Cringe Sells: Irony and the Commodification of Our Attention

Grace Zahm

It’s 2016. You’re sitting at your computer after school, watching the latest idubbbz Content Cop. You have a Musically cringe compilation queued up, and you’re scrolling Reddit upvoting only the dankest Shrek memes. For much of your childhood, you remember having some unbridled animosity towards Justin Bieber and the boys from One Direction (even though you secretly thought their music was alright). Looking back now, you realize: did you ever enjoy something authentically? I mean, all you ever consumed was media that seemed to be against something else, never for anything. Did you ever actually contribute, rather than reduce? But that’s what was cool; and what’s funnier than ridicule? Everyone loves a good cringe— at the expense of others, of course.

Ironic humor, in the form of cringe, has thrived on the internet since its genesis. To the average consumer, irony, and cynicism seem much more emotionally palatable than authenticity and earnesty, as humanity struggles with genuine expression. When media depicts these feelings, a strong, almost uncomfortable reaction is invoked in the viewer as they connect deeply with the subject material. On the other hand, ironic humor is derived from detaching oneself from the characters and emotions of a situation and finding comedy in this detachment. Instead of believing in sincerity, depth, earnestness, and truth, the Ironist cuts these connections and separates the content from the viewer. This creates the postmodern ‘cool’ effect we see in media that capitalizes off of cringe. It’s why we feel cool watching it. “I’m watching it in an ironic way, so I am distinctly separate and different from it.”

As early as the nineties, per the research of popular culture studies writer Michial Farmer, television writers recognized this human struggle for authenticity, and instead of working through it, they met it where it stood. To turn larger profits, networks needed watch times to be longer for advertisers. For viewers to watch for longer, content needed to be dry and comfortable, yet still entertaining. Thus, shows built entirely off of dry irony, the likes of Seinfeld and Arrested Development, flourished on networks. Irony and ironic media were born out of a need for capital, and the commodification of apathy toward human emotion. Our attention is the commodity, and for us to give up as much of it as possible, we need to feel comfortable. We like to stay in our little unfeeling box, numb yet just entertained enough to stay.

We confuse enjoying watching “cool” media with actually enjoying something; we deprive ourselves of authenticity, of any emotion that is actually our own.

In the digital age, we are now surrounded by irony, endlessly chasing another hit of cringe. We can bully kids on Roblox or we can skyrocket random people to something more akin to infamy than fame. We laud ordinary people as unknowing court jesters to an audience of millions for the sake of a quick laugh and discard them just as quickly (think personalities like Trisha Paytas, lovelypeaches, worldoftshirts, etc). Is there more we could get from life and from ourselves if we break out of this comfort zone imposed on us by our attention being treated as a product? What if we were able to grow comfortable with authenticity; with pushing our emotional boundaries? What if I’m excited about the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie? What if I like Ed Sheeran?* If we finally let ourselves explore outside of this culture of cynical irony that wasn’t even made with human enjoyment in mind, we might be able to know what it’s like to find joy in something, instead of just enjoying feeling cool or funny. So listen to 100 gecs, sing along to the riff-off in Pitch Perfect, join that club that you’ve been too afraid to. Just do whatever makes you happy, not whatever you think will make others laugh.

*I don’t like Ed Sheeran.