake now, I'm glad I was mostly coherent haha. But yes, that aversion to public emotion manifests in a lot of tiring ways but parades itself as composure and 'quiet strength'. It's an attitude still celebrated in our fiction; you'd see how the 'cool' characters in animanga are near-exclusively seen as desirable even in New series today. It's a staple and most people see it as a trope so I don't think they realise how damaging it really is.

Like, the cold, stern-faced guy in Western media would be seen as a creep or an a-hole, no?

I was thinking about this post earlier, about how sometimes you just can't hold back the emotion and so you laugh over it in order to make it less 'cringey'. Like you'd be shedding tears so you quickly laugh as you wipe them away and assure everyone that you're fine, lol, don't even know why I'm crying, so on. Or you laugh too loud, and then quickly hush yourself with a palpable giggle going oops.

Idk, people do a lot of things for a lot of reasons, but I think it's extra sad when the reason behind your cringing is because being known, to reveal the secrets behind why you're showing that emotion despite the ingrained disapproval out mothers taught us, is still somehow shameful and you should cringe deeper.

(yeah ok again need sleep mhhh)

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I think it's partly the layout but also just the fact that you know whatever you say is going to stay here and not get broadcast out to a thousand people. it makes it a lot easier to have a conversation when it feels like there's no one watching you have that conversation. the thing about tumblr is that it's hard to keep anything private - and I admit that the way I run my blog makes that even harder.

I definitely felt the racism when I live in Korea, but I also still had massive amounts of privilege. It was a weird dichotomy, definitely. Like, my boyfriend's parents loved it when we were hanging out as friends because he was getting "free english lessons" but when we started dating his dad literally said he no longer had a son and refused to acknowledge his presence and his mother was similar in her opinions. At the same time, I made more money than my local counterparts and people would offer me free stuff or try to be my friend just because of my face.

that trope thing is really interesting. I want to think about that more. You've got a really great point and I definitely have the beginnings of thoughts but I need them to gel a bit more. I don't need sleep, but maybe a nap? XD

and yeah, the amount of internalized bullshit I've had to get over in order to live my life? ridiculous.

[alias_chan]

For me it's definitely... Idk a feeling of mutual danger. Stuff I feel secondhand embarrassment about is entirely things I've been harmed for doing before, or know people will harm you for doing if I haven't gotten that unlucky myself - the more strongly I feel it, the worse I was harmed generally. So I get a combination of "I'm standing near this person, I might be attacked, too" and "wow they don't know this is dangerous, I need to protect them."

But I've been training myself over time to not be the dangerous one. Yeah there's a non-zero chance someone hurts them for being "cringey," a high chance for some things, but I refuse to be the one hurting them.

And a lot of times, the ways we try to stop people from doing things are themselves harmful - you can't protect someone from harm by locking them in a windowless room, that's not how this works. You can warn them about the danger if there's specific dangers - "hey, that queen bee might attack you if you do that in her line of sight" or "hey, this area's violently transphobic, do you want help going stealth" - but esp for social/ psychological and for vague dangers, a warning can itself cause harm, because you risk reinforcing "this is a Bad Thing to do."

But when you're having a trauma response, it can be hard to stop and sort out what this feeling is.

I think there's also a second element of "cringe," though, that I think hasn't been mentioned as much, which is when someone's being kinda just. Genuinely obnoxious. And it's not second hand embarrassment, it's "could you PLEASE not do that near me." But, again, if you have low self awareness or low ability to cope with people being obnoxious, it can be really easy to go "this person is doing something objectively wrong and I need to stop them," even subconsciously.

And annoyingness is subjective, extremely so, and also like - being annoyed is roughly harmless, and I think it's actually much better overall to develop a high tolerance for being annoyed and an ability to not lash out when annoyed, than to go "being annoyed is bad, because thing is harmless, so I shouldn't." Desensitize yourself to obnoxious people, don't put yourself in a bubble where you never encounter obnoxious people, b/c then you're more likely to lash out when you inevitably do meet someone who just grinds your gears.

(There are people who're more consistently annoying to a broader group of the population, and that also has a lot of overlap with "is Extremely Into Things" b/c "is consistently annoying" does correlate with bad social skills/ ability to tell when someone's getting annoyed and back off, which correlates with tendency to be extremely into things. Which can end up conflated in your head very easily, until you get annoyed just hearing whatever thing mentioned.)

But, like, if you're annoyed, the solution is to practice your own social skills and communicate like an adult. Don't be passive aggressive, don't escalate until person leaves - set clear boundaries at them, and agree on ways to flag shifting boundaries (or just block them if in a situation where that's feasible). And acknowledge to yourself that you finding them annoying doesn't super reflect on you - especially if they aren't even interacting with you, you're just finding the way they type when interacting with other people annoying. (This is a great use case for blocking.)

(There can also be competing access needs esp in person wrt like, if someone's very excited about a thing and is being talkative and loud, that can be extremely bad for someone who's currently extremely sensitive to loud noises, and/or who is having a mental health and needs to not be perceived or interacted with - I've definitely been followed around by people who were very excited about a thing and would not stop talking to me, and I was either in a situation where I couldn't safely tell them to fuck off, or I'd tell them to leave me alone But Politely and they wouldn't parse "politely, fuck off" as a request to stop talking (then would get extremely upset if I dropped the politeness, which makes it very hard to enforce boundaries at them), or they'd stop talking then start again thirty minutes later. And this can very easily prime me to be annoyed about the topics they were talking about.)

(Someone triggering second hand embarrassment - esp persistently - can also be itself annoying, since "anger" is a very common reaction to Bad Feels esp with trauma. And then you can be embarrassed about being annoyed, and get annoyed about that... And "make other person's behavior about you" is ime a lot easier to accidentally do when you're annoyed.)

So, uh, long ramble in summary - I think it isn't centrally that joy's embarrassing? Though that's part of it, as a wider cultural thing (especially that can trigger initial trauma wrt protective-trauma-reactions). But a lot of it is that... We're not really taught how to handle interpersonal friction very well. We're not taught how to distance ourselves from unpleasant situations without harming ourselves ("just avoid them" doesn't really work if doing that loses you your entire social group). We're not really taught how to calmly and non-harmfully bring up "hey can you not do that," or how to listen to those requests. We're not taught how to process and deal with our own trauma, or how to not lash out at others about our trauma reactions. We're not taught how to be understanding, or how to go "their behavior isn't about me," or how to forgive - we're told to, but I, for one, was never told how, and these are not intuitive skills.

And cringe really is a mixture of "this person is annoying" and "this person is giving me second hand embarrassment" ime.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

wow, you really hit so many nails on the head with this one. Honestly, I could just quote you back to you with all of the excellent points that really solidify my own understanding of the vague thoughts I've been trying to put into words. This. Just this. Yes, exactly.

[gothyringwald]

Butting in to say thank you for articulating this, because it's basically how I felt when I saw the post, but I just had no idea how to express it, especially wrt some people just being annoying. (Or, rather, I find some people annoying—it's not, as you said, that they're behaving in an objectively wrong way, some people will just grind your gears for whatever reason.)

The part about how it can get to the point where just the mention of the thing will annoy you is so relevant to me, right now—there are particular words that get used in one of my fandoms in ways that, for some reason, I find irritating, and now just seeing the words makes my blood simmer! (I'm trying to figure out how to desensitise myself to this because, honestly, I can't avoid these words forever haha)

Oops, I started writing this comment about an hour ago, and now I've lost my train of thought XD but, yeah, essentially I feel pretty much the same about it as you do!

[razia]

Thank you for putting into words what I couldn't. I read the post and all the responses and just couldn't articulate to myself what I was thinking.

I really feel the part about trauma, and how we end up responding to "cringe" as a means of defense. I was bullied a lot in school, especially for liking anime and manga, and especially for liking the ones that were considered "for kids" or "too girly" (god forbid I ever said out loud that I liked Sailor Moon), so I got used to keeping those things to myself, and now I catch myself cringing when I see adults talking about their interest in something like Naruto or Steven Universe or the new She-Ra.

It's exactly as you said: a mix of "if I engage in this, I'll be in danger too" and "this person is putting themselves in danger and I need to keep themselves from being hurt like I was". There's also a deep shame in being seen as childish, as someone who hasn't grown up. It took me a good decade to shake off most of it, and I still struggle with it. But I also have made a point to stop feeling guilty for enjoying what I enjoy, which has led me to be more open with friends about all my interests, even fanfiction and fanart.

And you're absolutely right that we're never taught how to deal with these situations, so unfortunately it falls to us to learn it ourselves.

[justapotatowriter]

Sometimes I wonder if the embarrassment part is just my own anxiety acting up for someone else. I mean, I feel anxious for characters in fics to the point where I might need to put the fic aside and mentally prepare myself for it, so I probably feel the same for people.