The Social Construct of Embarrasment

My memory is often blurry. I can remember highschool vividly, middle school slightly less, but primary school draws a blank. Though one thing I do recall from primary school is everyone's unity, we were all mostly friends, no one cared about anything. Unlike highschool, primary school felt safe. On the flip side, high school was an animal kingdom. With its own rules and hierarchies, highschool had a certain “eat or get eaten” quality. Teenagers and young adults watching each other like prey, waiting for the perfect moment to go for the kill - or in other words, finding the perfect moment to belittle and make fun of another. 

And just like the animal kingdom, we were grouped with others that were relatively similar to us, and that was that. Although my own highschool wasn’t as intense as the movies, traits of the typical characters were still exhibited by my classmates. The pretty girls and the athletic guys were at the top of the food chain, and the social ladder slowly made its way down to those with few friends and no weekend plans.

This brutal cycle of social standards instilled an initial feeling of inferiority within all those involved. The “losers” were criticized and ridiculed for simply being themselves, while the “cool kids” felt pressure to maintain a certain image in order to keep their status.

With this being a fundamental experience in our lives, criticism and judgment became overly normalized, with words like “cringe” and “cheugy” ingrained in our vocabularies, from being used towards friends to strangers online. Society is built to always have a division between the cool and the uncool, and it is always agreed upon by the masses. This can even be seen with the concept of trends; it can be shameful to wear a sweater that’s from two or three seasons ago.

My point is, we’ve been conditioned to hide and blend in from such a young age in order to avoid criticism. We were pushed to shrink our personalities, and who we are, to remain alive in the animal kingdom. Therefore, by the Google definition of embarrassment, we, as humans, are heavily prone to “feelings of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness”. And for no reason in particular, the human brain often feels as though the apocalypse is nearing when these feelings arise. It’s almost a sentiment that we fear. We try so hard to account for our future embarrassment, and once it’s here, we dwell on it for at least three to five business days, replaying the hyperbolized version of the memory time and time again. Our brains become a museum of the overplayed scenarios we dread others may remember as well.

However, contrary to popular belief… no one gives a shit. No one cares that you confused the pronunciation of an easy word, or that you stuttered during your class presentation, or that you farted mid conversation...(because guess what? Everybody farts....). We let these insignificant memories linger in our thoughts for so long, consuming our brains and forcing us to carry unnecessary burdens. The reality is that everyone is so preoccupied with their own impressions and appearance to others, that they don’t really dwell on whether you had broccoli in your teeth that one Tuesday after lunch. Odds are, they’re too busy thinking about how they dropped pasta sauce on their white shirt in front of their crush, or how they walked out of the washroom with toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

So, I am putting my foot down. Call me immature, but these situations are all really funny. It's time that we, as a collective society, start acknowledging embarrassing moments as comedic relief and comedic relief only. Although it takes a lot of confidence to never get embarrassed, it is a much easier life to live. Once we feel comfortable with who we are as individuals, it is simple to recognize that “embarrassing situations” are laughable and not life-changing. Being able to share a giggle about your own embarrassment, whether with a friend or a stranger, is much more blithesome than consistently living in agony over how you could have or should have acted, or done, or said. If anything, being able to embrace these moments for what they truly are, makes us more personable and approachable to others. In a sense, these mishaps humanize us to the public and, dare I say, create a more inclusive and welcoming environment for those around us.

Having said that, if you take one thing out of everything you just read, let it be that embarrassment itself is cringe. Like 2012 cheugy kind of cringe. 

Live your life without fear of the social ladder and those conforming to it. Be comfortable with who you are and how you act, the rest will come naturally; and that's a promise.

Header by: Sadie Levine