cringe

In an ideal world, food would be something that unites the people of Planet Earth. We all need it to survive. Most cultures have figured out ways to make this necessity into something delicious and maybe even luxurious. But as food and cuisine have shifted from "need" to art and pleasure, some people have begun to turn something enjoyable into a source of snobbery and condescension. 

This self-importance and gatekeeping may have been reserved for food writing that reflects more privileged diners, but with the advent of the Internet, food snobs can be found pretty much everywhere. They creep into Twitter threads uninvited to share their tired opinion on fast food pizza. They balk at carbonara recipes that incorporate cream. They write essay-length reviews on Yelp, tearing into cuisines they only think they know something about. But while the diatribes and snide comments are wholly obnoxious, they're also kind of entertaining. These people are so desperate to show that they know better that we can't help but laugh at them. 

There is something about internet anonymity that really allows people to feel comfortable bending the truth or even flat out, blatantly lying. There are also people who feel totally fine fibbing to the friends and family on their timeline. Why? Well, some people do it to make a political or societal point. Or to express that they have some kind of experience with pain or strife. You know the type of situation or person. Rachel Dolezal. People who pretend to have been denied or given bad service because they were white or don't believe in vaccinations or disease-preventing masks. 

Other people weave their flourish-y creative tales for attention or pity. They dream up fake cancer diagnoses for sympathy and con friends, family, and strangers in order to rake in the crowdfunding money. Some of them create a sob story so that people will talk to them on sites like Reddit or Twitter.

Then there are the attention-hungry individuals who are looking for clout. They write up detailed sagas to mine Reddit karma, which will in turn allow them to post their lies freely all over the website. Or they want their tweet to go viral. And then there are the wannabe tough guys who regale the internet with fictitious heroics or even more false tales that evoke the classic "I have a girlfriend but she goes to another school" trope. 

You'll find that most of these types are represented in this lengthy list of creative storytellers. While we do wish that people would just, you know, not lie on the internet, at least there are places like r/thatHappened where we can laugh at their foolish attempts. 

There are very few things more satisfying than being able to chime in to a conversation at the perfect time, and these people hit the jackpot with that. If you want more of these, check out /r/UsernameChecksOut!

It should be known by now that we enjoy mocking other people's misfortune - and as schadenfreude goes, these amusing tales are pretty lighthearted. When Twitter user @lillyannatrnr shared a facepalm-worthy serving anecdote from her boyfriend's past, we're willing to bet she didn't think she was starting a thread of epic proportions. But his ignorance regarding creme fraiche and the laughs that followed inspired other users to share their own food-service and grocery work blunders. The result? A massive thread of funny fails and punny verbal comedy. We've picked out some of the better gems for you, but you can see more hilarity at the thread itself.

r/masterhacker is a treasure trove of cringey and hilarious examples of wannabe hackers trying their best to intimidate people online with empty threats, seeking advice that betrays their naivety, and straight up asking people for their IP addresses so they can hack them. We've got a bunch of amusing screenshots and memes about the sort of person who whispers 'I'm in' to themselves after using a Windows command prompt to identify an IP address. Be sure to check out r/masterhacker for more of this content.

Browsing through memes is a perfectly delightful pastime. But after a while, the memes start to blur together. It's very similar to the way time has begun to feel since early 2020. To break free from the monotony of cat memes or lowest common denominator relatable memes, we've put together this collection of decidedly cringey and uncomfortable memes, tweets, and posts. They might not be pleasant, but they're definitely entertaining. And sometimes that's all we need.

Some people in this world are just unmatched contenders for the Darwin Awards, and we feel incredibly lucky to have caught some of them on camera, which you can scroll through below! Fail Blog has endless more fail-y content, so go check them out!

We've got to hand it to these lazy individuals. In the most creative way possible, these craftsmen and construction workers absolutely refused to do someone else's job. So they found workarounds that, while extremely amusing, may not have made their clients happy. But we're more than happy to show some appreciation for their efforts.

Everyone's got 20/20 hindsight, but many are blind when it comes to predicting outcomes and sharing takes that stand the test of time. It's not always fun to look into the past, especially when you're the one with the embarrassingly wrong analysis immortalized forever on subs like r/agedlikemilk. For us passive observers on the other hand, this stuff is mad entertaining.

We've got a terrible collection of hideous memes from the absolute bottom of the barrel (Facebook). In this atrocious gallery, you'll find some eye-roll worthy puns, boomer humor emailed from grandma, and dumb shit that straight up doesn't make sense. You might simply hate these memes, or perhaps you see the humor in cringey content. We love these memes for the same reason we love watching movies like The Room. It's always fun to laugh at something for reasons that weren't intended. 

Ever meet a person who thinks they are the premier authority of any given subject? That they call the shots of what's right or what's wrong. Well, the internet is full of these people, and they're commonly referred to as gatekeepers. They generally exert this "authority" over aspect of culture, such as gaming, or even institutions such as marriage or the concept of "maniliness." The practice is wholly obnoxious, and often downright offensive. The r/gatekeeping subreddit is filled with examples of these holier-than-thou types, and because we like to mock people like this, we've got some primo posts here to share with you. We hope these sad people get the comeuppance they deserve. 

We all have our trashy moments in life, whether it be getting a little too drunk at your distant relative's wedding or becoming so lazy that you let your car become a literal dumpster, but some people are truly next level pros at bringing the trashiness. It seems like you have to achieve a certain degree of shamelessness in order to channel the garbage person within, and these people have certainly tapped into something impressively cringe. Hopefully these posts will make you feel better about those personal low points you'd love to forget. 

Hey look, we all experience brain farts from time to time, so we can't be too judgmental of the following people who unfortunately happened to have their snafus captured for snarky Reddit audiences to prey on.

The Onion has been dishing out satire since 1988. That's over thirty years. While they may have ceased to distribute an actual paper, their hilarious articles are very much in existence in the digital universe. And there are still stupid people who believe their (mostly) obvious joke headlines. 

You definitely do not want to mess with the following badasses because they will f*ck you right up. We're just hoping that no one got hurt in the making of these photos.

We all get comfortable in relationships and say some cringe things in jest, but some people take it wayyy too far. A distraught woman asked Reddit if she was the asshole for leaving her husband in the grocery store after he quite literally acted like a toddler and demanded ice cream in a baby voice. OP u/smallslicedskin further explained that this wasn't an isolated incident. Apparently, her husband had been incessantly using meme-speak like 'doggo,' 'pupper,' 'chicky nuggies,' and 'birb' for months. The bizarre affectation that had been driving OP bonkers caused her to finally snap in the grocery store and subsequently turn to Reddit for help. Scroll down for her story and some of the best responses in the thread.