'Happy New Year, the misery never ends': The cringiest cringe pics of the week (January 3, 2024)

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Jan 3, 2024 3:00 PM EST

The act of cringing might only last a moment, but cringe itself lasts a lifetime. As much as we'd like to deny it, we're still thinking about a few select moments from our younger years that we can't help but cringe about. For me, it's throwing up on the school bus leaving my 8th-grade field trip. I know I couldn't have controlled that, but did I have to do it on the floor of a moving vehicle?

Even though we frequently classify cringe as a negative emotion, it serves a purpose. If you're not cringing at some part of yourself from two years ago, then you haven't been making enough progress! As enough time passes, you can get far enough removed from your past self to feel empathy for them instead of cringing at them. Until then, we're going to stay up at night thinking of our middle school antics and spend our waking hours scrolling through cringe pics.