{"id":714,"date":"2026-06-03T05:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T05:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/you-can-be-made-a-laughing-stock-to-millions-can-gen-z-escape-the-fear-of-being-cringe-young-people-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T05:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T05:55:13","slug":"you-can-be-made-a-laughing-stock-to-millions-can-gen-z-escape-the-fear-of-being-cringe-young-people-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/you-can-be-made-a-laughing-stock-to-millions-can-gen-z-escape-the-fear-of-being-cringe-young-people-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You can be made a laughing stock to millions\u2019: can gen Z escape the fear of being cringe? | Young people | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Humans aren\u2019t psychologically evolved to be subject to the judgment of so many others. \u201cBiologically or culturally, we\u2019re adapted to relatively small group living,\u201d says Giner-Sorolla. \u201cWe\u2019re not adapted to live where millions of eyes are on us.\u201d When we lived in smaller, entirely offline communities, we could adapt to fit in with those around us \u2013 or choose not to. \u201cBut when you have not only a million pairs of eyes, but 1,000 different standards, 1,000 different subcultures judging you, that can be very overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Georgie Gee, a child psychotherapist based in London, says that before the internet: \u201cIdentity was formed by hanging out with real people that you liked, and you identified with their values.\u201d Now, she says: \u201cthere are so many different voices \u2026 if you\u2019re exposed to that from a very early age it can interfere with your normal adolescent development of identity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So can gen Z get over the fear of cringe? According to Giner-Sorolla, the way to survive is to \u201cnarrow your focus \u2026 have a reference group of people you can be authentic with, and even if other people think your authenticity is cringe, at least you\u2019ve got your people.\u201d Burnett is of a similar mind. \u201cHaving connections, having friends, having people you can relate to and share with, that\u2019s good for the brain,\u201d he says. What about thousands of connections online? \u201cThat\u2019s not a healthy default, and that\u2019s what I think holds people back.\u201d While everyone would benefit from having a community, he says, \u201cnot everyone benefits from an audience\u201d.<br \/>\n\u2014 Read on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2026\/jun\/03\/can-gen-z-escape-fear-cringe-laughing-stock\">www.theguardian.com\/society\/2026\/jun\/03\/can-gen-z-escape-fear-cringe-laughing-stock<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humans aren\u2019t psychologically evolved to be subject to the judgment of so many others. \u201cBiologically or culturally, we\u2019re adapted to relatively small group living,\u201d says Giner-Sorolla. \u201cWe\u2019re not adapted to live where millions of eyes are on us.\u201d When we lived in smaller, entirely offline communities, we could adapt to fit in with those around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,138,15,39,37,21,77,38],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-consciousness","tag-cringe","tag-culture","tag-evolution","tag-neuroscience","tag-smartphones","tag-social-media","tag-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.adlington.fr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}