What Makes This Art Cringe? (Furries, MLP, Gacha Life, and More!) || SPEEDPAINT + COMMENTARY

I saw many beginner artists who have “please don’t bully me” in their bios it’s so heartbreaking

We should start a trend to encourage artists to draw the things they wanted to draw in the past but didn't out of fear of being labeled as cringe. Bring back the Sonic OC's! The sparkle dogs! The ponyfications!!

Cringe culture has been a disaster for the human race

the only thing that's "cringe" here is cringe culture itself.

If cringe animation comps didn’t exist back then, I would of become an animator by now. 💀

Do not kill the part of you that's cringe, kill the part of you that cringes.

I also believe "cringe culture" is the reason why western video games, comics, and other entertainment is on life support. They're not appealing to "Modern audiences", they're appealing to a group that essentially says "If you don't like the same mainstream, trendy things I do, you don't deserve ANY respect."

There absolutely is an ableist side of it. “Autistic” used to be seen as an insult not too long ago for this exact reason.

cringe culture labels any ounce of sincerity as cringe

It’s such a shame that people are being mocked for their art styles. Not only in relation to just beginning artists either. Take my younger sister for example. Her art style is one of the most unique ones I’ve come across. She doesn’t ever draw eyes for her characters. She’ll give them mouths, noses, ears, fingers and all the other things artists typically struggle with, but she intentionally leaves out eyes. She can draw eyes, she just prefers not to. While I think this is a very cool and uncommon stylistic choice, other people who see her draw tend to pick on her about it. Like, come on guys. Can people not even have uniqueness in their art? Which, I can’t possibly stress enough, is completely subjective. In short, mocking somebody’s unique art style is dumb and also bad

Finally, someone is talking about how cringe culture is harmful to artists and even just people who enjoy specific things. Thank you for making this commentary. I think it can help a lot of people who were contributing to cringe culture without even realizing it Also, eyes changing color depending on emotions was a thing?! Seems like you really do learn more every day!

As someone being a part of one of the most hated communitys, Gacha, I can confirm that most of us are afraid to show our art, edits, video or anything we do related to gacha that isn't in our "safe place" where there are other people from our community that we know will not send us death threats or start insulting us for making an edit of a gacha character that is not accepted on what society considers a "good edit". I was afraid all the time to play Gacha Club on school since i thought everyone would see me as a weirdo that likes gacha life.

A situation that really encompasses the harm cringe culture brings is the Croaket_ drama. They legit got death threats and rumors spread about them simply because they had the utter audacity to post a “cringe” drawing to tiktok.

FINALLY!!! I can’t be the only one who absolutely DESPISE cringe culture. It sours the mood and make everything annoying! They went like “oh, don’t be afraid to show your art!” And when a beginner artist show their art, these people immediately bully the artist without giving actual criticism. This happens a lot when I used to be active on tiktok. Basically, they bully a beginner artist and proceed to make a rumor about the artist being problematic somehow in order to justify their actions and get more people to bully the artist with them. These people also thinks they are smart, when getting called out their either say “you can’t take a joke” or “haha snowflakes ❄️ “ or “I’m just giving constructive criticism 🥺” like UGH I hate them so much. They even make a whole azz board dedicated to mocking and wishing death to those they deem as “cringe”. All while preaching “no bullying pls” or “mental health is important”

I draw MLP art all the time. I’m a Brony. I’ve been into MLP since 2003/4 and I’m never not gonna be into it. That’s just the truth.

I am disabled and made Gacha content. I started to recover from years of ableist treatment that made me hate everyone and myself, then the term “Gachatard” became popular, and I didn’t get to be comfortable with myself as a disabled person OR comfortable with my first healthy coping mechanism for said self hatred anymore. A disabled child with a heart of hate and no way to let it out. Sounds dramatic, sounds cringey, imagine living it. I multiple times had to go through my content and remove videos that were extra ‘cringe’ so I didn’t get hacked. Not fucking cute, internet, thats absolutely disgusting. On a higher note, my old art is incredible as it stood at the time, adorable as a more experienced artist watching someone else just enjoy themselves and celebrate themselves, and inspiring as a step in my progress to where I am today.

I grew up entirely on cringe culture, do you know what a little 11 year old neurodivergent me grew up to? A perfectionist, a museum artist, a realism drawing machine making only the things that were socially acceptable and "pretty" I never got to make fanart of my special interests (and I'm still too scared to post it) I lost my childhood to fear of not confirming to norms, hell I was even afraid to draw animals because someone might call it "furry art" I am sad to think how many more of my art peers had the same experiences I'm a scene, therian, anime loving, furry, lgbtq, cartoon enthusiast, neurodivergent artist and I am so fucking happy I woke up one day with the guts to just say it how it is, I'm tired of the realism, I'm tired of the painting, I'm tired of saying I don't like Sonic and MLP and watching cartoons etc. I love simple cartoon styles and really bright colours and inserting my rainbow barf characters into the things I like and if people don't like that fuck them, I am choosing to be happy, I am choosing to be myself and I'm glad I'm surrounded by a small community of such amazing and supportive people who love what I make And I've been bullied, oh I've been bullied so much even if it was just a regular human character with slightly bright colours it was mocked and it made younger me sit in a corner and cry because I tried doing something different, I don't think that a 9 year old should be crying at their desk, sobbing, on the verge of vomit because people tell them that they are cringe, that they should d1e, that their art is garbage and that nobody loves them because they drew something badly art is supposed to be an escape form reality and something comforting (especially to literal children)

I'm so glad more people are drawing the connection between cringe culture/bullying and ableism. I think that neurodivergence is often invisible to others, so it makes people feel like they can make fun of others with a clear conscience that it's not inherently charged by bigotry. Ableism or not, no one should be made fun of just because their behaviors don't fit social norms, but I do feel pretty salty when people think they have the moral high-ground for supposedly not bullying someone over identity. Neurodivergent people end up an unconscious target of bullying and mockery because no one wants to believe their actions are influenced by discriminatory views.

smthin to keep in mind is how “cringe” is often literally just kids, queer people, and ND people and their interests, its insane how much bigotry is in those cringe comps

I actually used to draw anthro characters all the time. I had like at least 50 characters I would draw all the time and I really enjoyed doing it. Over time, out of fear that’d I’d be harassed I just stopped drawing them all together. Even though it has helped me improve on drawing other things, like people, it’s still sad that I felt the need to stop just to conform to society so I wouldn’t be seen as “cringe.”