Cringe has become a new form of social control

This is a two-panel comic meme. In the first panel, a simple white cartoon character excitedly reaches toward a large yellow bubble containing encouraging, pro-individualism messages: "Be yourself! Live how you want to live! Don't let society dictate who you should be!". In the second panel, a pink cartoon character holds the white character back from the bubble, as the white character now looks nervous with a sweat drop, and the pink character asks "...but what if someone thinks it's CRINGE?". The joke satirizes how the widespread internet label of 'cringe' acts as an informal form of social control, discouraging people from authentic self-expression even when they are told they are free to be themselves.

This meme was sourced from the Reddit:Meme RSS feed, shared with the original title "Cringe has become a new form of social control". It repurposes a popular widely used two-panel meme template of one character holding another back from a desired object to comment on modern internet social dynamics around public judgment of personal behavior.