Was it the acoustic guitar? The cell phone lights swaying in the background? Or was it the lyrics of the song itself? Whatever it was, the impact was immediate and brutal. According to the internet, Brendan Abernathy was unequivocally cringe.
Abernathy is a singer-songwriter living in Texas who went viral earlier this year for an earnest performance of his song "married in a year." He was relatively unknown before this moment, but the video garnered millions of views along with countless parody videos from comedians and social media users.
Ramtin Arablouei, co-host of NPR's Throughline, spoke to Abernathy about how to cope with the criticism and shares his insights with It's Been a Minute host, Brittany Luse. They also get into the rise of cringe culture: where it comes from, how it's hurting us, and how leaning into cringe is good for art.
Episode Highlights
What happens when a "cringe" video goes viral?
BRENDAN ABERNATHY: It was really hard. Also, some of it was really funny. And I can recognize both of those things at the same time.
ARABLOUEI: Well, what parts of it were hard?
ABERNATHY: People were treating me like I'm selling out stadiums … I'm struggling to sell a hundred tickets, and people are acting like I'm some massive industry plant who they can just tear down. It's like, you can't tear me down, guys. I'm poor. I lived out of my car for four years. You can't really tear me down any more than I'm already down.
ABERNATHY: You hope for a long time that you're going to get a breakthrough into - just more ears having an opportunity to hear your music. And then when it happens and you're getting mocked, laughed at, told to take your own life, you know, whatever, it - it's just really confusing because everything that I know about myself and my music, the internet is saying the polar opposite of that. If you searched my name on TikTok, the third result was, Brendan Abernathy fake. That's what hurt the most, was that everything I've built my life on, which is being authentic and being vulnerable, I was being viewed [as] the complete opposite of that. That's what hurt. And most people who reacted negatively - it created this, ew, cringe.
Where did "cringe" come from?
RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: I think it's kind of a callback to another era in American culture. For us, it would have been middle school, but I think it's the '90s. I think we both grew up in a time where it was not cool to try hard. So the terms that were used then were "lame," "corny," "poser." It was all about authenticity and wanting to appear to not want it too much. The language has changed, but the sentiment is basically a callback or a cycle back to that time, in my opinion.
BRITTANY LUSE: And that feels also like a direct refutation of kind of Obama-era woke earnestness.
RAMTIN ARABLOUEI: Yes. And in a way, Brandon's music also calls back to that time. It sounds like a lot of music from that time. There was nothing worse than being called a poser when we were young. And I think there's nothing worse than being called cringe today for young people.
Does it pay to go viral?
LUSE: Virality doesn't necessarily equal money. But Brendan does have at least something out there about himself. And one of his songs is a lot more well-known than maybe he had ever anticipated it being this early in his career.
ARABLOUEI: Yeah. OK, if we live in a world in which, like, all publicity is good publicity - right? If that whole thing is true … we're selecting for people who see money opportunity in being made fun of and can, like, flip and turn that. And on one side, I can see that being admirable, but I can also see that being the kind of traits of a sociopath. Do we have a future of, you know, sociopathic adjacent people becoming successful and then the sensitive souls who aren't as cynical about the world, basically being washed away by this, like, wave of hatred?
LUSE: I mean, is that the future, or is that now? (Laughter).
ARABLOUEI: Yeah, well, OK. There you go. Like, you know, those who dare to cringe would be the ones who are great.
LUSE: Yes. That is, like, a bastardization of a Theodore Roosevelt quote about, like, those who get in the ring, who dare greatly, you know, who get down in the ring and fight.
ARABLOUEI: Yeah.
LUSE: Well, it's all about daring greatly, as opposed to, like, specifically achieving one thing or another. Like, maybe it's those who dare to be cringe, you know ... The world belongs to those who dare to be cringe.
ARABLOUEI: The cringe will inherit the Earth, yeah.
LUSE: The cringe will inherit the Earth (laughter). Oh, I'm going to keep that in mind when it's time for me to make my first TikTok, and I'm like, crying on the inside. I want to crawl out of my skin. I'm going to remember that.
Copyright 2026 NPR
