Has the Internet become full of embarrassing content? Self-mortification and cringe are the new forms of online authenticity

On various social media platforms, the content that gains the most user engagement isn’t limited to adorable animal puppies, pregnancies, and weddings. In recent months, another protagonist has emerged: embarrassment. The most recent, and perhaps most representative, example involves two American girls on vacation in Rome who went viral on TikTok thanks to a series of videos, a kind of saga, in which they found themselves “by mistake” on a Tunisair flight bound for Tunis. They, however, were not headed to Tunis, Tunisia, but to Nice, France: the English pronunciation of “Tu-nis” and “To-Nice” was indistinguishable for the ticket agent at Rome Fiumicino Airport, and the girls clearly didn’t think to specify their destination country. The video where they realize, once onboard, that they’ve completely messed up (such as not checking the boarding pass) and laugh saying “We’re going to Africa” while the passengers look at them annoyed and unimpressed, has racked up more than 40 million views in just over a month.

From cringe content to viral trends

The example of the two American tourists is part of a broader series of viral trends on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where the underlying (and not-so-hidden) theme is self-humiliation. Memes like Jet2Holiday, where users are encouraged to post the worst parts of their vacations accompanied by the British airline’s jingle, and “Who TF did I marry?”, a 50-part video saga in which a woman recounts her disastrous marriage to a pathological narcissist, reflect a broader phenomenon: they show how the Internet has become a kind of cringe stage.

Social media visibility or authenticity strategy?

Many people have begun to speculate that such episodes are orchestrated for visibility and social media growth. On Reddit, for example, one user commented on the “To-Nice” affair: “I'm convinced they did this shit on purpose to go viral and increase the social media following for their influencer career. They jumped from a few thousand likes per post to millions very quickly, so it obviously worked.” Unsurprisingly, one of the two tourists already described herself as an influencer, she simply seized the opportunity to become one faster. Exposing embarrassing feelings, actions, and behaviors on social media might seem unthinkable for anyone outside Gen Z, but such positioning, regarding how others see us and how we experience our own lives, can also be interpreted as a personal and social strategy.

The psychology of cringe and self-improvement

Academic studies on cringe seem to suggest uncomfortable truths: opening up to others, even by sharing the worst moments of our lives, can reveal a motivation for self-improvement, even though authenticity and self-betterment on social media are fairly problematic concepts. Posting a video about the time we got scammed on Vinted, or a vacation where everything went wrong, can make us appear more ironic and authentic, creating a connection with our audience.

Gen Z vs. Millennials: a divide in digital expression

Nevertheless, the divide between Gen Z and Millennials isn’t just generational, it’s also a difference in expressive modes. Personally, as a Millennial born in ’96, I wouldn’t post that kind of content even under torture, at the expense of so-called social authenticity, while for someone from Gen Z, authenticity is achieved through embarrassment, a feeling that, when shared publicly, becomes recognized as spontaneity and vulnerability.

It can also be seen as a move away from what we’re used to: an antidote to the curated and controlled aesthetic that once dominated social media.