Do you remember the days of playing truth or dare? Sitting in a circle with your best friends at a sleepover, this beloved game was the best way to bond with peers. It was an opportunity to exhibit bravery and vulnerability, while also getting to laugh at your friends as they dove headfirst into silly dares. However, the game did have inherent risks, and in the back of your mind you knew there was always a chance you’d be asked the most dreaded question: what is your most embarrassing moment?
Though we get older, our appetite for embarrassing stories never seems to go away. Last week, Reddit user Konke420xd asked people to share the most embarrassing moments they’ve ever witnessed, and boy, did they deliver. Thankfully for us, this list is a safe space to read other people’s humiliating stories without worrying about our own being exposed, so feel free to laugh as loudly as you want. Below, you can also read an interview with David Nadelberg, the founder of Mortified, a hilarious live show and podcast that "curates teen angst artifacts". Enjoy these cringe-worthy stories, and if you aren’t in too much pain from secondhand embarrassment by the end, be sure to check out Bored Panda’s last story featuring mortifying moments right here.
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#21
A friend of mine once hooked up with a guy she matched with on Tinder. She was in a different city for a family reunion, and hooked up with him two nights in a row, since she decided to stay there a couple of days before the event to check out the sights.
You guessed it. Come the day of the family reunion, and guess who's there? The Tinder-guy, who she quickly learns is her cousin on her father's side. She had never met him before. They both kept their cool for most of the event, but then his brother got too drunk and started gossiping to people (Tinder-dude had confided in him). The whole thing ended up with her and her parents leaving early, her mother in tears.
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90points
Some people love to embrace secondhand embarrassment to feel less alone in their own mortifying moments as well. One 22-year-old from London told Refinery 29, “I love watching cringe comedy. I regularly feel embarrassed in my day-to-day life by the stupid things I do and say, so to sit down and watch someone else do something infinitely more humiliating is almost validating, and makes me realise that maybe I’m not so bad.” There could be a level of schadenfreude, or pleasure derived from someone else's pain, at play too, but we'll give lovers of cringe comedy the benefit of the doubt.
#22
I used to work for a small coffee shop that had three locations. I had a ridiculously big crush on a woman who worked at one of the other locations. I thought she was so pretty that I literally couldn’t remember how to talk around her.
For example, one time on my day off I stopped by her location to get a cold brew and she was working the register and was like “Hi Karl how’s it going?“ What I wanted to respond was “Oh pretty good but it’s been a long week” but all that came out was “…long”… Then I was so embarrassed I turned around and left without getting anything.
Worse than that, later that summer there was a big employee BBQ at the nearby river. I finally got over my s**t and had a really good conversation with her, made her laugh, all that good stuff. A little later I had to pee and went to the port-a-potty only to walk in on her going to the bathroom…
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89points
#23
When I worked at a deli my boss grabbed a woman's stomach and congratulated her, she wasn't pregnant.
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81points
#24
I was on one of those “show boat” cruises on Sydney Harbour. The idea is you get a three course dinner with wine and a cabaret style show. I took my Mum when she was visiting me from out of state. We were seated next to a young couple who were clearly on a date. The young woman was very pretty and the guy was somewhat nervous and overdressed in a suit and tie. Their dinner was an exercise in speed drinking for the young woman. She smashed through bottle after bottle of the cheap wine at a record, borderline alarming pace. By the time desert was being served, she was vomiting spectacularly all over the tiny white table. Anyone who has been on a cruise like this knows the tables are small and seated close together (this was pre-Covid). The volume of vomit was incredible for such a tiny woman. Pale, watery chunks covered the entire table as the guy rubbed her back and tried to clean up the mess with the fabric napkins. I almost got my elbow covered in the contents of her digestive tract. My Mum and I ended up giving the guy our napkins to clean up the white wine swamp on the table the staff had failed to notice. It was absolutely embarrassing for the young couple, but my Mum and I really did get the dinner and show we were promised - just not the one we expected.
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73points
According to psychotherapist James Hartley, everyone’s threshold for second hand embarrassment will fall somewhere on a spectrum, depending on their levels of empathy and their “boundaries with their sense of self”. “Cringe comedy takes its value from socially awkward moments and there are several reasons why individuals may not be triggered by the circumstances designed to make us laugh,” says Hartley. “We need to be able to place ourselves in a similar scenario to appreciate the humor and if we are low on the empathy scale, we are unlikely to feel for the character."
#25
A friend of mine was a film student at a pretty prestigious film school in the Northeast. He invited myself and a few friends up for what would ultimately be the film festival and screening for most of the student films and writing projects etc. I was basically there as an observer and to support my buddy and as a film lover I got to see some pretty neat little projects and meet some cool people.
One of the projects was a film that I’ll refer to as “O-6” (it was a student film and I respect this person enough to not directly reference something that clearly was one of the roughest days of their life). O-6 had posters for it plastered all over campus. There was a viable army of students and visitors to the campus (including this poor guy’s family) all wearing O-6 t-shirts. There was a Facebook group and a short trailer for O-6. It had more hype than some movies that get theatrically released and it was my understanding that a large contingent of the students in the film program helped work on O-6.
Well, my buddy and his friends in the program tipped me off that O-6 might be a piece of cringey gold and would be worth watching so we could joke about it later. The kid who directed it clearly thought he was like, Neo or something because he came in wearing sunglasses, and just looked like a typical “edgy cringe” kid for the early 2000’s but this was 2014.
Anyway, it comes time for O-6 to be screened and part of this film festival was that alumni came to critique and offer advice for the new students. There were some prestigious Alumni there including a guy who worked on various Marvel movies, a woman who wrote some major Hollywood scripts and a director of a few episodes of breaking bad, among others. The director of O-6 did a little speech before he screened it and called out some of the alumni stating they were his heroes.
The movie begins and good lord is it bad. The kid who directed is also the star of the movie and there were multiple scenes of him flexing shirtless in what was supposed to be a sci fi action flick. He was like 120 lbs and scrawny and on screen flexing thinking people would think it was badass. Everyone starts laughing.
I felt bad but then about 5 minutes later he starts rolling around in lube on what’s supposed to be another planet but it’s just him in his tighty whiteys writing in KW jelly. Again everyone laughs.
There’s a terrible love scene, an awful laser fight and at one point he hugs another man covered in KW jelly and half naked in nothing but undies and sunglasses. Everyone breaks out laughing and the director kid just sits there stoically listening to everyone laugh. It was also all shot on a sunny day in someone’s backyard. I get it was a student film but the other films had been so much more polished and this just came out and was so bizarre and poorly done.
It finally mercifully ends. The kid takes the podium to get critiques and just one by one all the teachers, alumni and students LAY INTO this poor guy. He holds back tears and eventually they get to the director from breaking bad who he idolized and he says “I have nothing to say.” which was basically his way of saying “I don’t want to embarrass you anymore than you already have been.”
In front of his entire family, peers and people he idolized this poor kid got absolutley lit up and embarrassed. I had to go into the bathroom to escape tension while he was getting grilled. It was that bad.
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70points
#26
So it was right after i graduated hs. I was at what would become the party where everyone would learn their limits. so we are all hammered, and this girl that my buddy likes sits next to him on the couch and lays her head on his chest. It was almost cute for a moment but then a few seconds later her mouth opens and unleashes the first of about 20 torrents of vomit that would be spewed that night(not all the same person, this party was a catastrophe). My friend looked like he had died inside.
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65points
#27
Friend of mine who learnt how to do a burnout from just YouTube videos decided to do a burnout.
He thought the smoke was the tires spinning on the spot, it was actually the clutch being burnt out. We tried telling him but he thought we were egging him on until someone ran up to the driver side and switched the car off at the ignition.
Now this wouldn't have been too bad if he did this on a driveway or a side road to 3 or 4 people, but he entered himself into a amateur burnout contest and all this happened in front about about 200 people.
He thought the smoke was the tires spinning on the spot, it was actually the clutch being burnt out. We tried telling him but he thought we were egging him on until someone ran up to the driver side and switched the car off at the ignition.
Now this wouldn't have been too bad if he did this on a driveway or a side road to 3 or 4 people, but he entered himself into a amateur burnout contest and all this happened in front about about 200 people.
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65points
If you're having a hard time reading some of these stories, just take that as a sign that you've got healthy levels of empathy. And if you're only finding these stories to be hilarious, maybe you've just experienced enough embarrassment in your own life that you can't help but find humor in the relatability. Enjoy reading the rest of these cringey moments, and don't forget to upvote your favorites. Then feel free to share your own embarrassing stories or painfully humiliating moments you've witnessed in the comments section!
#28
I had a pretty old professor for immigration law and one night in class she let out a very loud fart. The class went silent and she made a comment about how that what aging gracefully was like. Everyone tried not to laugh because she was old and sweet, but she continued to let out loud long farts for the remainder of the 4 hour night class. I was mortified for her
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64points
#29
Drinking in this horrible sports bar in Columbus Ohio maybe 10 years ago (Brothers? I think it's still there) at about 5pm and there's a bachelorette party near the bar. The bride is three sheets to the wind already and wants to dance, but there's no music on and the dancefloor is empty.
Her group persuade the bar staff to put some music on so she's just busting some moves on her own while trying to get other people onto the dance floor. After a few songs I've Had The Time Of My Life comes on and she freaks out, it's her favourite song, loves Dirty Dancing etc etc. She grabs a random guy and starts doing a very sloppy version of the dance routine from the movie.
As the song goes on more and more people are watching in anticipation of her trying to get this guy to do the lift from the movie. He obviously has no clue what's going on. She's telling him to back up and he's doing it with a confused look on his face. My partner and I are transfixed. The bridesmaids are all yelling at the guy "YOU GOTTA LIFT HER UP!" and he's like "I HAVE TO WHAT??"
So she takes off running towards the guy, he's stood there with his arms outstretched not sure what he's supposed to do, she's coming at him full speed with a belly full of bad Chardonnay and a pocket full of dreams.
After about 5 or 6 paces she hits a wet spot on the dancefloor and her legs go out from under her pretty violently, and she faceplants on the dancefloor. But she's already got some pretty good momentum going so she keeps moving forwards. My memory is her sliding along for a good few feet with only her face in contact with the floor, her body and legs up in the air.
She grinds to a halt a few feet in front of the guy and he looks at her for a few seconds, then walks sideways off the dancefloor clicking his fingers.
I saw her at another bar later that evening with the beginnings of a serious black eye and a face like a slapped a*s. Hopefully the wedding wasn't too soon after the bachelorette.
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61points
#30
My chemistry teacher in high school was the nicest guy. He taught the whole class with his fly down. No one knew how to tell him and we didn’t want to embarrass him. The worst part was, we had lab with him the next period. His fly was up, but he was unusually quiet.
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54points
