Cringe

197 Replies to “Cringe”

    1. No. Good start Lucy. When Sarah hears Jacob moaning in ways she wants him to do while on top of her but instead hes under Lucy, and that noise shatters her heart, then Lucy will have done a good job.

            1. Womp womppp… Jk, it’s okay. I’ve only listened to her country songs as a kid, I’ve heard only a little of her newer stuff ^^ so I’d be cringe too.

              1. Big same! I was very into Love Story and I liked her other stuff. Then I started to be interested in other artists. Of course, when my sister became obsessed, I got annoyed with Swift. I got more respectful about it because I love my sister, but I still try to avoid Swift’s music.

            2. My sister fronts a Taylor Swift tribute band and honestly our dad is probably rolling over in his grave about it.

          1. Slang culture is really just a loop isn’t it? Wait long enough and “swingin” or “yowza” or “groovy” will come back.

            1. I can confidently tell you that all it takes is a single charismatic kid doing so, and something like that will return, at least on a micro scale. XD

              Last year I was working in a school, where one of the students, a very friendly and likable guy, referred to everyone as ‘fellas’, and individuals as ‘my fellow!’; by January about a third of the students were calling each other fellas. XD

              1. “Fellas” definitely has come back into mainstream use. I hear that one all the time. Maybe it never went anywhere, but I don’t hear its gender contemporaries like “dames” or “broads” nearly as much at least not in the states.

              1. My friends and I used to use “spiffy” all the time, back in the late high school years.

                Thinking about it, it was most likely attributable to our consumption of Calvin and Hobbes comics.

                Hg

            1. I’m pretty sure it’s a vaudeville reference, as a shortening of the “sad trombone” used to indicate something comically bad or sad happening. A sort of musical sting for a particular kind of punchline used to indicate that the audience should laugh, much like the rim shot but with a different context/connotation.

              I don’t know when specifically it began seeing use as an onomatopoeia for conversational use, but I imagine it couldn’t have been long after the 1930s as that’s more or less when vaudeville died, or it may have been during or after the vaudeville revival in the ’50s. It may have occurred rather later, of course, as the musical sting entered the cultural lexicon and thus was used in other media, first adopted into film by comedy movies largely inspired by vaudeville acts, like the works of Abbot and Costello and The Three Stooges, and still shows up to this day on occasion.

            2. Looking for a better horn effect? Or a new ringtone? Search for “trombone gobble”; the classic Warner Brothers head shake effect.

  1. I am 0% surprised that Danny knows Taylor Swift songs.

    I am 100% surprised Sal does, since by this point she was about 6 when Swift switched from country to pop.

      1. It’s one of the only Swift songs I do know, but that’s because I had a girlfriend that was into Swift around 2010-2012… XD

        1. 2012? So either this is an album deep cut or I’ve just completely forgotten the verse to a song I actually ought to know.

          1. Yea, it was on the semi-popular side, but it was right on the cusp of the country-to-pop transition; still called country but really sounded more pop.

            1. Apparently it is an album deep cut that got rereleased last year and was a pop hit. I haven’t willingly listened to pop radio in years and I was never enough of a fan to go diving through her albums so it makes sense that I haven’t heard of it

    1. I feel like Taylor Swift is big enough to where she might have just picked some stuff up by just cultural osmosis, hearing it playing when the Spotify playlist goes to random or even just over the speakers at walmart

    2. You have to remember that Taylor releasing her re-records is probably relatively recent, which brought those songs back into prominence.

    3. I mean, I guess she isn’t the most culturally tapped into the pulse of things, but it’d still take some serious doing to not know any Taylor Swift songs.

    4. Sal’s music classes or whatever have required her and Danny to practice MBop by Hanson, which she pointedly refused to remember the title of. I’d guess she now knows a lot of songs that wouldn’t be considered her kind of music.

    5. My older brother listened to her a lot when we were in high school, but the vast majority of my non-consensual T-Swizzle experience was from the muzak at an old job of mine.

      I’m never going to get “Shake It Off” out of my head. It was for a while and then I started reading comments and now it’s back.

  2. Taylor Swift. I just don’t see the appeal, other then the glamour, the talent, the natural beauty. But the music just makes me want to hurl.

    1. I literally hate that I can’t find a single Taylor Swift song that I sincerely enjoy. It actually feels bad to admit that you don’t really care for her music. People read things into it, that I REALLY don’t want them to think about me! But I just can’t find anything appealing about it, besides being catchy and competently written! And the people who like it, are clearly connecting with it on a pretty deep level, so I know there’s something there. It’s frustrating.

      1. Have you heard All Too Well? Maybe it was just the stuff I was going through at the time, but I fell in love with that song so much. I was never a big fan of Swift but I listened to that so many times.

      2. Have you heard Safe and Sound? I am really not into Taylor Swift (I don’t hate her music, just not really my thing generally) but I have a Swiftie kid who was DETERMINED to find a song I’d like and she knocked it out of the park with this one.

        It’s SO different from the other poppy songs of hers I’m used to. Very heavy folk influence. It’s literally on my “faves” playlist now.

        And while I’m at it, if my kid is any indication: people who sit in the intersection of “Likes folk music” and “Likes Safe and Sound” should also go listen to the Ginny Di cover of Jenny of Oldstones (yes, the GoT song) immediately, as that’s another one we both heartily agree on. (Not remotely related to TS, just another pretty folk song)

      3. Oh also Look What You Made Me Do is pretty good if you like “edgier” stuff. It was the first song my kid sang/played for me where I was like “okay yeah this is pretty good.”

    2. I think she’s mostly fine. She’s got a few absolutely unlistenable songs (how the fuck does a song like bad blood even happen?) but she’s mostly inoffensive.

      I’m more baffled by the intensity of the fandom.

          1. Vanilla’s popular for a reason. It’s generally pleasant and inoffensive, and people like that mild comfort. Humans are broadly very insecure and irrational about their little pleasures, and they’ll take any mild criticism or dislike as a personal attack, because now they think you’re taking it away from them.

            1. I get why people like her. I don’t get why people like her to the point of doxxing critics and sending out death threats. Like idk ik my experience isn’t universal or anything but even in my most obsessive fandom stage in my teens (for me it was fall out boy, p!atd and twenty one pilots, so definitely stuff who’s young girl fans were also ridiculed) i never got pissed enough to dm someone that they’re gonna start coughing blood in three days

              1. Basically it’s just that a whole lot of people like her, so even if only a very tiny minority dox critics or send death threats, that’s still a lot of people.

          2. Not everyone feels the need for their entertainment to be ‘edgy’.

            They don’t feel the need to listen to rap artists trying to fit every swear word they can into a song, or some group who’s songs are more of a political speech than a musical performance.

            They want to appreciate the music based on the abilities of the performers and how catchy the tunes are.

            1. People who listen to music you don’t like (rap and political songs, per your examples) are also largely just listening to music based on the abilities of the performers and how catchy the songs are.

              That’s how humans work.

              1. Back when I worked at a fast food place, all the white boys in the kitchen would put on these incredible rap songs that were nothing but immensely vulgar stories about mundane things, like going to the gas station and beating the shit out of their girlfriend’s ex or whatever, and I don’t understand how someone could hear these tracks and dislike them. They’re inarticulate, the beats are repetitive and objectively shitty, and none of these guys have a good voice for these wild-ass stories they almost definitely made up, and it all somehow comes together to create this hilarious form of self-obsessed storytelling.

            2. I’m not trying to dismiss the appeal of catchy well performed music in the way that you’re trying to dismiss the idea that music with political messaging or that has vulgar rapped lyrics might be good or catchy.

              I don’t think she’s like a bad artist, I’m not baffled that she’s popular, the thing that baffles me is specifically the intensity of the fandom

      1. I honestly can’t tell if I actually dislike Bad Blood or if I’m just slowly losing my mind due to how frequently I hear it (it’s one of my kid’s faves and she LOVES to sing and has a gorgeous voice so I don’t want to discourage her but omg….)

        Cruel Summer though. That song. I am so close to putting a strict limit on it in our house because it has been stuck in my head for WEEKS.

    3. Shake it off is a bop. I can’t actually remember any other songs except maybe the “she wears t-shirts I wear jorts” one, but I do like hearing the neighbour’s kids have their swifty karaoke nights. I like how aggravating it is to my sister.

    4. At the risk of getting doxxed or hexed to cough up blood in 19 hours by a swiftie, i think shes just okay. Mediocre white woman. I mostly just can’t stand her hostile ass fanbase. They’re almost as bad as the Barbz, who are hostile as shit and homophobic and misogynistic.

      1. Thanks for getting me to listen to Amanda Palmer again. It always leave me with a sad tired smile, which is better than my regular depressed exhausted slack face.

  3. At one time I used to play (with) a ukelele, and those are in fact the correct chord illustrations for the standard G-C-E-A. ‘my dog has fleas’ tuning.

  4. Lucy’s the life of the party!

    But like, late 30s life. Being responsible, making sure things are going okay. Not Teenage rowdiness.

    1. getting into my mid 30s and, yeah, nothing is more invaluable to a party at this point than all of that stuff. it’s wild to think how your priorities shift so much.

  5. I have this trick, one I’ve cultivated from spite in high school to sincerity in adulthood.
    When I was younger, if I felt someone was intentionally attempting to make me uncomfortable, I leaned into it. Somehow, when it came to spite, I gained this supreme level of confidence.
    As I got older… I started to use it for other things, wearing it like a cloak. It didn’t always work, and it’s somehow… exhausting to do, but it’s helped me do things shy 10 year old me, or spiteful 15 year old me, or even reclusive 20 year old me would ever have done.

    Lucy here, she’s right.
    Kill the part of you that cringes.
    Just… enjoy stuff. It’s a hard lesson to learn, because of how simple it is.

  6. Blech, thanks for ever-so-sort-of calling attention to how CRINGE-INDUCING it is to say “cringe” as an adjective. All this lazy language mangling is gonna end up sounding as dated as “23-skiddoo,” but I’m sure the perpetrators won’t notice, as they’ll be off copying whatever other allegedly-hip ephemeral horseshit the other internet-drones are inflicting by then.

    1. blahblahblah – Language moves on, it grows and changes. It marks us as a product of our times. And you being completely boring about it does nothing but make you sound like a killjoy.

      ~and tbh it’s kinda cringe~

    2. Quite. There was only one era that had proper teen slang, and everything before and since has been totally bogus, dude.

      1. But the tune I’m imagining is probably way off. Slow and bittersweet, the sort of thing the piano man sings late in the evening when the crowd is ready to slow down.

  7. Cringe is a chain that bourgeoise put on proletariat.
    It’s funny how the term cringe was coined in the era of promoting downright aggressive individualism and egoism.

  8. It was just the first chords and Sal is already calm and enjoying singing with Danny, this ship is also great.

    And Lucy, well I admit, you anticipated this very well.

      1. 50/50
        Because she managed to calm the tension and yet I can’t stop thinking that she wants to be in control of all this and says “it’s my party.”

          1. Generally when someone call something manipulative, it’s with a negative connotation, I think a different word would be needed is you want to say it as a positive, thought I am not sure which one.

            1. Persuasive? Diplomatic? Strategic? I think those are the easiest ‘nice words that mean something similar to manipulation’. You are absolutely true though, that manipulation is a negative word with a negative connotation. If someone tells somebody else “Wow, you’re so manipulative”, it’s not gonna make anyone feel good.

        1. Manipulate, like that other word refering to fingers -> fingering, can be used in other contexts, but you’d better be ready for a deep discussion on semantics, etymology, and the importance of knowing your audience.

    1. People seem to forget, Lucy was (is?) the regular-event organizer over on her floor – so it stands to reason she is both adept at the people-pleasing and also managing those frequent casual social gatherings. Would certainly give Dotty a run for her money in that dept if she also lived over there with the regular cast.

      1. No run for her money: Dorothy at perhaps her least pleasing when she’s people-pleasing, whereas Lucy does this naturally.

  9. Ok Lucy, you’ve done it. You’re my favorite now.

    Asher now on phone: Yes, Grandpa, I’m sure. Call off the green light. We’re cool now.

    1. The fuck do you mean, “call off the green light”? He’s gonna cause a traffic jam. Somebody’s gonna get in a wreck. You can’t just take the green light away, don’t be so fucking irresponsible.

      1. Calling off a green light is fine. The traffic signal is clearly not working, there’s procedures in place for that. Now, removing the *red* light is a problem.

  10. Danny, if you’re getting serious about the uke, get a decent instrument. That blue hunka plywood youre lugging around reminds me of a Mattel toy guitar with a music box crank sticking out of the side, that I had as a kid a zillion years ago.

      1. I blame Danny’s parents. They should have bought Danny a better instrument and a $300,000 stake in a record company.

    1. Depending on how long this comic goes, it will become a 3d printed instrument like they are giving to kids nowadays

  11. “Lover when I sing my song,
    All the Sarahs gonna sing along
    And they’re gonna tear their walls all down
    And lay their words upon the ground”

  12. Jacob seems impressed. I wonder how many times Lucy has listened to Danny and Sal playing their concerts in the park. Asking Danny to play was a great idea, he’s the only one who can calm Sal down, how sweet!

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