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Life + Culture

The Cringe-Watch Phenomenon: Why We're Obsessed With Secondhand Embarrassment

There’s a guilty pleasure in watching everyone else fumble — it’s how we all come together.

| Arpita Hota
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There’s a Reddit community with almost 17,000 members dedicated to one purpose: avoiding a single 22-minute episode of television. The subreddit r/CannotWatchScottsTots exists because The Office’s “Scott's Tots” is so uncomfortable that people need support groups to process it. And yet we keep watching, rewinding, even willingly throwing ourselves back into that pit of secondhand embarrassment that somehow delivers pure, chaotic joy… and gives us a guaranteed chai-time conversation starter.

When Indian Television Gave Us Gopi Bahu’s Laptop Bath

If you weren't in India when Gopi Bahu scrubbed her husband’s laptop with detergent on Saath Nibhaana Saathiya, you missed a cultural earthquake. The scene is exactly what it sounds like: a woman washing an electronic device with dish soap under running water, then hanging it on a clothesline like wet laundry. The actress couldn't keep a straight face during filming because she knew the teasing that awaited her. She was right to worry. The scene didn't just go viral; it became shorthand for absurdity itself.

Years later, Yashraj Mukhate's “Rasode mein kaun tha?” remix took another scene from the same show and racked up nearly 10 million views in a week. Celebrities recreated it. Bigg Boss contestants referenced it inside the house. The cringe didn't just live on screen; it became part of how we talk to each other. This is what separates truly memorable cringe from forgettable awkwardness; it escapes the screen and becomes daily language.

When Logic Takes a Holiday

Naagin has given us six seasons of shape-shifting snake women hiding inside mirrors and fighting mongooses, despite mongooses being natural predators of snakes. When the show introduced an ichchadhari nevla (shape-shifting mongoose), two naagins jumped on and killed him. Nature's hierarchy was simply... ignored. By season six, a Yeti appeared, because why not?

In Ekta Kapoor's universe, logic is optional. A woman's dupatta gets caught in a table fan and starts choking her. The solution? A man bites through the fabric instead of simply switching off the fan. On Thapki Pyar Ki 2, a woman dropped battery cells to make someone slip, causing a married woman holding sindoor to throw it up, resulting in vermillion raining on both of them. On Ishq Ki Dastaan Naagmani, a man fell off a terrace during a kite-flying competition, and a woman grabbed a giant kite to catch his hand mid-air.

These scenes aren’t bad television. They’re a genre of their own, floating somewhere between drama and fever dream. What keeps us glued is the sheer audacity of it all, the way the laws of physics and common sense bend just enough to feel wickedly irresistible. We watch not despite the absurdity, but because of it. There’s a strange freedom in content that shrugs off logic and runs wild. Its escapism pushed it to its illogical edge. You can't predict what's coming next, and that unpredictability keeps us glued to screens.

Cringe as Cultural Currency

Awards shows have become laboratories for public humiliation. Jo Koy's 2024 Golden Globes monologue began with him admitting that he had just been given the hosting gig 10 days earlier, then compared Barbie to Oppenheimer by contrasting a doll with a Pulitzer Prize-winning book. The audience sat in stone-faced silence. He made a joke about Barry Keoghan's Saltburn nude scene while the actor squirmed. The discomfort was so thick you could taste it, and that monologue became more talked about than any award given that night.

Reality shows like Love Island and Bigg Boss have built empires on contestants' inability to flirt without making viewers physically recoil. Curtis Pritchard's flirting attempts flooded social media with people questioning how he attracted anyone. Amy Hart told Curtis she was about to say she loved him right after he admitted he didn't have feelings for her — the nation collectively cringed. On Bigg Boss 19, contestant Tanya Mittal called herself "Boss" and made bold declarations within 24 hours that became instant meme material.

Pop culture has given us moments so unhinged they feel scripted by someone who woke up and chose chaos. Tom Holland twirling through water in fishnets to ‘Umbrella’ is still the most committed performance of his career. Next, Timothée Chalamet and Pete Davidson in SNL, tossing out lopsided rap verses, each trying to out-cool the other while the cringe grows louder than the beat. And then, in a plot twist no one could invent, Jungkook accidentally lets out a fart mid-livestream, freezes like he’s been hit by a freeze-frame spell, and then apologises with such a heartbreakingly straight face that it somehow makes the whole thing twice as funny. 

And if the internet has taught us anything, it’s that embarrassment can be a career strategy. Dhinchak Pooja rode the wave of public mockery all the way to millions of views and, eventually, a Bigg Boss spot. 

Why We're Actually Watching

Cringe draws us in because it triggers a mix of tension and relief. Watching someone fumble or make a mistake sparks our attention and keeps us hooked, while also letting us feel safer about our own imperfections. It’s like a social rehearsal: we experience the embarrassment vicariously, learning how far things can go before they break, all without any real risk.

There’s also a rush of unpredictability. When someone messes up unexpectedly, our brains light up with surprise, humour, and curiosity at the same time. That cocktail of reactions makes it addictive. We keep watching because it’s entertaining, suspenseful, and satisfying all at once.

Ultimately, cringe works because it’s a rare moment of raw, unscripted human behaviour, and our attention sticks to it like glue.

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