★ #26 • cringe is the new black
how 10 pop stars built their empires from embarrassment
Cringe Is The New Black
HOW 10 POP STARS BUILT THEIR EMPIRES FROM EMBARRASSMENT AND PROVE WHY CRINGE IS THE DEFINING AESTHETIC OF THE DECADE
As someone who came of age in the throes of the “Indie Sleaze” movement of the early 2010s, I remember my friends and I emulating the fashion sensibilities of the pop stars of that moment. It was not uncommon to wear cheap, fast fashion pleather looks to channel our own low-budget version of Lady Gaga’s arena rock meets alien goth Born This Way aesthetic. We were once escorted out of a frat party for donning black lipstick in an ode to Lorde’s Pure Heroine styling. In the decade since those two albums were released, I’ve been on a journey to find a more authentic sense of personal style, including in my work as a creative director and designer.
After a tumultuous start to the 2020s, today’s universe of pop stars have opted for a visual direction that feels more open, playful and carefree than the artificial and self serious tendencies of the previous decade’s biggest names. In a digital era obsessed with pixel perfect personas, 'cringe' emerges not as something to be embarrassed by but as a badge of authenticity and freedom, challenging us to embrace our unfiltered selves and reject the pressures to conform. To quote the popular meme depicting a seaside cow staring into the horizon: “I am cringe but I am free.” The following ten pop stars have successfully dabbled in the art of seeming cringe and found freedom and relatability in their pursuit of their most honest music, visuals and lives.
10. PinkPantheress
The aesthetic of PinkPantheress was best described by @sicksadchris in their post on X, saying “i know she could manage the fuck out of a kohls.” Unlike the Paris Hilton for Juicy Couture look most associated with the early 2000s, PinkPantheress has done her homework, delving deeper into her British roots by composing tracks in the style of the early aughts’ UK Garage music. Her visuals are slick and contemporary with hints of dated nostalgia, all working together to create a charmingly memorable image for the rising star. Though accusations of working at Kohl’s would have landed anyone on a Worst Dressed List in the 2010s, it now lands PinkPantheress on many mood boards and gives her image a distinct feel among the countless other TikTok era artists attempting to capitalize on the global y2k revival.
9. Addison Rae
Both hailing from Louisiana, Addison Rae and Britney Spears share the same sweet, poppy southern disposition. Unlike Britney, however, Addison Rae emerged in the zeitgeist through “cringey” viral dances on TikTok and became one of the platform’s first mainstream stars. Internet stars of a certain status, like Dixie D’Amelio and Tana Mongeau, often go through the motions of releasing a half baked debut single. Addison Rae’s catchy first single “Obsessed” was a victim of that trope and met a wave of criticism upon its release. As time passed and her affinity for avant-garde pop legends like SOPHIE and Arca surfaced, Addison buoyed enough support from chronically online gay music fans to revive her scrapped debut album and release it on streaming. Like Troye Sivan who came before her, she’s now in the rare position to pivot from social media star to proper pop star.
8. Doja Cat
Some might call Doja Cat the Marina Abramovic of cringe. She has been letting her freak flag fly since her first viral single "Mooo!" rocketed across the Internet five years ago. Since then she’s built a colossal brand by masterfully leaning into and calling out internet absurdities. Even in her most recent phase, which has found her repositioning herself in a more serious light, the affinity for cringe can be seen in the warped WordArt design treatment of the Scarlet Tour’s merchandise. From a personal style standpoint, Doja Cat has pivoted from the more expected pink long wigs to a bleached out buzz cut, revealing that her short hair gives her one less thing to worry about. At each turn in her career, Doja Cat has defied the expectations placed on ascendant stars and confidently vaulted herself to the top of pop culture.
7. Beyonce
Beyoncé’s name is synonymous with perfection. She’s certainly not an artist anyone would normally associate with cringe. Her recent Renaissance World Tour cemented her status as one of history’s greatest artists while spotlighting the contributions of lesser known Black artists from the past to the ones shaping the future. However, her recent Super Bowl ad for Verizon revealed a refreshingly rare glimpse at her playful side. The image of her as a Twitch streamer with cat ear headphones is jarring, which of course means it is memorable. This playful departure from her perfectly guarded mystique was an effective tool for announcing her upcoming foray into country music with ACT II of her Renaissance project. Beyoncé’s abilities to be both savvy and silly create the perfect alchemy behind her career’s longevity and enduring appeal.
6. Tate McRae
When Tate McRae’s single “greedy” took off last year, there were a lot of questions blanketing social media to the effect of “wait… who is tate mcrae?” Now it’s impossible to be in public and not hear her song blasting from a passing car or through the intercoms of a store. So what about her perplexed people? Maybe the cringiest thing about Tate McRae is that she’s normal. Her name sounds like someone from Anywhere, USA (or her hometown of Calgary, Alberta). Her songs? Neurochemically catchy. As a trained dancer, her approach to videos and live performances fits the mold of pop stars like Britney Spears in “...Baby One More Time” or Christina Aguielera in “Dirrty” more than her immediate predecessors Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Dua Lipa.
5. Bad Bunny
Bad Bunny’s career has been full of iconically cringe moments like when he appeared in full drag in the music video for “Yo Perreo Sola.” While drag is, of course, not cringe, it might be to some circles in his world of hip-hop. His status as a queer icon in reggaeton and hip-hop continued to grow when he was spotted on several occasions wearing merchandise from Lady Gaga’s Chromatica album, including wearing the widely-memed “Rain on Me” themed rain boots to a sports event. This free expression of his own sexual fluidity and fan behavior has allowed him to expand his audience and even earned him a surprise shoutout from Lady Gaga when he was the musical guest and host of Saturday Night Live. The way he has unapologetically championed the specialness of his identity helped him make history as the first Latino host of SNL since 1976 and Coachella’s first ever Latino headliner.
4. Taylor Swift
The concept of cringe was brought up in both Taylor Swift’s Time Magazine Person of the Year interview late last year and in her commencement speech she gave when receiving an honorary doctoral degree from New York University in 2022. She told her fellow graduates “cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime” and she has the receipts to prove it. Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour is in many ways a celebration of a lifetime of cringe, an exaltation of all the ways she’s made herself relatable to her staggering fanbase over her long career. When she announced her upcoming album “The Tortured Poets Department,” however, her hard earned public goodwill started crumbling as people perceived her as inauthentic. A freshly minted billionaire brooding in black and white portraiture was seen as more greedy than tortured and a reach for coolness by someone so comfortable in their cringe.
3. Charli XCX
For a decade now, Charli XCX has always been the arbiter of cool on the alt-pop scene. Her teases about her upcoming album emanated an annoying cynicism that gave a lot of her fans anxiety about whether or not she was crashing into a flop era. That is until she announced the title as “Brat” and shared its intentionally bad artwork, creatively mirroring her bad attitude online with poorly rendered type stretched across a rancid green backdrop. Her previous work was slick and always ahead of its time like the CGI portraits of the Charli era. Each of her previous five albums always featured her portrait. This stark departure from polished visuals into the grittier underground aesthetics of the raves that inspired the album proved Charli XCX’s ability to always subvert expectations and innovate. She told The Face magazine that she’s “over this idea of metaphor and beauty in art – I just want directness from me. I want things to feel quick and fast and dirty.” Great artists can bypass an elaborate approach to creative direction and demonstrate their star power with even the simplest of packaging.
2. Ice Spice
When Ice Spice’s latest single “Think U The Shirt (Fart)” hit streaming, it arrived like a breath of fresh air. Inspired by a meme where Nintendo’s Mario is seen smoking an oversized blunt and confidently delivered by a rapper who referred to herself as “Miss Poopie,” the song is one of many reasons why Ice Spice appears to have what it takes to engineer a fascinating and long career. “Fart” debuted in the midst of a catastrophic beef between Megan Thee Stallion and Nick Minaj. While two of her female rap peers fell into the cliché of asserting dominance over one another, Ice Spice rapped memey bars over a video game beat and left her fans laughing with her all the way. In her short career so far, she’s created a bold image by making most of her public appearances with her natural curly hair in its signature orange hue. Her lexicon is so distinctive that her first hit changed the way we think of the word “munch” forever and gave name to her Munchkins fandom. This savant level approach to brand building earned her collaborations with industry titans Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj and scored her brand deals like an iconic signature Dunkin Donuts drink and legendary Chia Pet.
1. Lana Del Rey
Now championed as one of America’s best songwriters and “the artist’s artist,” it’s easy to forget that Lana Del Rey’s almost ended as soon as it began with her ill-fated Saturday Night Live performance. In 2012, she was viewed as a pretty faced industry plant designed in a conference room by executives to sell albums at Urban Outfitters. Through sheer tenacity, she continued pumping out album after album, year after year, and convinced the world that her initial fame was not a fluke but a product of her talent and consistent creative point of view. Last year when images of her at a Waffle House in Florence, Alabama went viral, a lot of people were perplexed. If you’ve studied her long enough, though, you’d know that she has always gravitated toward the quintessential American aesthetics from Budweiser shirts to Marilyn Monroe to controversial lyrics involving Pepsi-Cola. In her early embarrassing performance and her recent uncharacteristic appearance, Lana Del Rey reveals the undeniable humanity behind an aura of darkness and glamor. Her commitment to feeling connected to the real lives of Americans outside of the Hollywood bubble is why her art is so compelling and why we keep coming back for more.
While these 10 artists underscore the power of practicing radical self-acceptance, their stories prove that cringe can be a useful tool for more than just building the brands and lore of pop stars. It’s also been the jetfuel causing unlikely public figures like Gypsy Rose Blanchard to soar to Kardashian levels of engagement on Instagram. Buzzy beauty brands like Glossier have been overshadowed by the acne acceptance brand Starface. Fashion’s newest supermodel Alex Consani made a name for herself by publicly humiliating herself in videos on TikTok before walking runways for Versace in Milan. In the virtual town square, people most often lob “cringe” at one another as an insult, but perhaps the real question is who gets to decide who is and isn’t cringe? If we make others cringe, maybe it is a sign that we’re heading in a direction where we’ve learned how to be comfortable sharing our full and flawed selves. As the prophetic meme reminds us, “I am cringe but I am free.”