Kenneth Glad
The pressure to look effortless is changing how people behave in public and online. For some, even enthusiasm can feel unsafe.
At a Los Angeles club, Natalie Soibatian, a 24-year-old museum visitor experience coordinator and fashion content creator, noticed something strange. The room was full, but almost nobody wanted to move.
“No one was dancing,” she told The Guardian.
To her, the moment captured a wider Gen Z fear: One awkward clip can escape the room, land online and become a joke for strangers:
“Everybody is afraid of being recorded.”
Trying has become exposed
The anxiety is not just about embarrassment. Roger Giner-Sorolla, a social psychology professor, told the paper that cringe is tied to “vicarious shame.”
A Yahoo/YouGov poll found that more than half of Gen Z respondents said fear of seeming cringe had limited their online self-expression. Fifty-five percent said it had stopped them from opening up emotionally.
New York University professor Ocean Vuong told ABC News that some students now see effort itself as risky:
“There’s a surveillance culture around social media. And they will say: ‘I want to be a poet, I want to be a good writer, but it’s a bit cringe’ … this ‘cringe culture’ is ‘I don’t want to be perceived as trying and having an effortful attempt at my dreams.’”
The crowd follows home
Katie Whitney, whose TikTok work leans into awkward comedy, told the British outlet that criticism felt sharper when her audience was smaller and more personal.
With millions watching, the noise has become easier to detach from. “It feels more separate from me,” Whitney said.
But the pressure remains. Giner-Sorolla told The Guardian: “We’re not adapted to live where millions of eyes are on us.”
The escape routes are not dramatic. Giner-Sorolla argued that people should focus on smaller, trusted social circles rather than trying to satisfy endless online audiences.
Dean Burnett, a Cardiff-based neuroscientist, echoed that view, emphasizing the value of genuine relationships over visibility and follower counts: “Not everyone benefits from an audience”.
Psychotherapist Georgie Gee told The Guardian that people can challenge the inner voice that polices embarrassment. Mark Beal recommended stepping back from the phone.
The broader lesson is simple: A life built only to avoid looking foolish can become smaller than the mistake it fears.
Sources: The Guardian, Yahoo/YouGov poll, ABC News
