Everyone at one point has felt a familiar emotion when it comes to looking at something that’s cringeworthy. Perhaps it’s towards your friend who is giving a really awful opinion on something or an article you read from a professional newspaper about something that it should not be writing about. Perhaps it’s social media attempting to be “hip with the kids” and utterly failing at it. It’s something you see that makes you go “Yikes!”

There are a lot of emotions that go into cringe. However, there comes a point when thinking of something as cringy is actually detrimental to other people. Many people often view artwork from younger children as cringy. Original characters (often self-inserts) being paired together with characters from a popular TV show, ridiculously complex monsters that are anatomically unfeasible, and large crossover epics that go on for thousands upon thousands of words. These are some examples of what adults would often shun and point out as cringy.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong about creating these pieces of work, especially for someone who is barely getting into drawing or writing. However, adults often cling to these “poorly” written or drawn things and shame children for indulging in harmless fantasies or creations. What we often point out as cringy to deter people from saying or doing stupid things is directed towards children who are often at an important stage of development in their lives. This criticism deters children from having creative freedom, and it can even prevent content creators from making things that they love in fear of being cringy. They ultimately avoid the thing they love to do, and even force themselves to stop altogether.

This idea of cringe has a time and place and should be directed towards people or corporate entities that should know better. Although cringy things can sometimes be funny, or outright embarrassing, children should be exempt from this idea of cringe. Often, they do not know better, and they are making content purely for themselves. Offhand comments about a child’s art can scar them for life and completely crush their creative ideas or narrow their career choices down to something that they do not want to do. Children are highly impressionable at young ages, and sometimes the best thing that an adult can do is encourage a child or keep their mouths shut completely -no matter how “cringy” the content is.