In my project I explored various components of what makes something to be described as cringe. Starting from the innate reasons why we truly cringe is down to our bodies’ natural response for survival. We cringe, at other peoples’ behaviour/actions as the mental threat of being ostracized from wider society, is confused within our primitive brains to be the equivalent of an immediate physical threat -such as a hungry tiger nearby. I chose Generation Z as my focus for my work because catering to create a piece for everybody was extremely difficult, due to how abstract and subjective the feeling of cringe is for everyone. Thus I honed in on what I subjectively found cringe, and verified this + collated data from other people in my generation to see what similarities and differences there were. I then explored many current cringe memes and trends and decided it would only be appropriate to document my final outcome as a vertical video, as it is conceptually relevant with themes of internet cringe and Generation Z.
A short film exploring aspects of cringe, in a Generation Z context.