Did you know that there are two different kinds of cringe: compassionate cringe and contemptuous cringe? Compassionate cringe is about laughing with somebody about a relatable embarrassing experience. Compassionate cringe might occur when you tell your friends about the time you asked out your crush in middle school or when you fell off your scooter and accidentally got a scab that looked like a Hitler mustache for two weeks. Everyone relates to cringe like this, but compassionate cringe is not…

Modern dating has become a complex and often daunting experience for many people. As a recently single person, I can 100% agree. See, in today's society, people are expected to meet new individuals in a fast-paced, highly technological environment. With the rise of dating apps and social media, finding someone to date has become easier yet somehow more challenging. Instead of focusing on the fun parts of meeting new people and discovering new things, we're drowning in options, engaging in surfa…

The cringe is real

Come again?

As we dive into the autumnal season, many people are excited about the approach of Halloween . While I enjoy dressing up and partying as much as the next person, fall just makes me dread Thanksgiving. Dry turkey aside, as a woman who is approaching the end of child-bearing age, Thanksgiving promises a host of older relatives asking me when my partner and are going to have children. And as broke New Yorkers, one of whom is in graduate school, that's not happening any time soon, if ever. We're pe…

The phenomenon of incels taking to the internet to air out their unhinged frustration toward women is nothing new. At this point in time, it's pretty much expected. It feels as though there's always some dude lurking behind a Twitter or Reddit corner, waiting to explain some intellectual subject to a woman who a) doesn't know who this dude is and b) really, really doesn't want to hear it. It's often under the guise of connection. And it usually results in rejection. And sometimes, after being r…

There are so many underbellies of the internet that expose just how much some men truly hate women. They are obsessed with dehumanizing women and seeing them as none other than baby-making machines, put on this earth to be a submissive companion for a man. Even though seeing such blatant sexism can be kind of depressing, it can also be kind of amusing that people actually think like this. My favorite trad hot take is that women were “gatherers” of berries and nuts in ancient civilizations, and…

If you've never heard of the @SheRatesDogs Twitter account, you're in for a treat. It's basically a hub of those creepy , unhinged DMs that we hate to receive but love to mock on the internet. Most of the messages are what you'd expect: butthurt communications from men who can't handle warranted rejections. And, of course, a whole lot of incels . That said, every now and then they publish a series of direct messages that are uniquely cringey and deplorable. And yesterday was one of those days.

What is a softboi ? If you've ever received a flirty unsolicited message from someone who speaks in platitudes, drops backhanded compliments that simultaneously flatter and insult, or talks at length about how "different" they are, then you likely already know. Thanks to @beam_me_up_softboi 's archive of weird DMs from pick-up artists, sapiosexuals, and self-proclaimed ' nice guys ,' we've amassed a very cringe compilation of receipts that prove how low softbois can go.

Yikes.

I can smell these posts

Wholesomeness can be found everywhere, even 4chan

Women aren't NPCs

We get it, you lift

Not much in this world annoys us as much as an angry " nice guy" who takes pleasure in victimizing themselves while painting a very ugly picture of women. Everyday annoyances don't compare to how frustrating the misdirected ire of a young man who feels scorned or misunderstood by society can be, particularly when it's found all over the internet. Dudes will harass women via direct messages when they're rejected, or make cruel statements from a dark place in their hearts that makes them feel jus…