February 20, 2026
Cringe comeback tour
How to Stop Being Boring
Be weird, not well‑behaved: commenters split on 'boring' vs 'brave'
TLDR: The essay urges people to stop self-editing and revive the “cringe” passions that make them memorable. Commenters cheer authenticity and small daily experiments, while a contrarian defends the calm of being boring and others warn that realness has risks at work—be genuine, not reckless.
An essay told readers to stop sanding down their “weird edges” and say the quiet parts out loud. The comments? A spicy split. nephihaha cheered that interesting people don’t try so hard, calling out our “follow the leader” culture. Others rallied behind the piece’s call to resurrect your “cringe list” — the bands, hobbies, and hot takes you buried to look cool. It’s authenticity vs. approval, and the crowd loves the former when it’s not trying to be a performance. The vibe: less polished, more honest; stop focus‑grouping your personality and bring back the messy, memorable stuff.
But not everyone’s buying the anti‑boring gospel. deepriverfish fired the tiny grenade: “what’s wrong with being boring?” — a mood that got surprisingly loud. ramesh31 added a colder splash of reality: being real can be risky at work or with strangers; trust matters. Meanwhile, PlatoIsADisease turned the sermon into a life hack: an hour a day on something interesting led to a startup, programming chops, and new art skills. The thread even went pop: Eddy_Viscosity2 dropped the Pet Shop Boys wink — “We were never being boring” — with a link. Jokes flew about “cringe‑core rebrands” and birdwatching becoming the new nightlife. Final verdict from the crowd: embrace the weird, but don’t confuse authenticity with oversharing, and yes, being “boring” might just be peaceful — unless you’re boring on purpose.
Key Points
- •The article defines boringness as the result of over-editing one’s personality to fit social norms.
- •It references Erving Goffman’s 1959 concept of self-presentation to explain how performance can replace authenticity over time.
- •The author distinguishes between reading a room (social intelligence) and erasing oneself to fit in.
- •A practical exercise—making a “cringe list”—is proposed to identify interests and opinions suppressed due to embarrassment.
- •A recovery protocol recommends reintroducing these interests by expressing them in low-stakes situations with trusted people or strangers.