To find out more about this insanely popular community, Bored Panda reached out to the “Cringetopia” subreddit's moderator Fjallmadur, who was happy to share some insights.
“We started this subreddit to break away from the politics and hate that CringeAnarchy was becoming saturated with. /u/IAmMrPositive founded this subreddit and brought along me and a few other CringeAnarchy moderators who were tired of the mess that place had become,” the moderator recalled.
Fjallmadur added: “He basically made it a full-time job promoting this place in relevant subreddits and building this community from the ground up while telling people that this subreddit was going to be a place for everyone to come together, put politics aside, and just cringe at the people doing really weird and awkward stuff that they post online.” Today, it has turned into the one of the most regularly active subreddits on the entire site.
When asked what the term “Cringetopia” refers to, the moderator explained that it’s exactly what it looks like, “an amalgamation of the words 'cringe' and 'utopia.'” Moreover, “It's a place where any cringe that doesn't break our relatively lax community rules or Reddit sitewide rules is allowed.”
The moderator of the community sees cringe as inherently subjective. “What makes one person cringe, another person may think is entirely normal,” he said and continued that “My take on it is that we've all done stupid stuff that we look back on and cringe about, and looking at these people is a good way to relive that feeling, even if it's not the exact situation that we've been in ourselves.”
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Fjallmadur also added that “we laugh at those folks, feel second-hand embarrassment over what we see, and share it with others, but I think that it's ultimately a way for us to empathize with the people who are being featured on this subreddit.”
And although there are “some bad apples in the bunch,” according to the moderator, “we're not about bullying or spreading hate at all; it's all just for entertainment and understanding other people at the end of the day.”
Turns out, the subreddit has a bit of a bad rep from other communities because “they feel like we're bullying people,” but Fjallmadur stressed the fact that their community is exactly the opposite. “Our community is all-inclusive, as you can see from our wonderful mod team, and I feel like we do a pretty good job as a whole to enjoy the light-hearted picking while avoiding actually hurting anyone,” they concluded.
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