On social media, cringe travels fast for a specific reason.
A 2025 study found that cringe occurs when someone watches another person make an awkward attempt to impress others in a way that doesn’t land.
And people usually respond by wanting to share it. Researchers found that sharing cringe content gives people a way to feel better about themselves by making a quiet, favorable comparison to the person who got it so wrong. It’s not always mean-spirited, though — just good old human behavior.
The physical side of awkward humor is just as real.
Studies show that the anterior cingulate cortex and the left anterior insula — areas tied to processing pain — activate when we watch someone else get embarrassed.
The body treats it as a mild threat. But because the threat is harmless and the situation is funny, science suggests that the brain’s pain centers and reward circuits activate at the same time.
There’s a reason why some people simply can’t watch or read cringe jokes and memes.
Experts call it vicarious embarrassment.
Research from Philipps-University Marburg in Germany found that our brain processes another person’s awkward mistake using the exact same pathways it uses when we experience real, physical pain.
When we see someone fumble a social situation, our minds react as if it were happening to us.
Research suggests people with higher levels of empathy tend to experience second-hand embarrassment from cringe more intensely.
For example, some people might wince when they hear a colleague confidently singing off-key at a work party or a stranger loudly oversharing on a first date.
“It may be that they automatically imagine themselves as being that person in that [embarrassing] situation,” says Frieder Paulus, co-author of the study and psychologist at Philipps-University Marburg.
"Some people think it’s funny and others, you can tell it’s painful for them to watch. You see the faces they make like they are hurting themselves.”
There’s a ton of research that shows that content evoking high-arousal emotions — including anxiety, anger, and awe — is significantly more likely to be shared on social media. Cringe sits squarely in the high-arousal category.
It makes your stomach tighten, or makes you lean forward. That physical charge is exactly what makes you keep scrolling.
In a feed full of polished and algorithm-optimized content, cringe cuts through the noise because it feels flawed and unfiltered.
We often enjoy cringe because it allows us to simulate unusual social situations and witness their consequences without actually experiencing them ourselves.
“It functions almost like a horror movie. You get to indulge in this fear, but then it’s OK. You aren’t actually experiencing it, but you have this simulation,” says author Melissa Dahl.
A 2018 research paper noted that cringe comedy may actually help us strengthen our defense mechanisms.
By walking us through worst-case social nightmares, these posts might prepare us for the awkwardness of real life. They give us a safe way to see what not to do, while teaching us exactly how to handle a major blunder if it ever happens to us.