Mary Harrington on 'Cringemaxxing'
But the absolute opposite of “cool” is not “uncool” but “cringe”: the wincing, jaw-clenching feeling you get when you do, or witness, something that you know the cool people would regard not just as uncool, but actively anti-cool: embarrassing, awkward, social Kryptonite. And while babies merely uncool, probably the most cringe thing you can do is going to church. There, you show up regularly to join a group of others you didn’t choose, and some of whom are probably old, or weird, or awkward, or otherwise uncool. The purpose of showing up is prayer: again, the opposite of cool, because to pray is to declare, openly, that you are not completely self-contained.
