It's OK to Be Cringe

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter about navigating creativity in the 21st century. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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A while ago, a trending video on TikTok presented the idea of "cringe mountain." As the creator of the original video explains, you need to scale cringe mountain to get to the "land of cool." 

Climbing cringe mountain means putting yourself out there, getting laughed at and ridiculed, and doing something bold. The people who put themselves out there and are willing to embrace the cringe end up being the coolest. 

No one feels more cringe than a creative, especially when you look back at your old work.

But what exactly is cringe? Merriam-Webster defines cringe as "embarrassing, awkward, etc." 

I can't tell you how much my face scrunches up when I read my old writing or view my old sketches because it just feels…well, cringe. If you're anything like me, you probably don't revisit your old work that often because you feel embarrassed and awkward that you created something of that caliber. 

But as the cringe mountain idea suggests, we need to be cringe to find the success we want. There's a quote that says, "Do not kill the part of you that is cringe—kill the part of you that cringes." 

As much as we hate it, cringe is a natural part of life. It's every phase we go through, every experiment we run, and everything we try. It represents who we were at that moment in time and the skills and knowledge we had at the time. So, of course, when we look back at something we did 10-15 years ago, we'll cringe because our knowledge and expertise have grown so much since then. 

The funny part is that we didn't think it was cringe-worthy at that moment. We were proud of what we created. We were proud of the cool technique we tried and mastered or the breakthrough we had. 

One day, we're going to look back on who we are now and think that some of the things we did were cringeworthy when, in reality, we're just doing the best we can with the knowledge we possess right now.  

Looking back at our old work shows how much we've grown since then. It also represents perseverance and resilience; you didn't give up but pushed through the awkward phase to come out ahead. 

When I read my old work, I am amazed at how far I have come and how much my skills have improved. It gives me the momentum to keep going and makes me proud of how far I've come. Without the old work, I wouldn't be where I am today. 

We need to lean into the cringe instead of shying away from it. We should celebrate who we are today, where we're going, and where we've been. In other words, we need to drop our cool card and allow ourselves to create, no matter how cringe it might be. 

By climbing cringe mountain, we’re gaining the skills we need to make it to the other side. Without doing the cringe-worthy work, we can’t become the experts we are today or put out the work we want to be putting out.

The faster we accept that what we put out will be cringe-worthy, the better off we'll be. Once we realize that, we have the freedom to be even more vulnerable and creative. We can’t let the fear of being cringe-worthy stop us from creating.

So, post the Reel, publish the short story, or paint the picture. While it might seem cringe, you'll look back one day and be thankful you took the leap. 

As Taylor Swift said in her 2022 NYU commencement speech, "Learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime."

CREATIVE CORNER

• 🎞️ Media I’m consuming: I binged “The Gentlemen” over the weekend and already can’t wait for a second season. Theo James plays an aristocrat who unknowingly inherits a massive weed empire. Need I say more?

• 💡 Idea I’m loving: Cyclical business planning—in other words, planning your business around how your energy levels fluctuate throughout the month. I’m fascinated and want to try it out and see if it can benefit me.

• 🎨 Current creative project: I’m working on outlining my novel. I plan on participating in Camp NaNoWriMo in April, so I hope to put metaphorical pen to paper and start writing.

• 💭 Weekly musing:

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