I think I’ve asked this before a long time ago.
One of my paranoid tinfoil hat theories is that I think cringe culture was pushed by algorithms and has now has become a convenient tool for the right to groom people into policing ‘otherness’ more harshly. I think it’s because it has that particular right-wing playbook stank to it and because I can smell that style of using shame to manipulate that right-wingers love from a mile away. Hell, this site came from a part of the left that was originally a reaction to that, using bullying but instead using it to punch back at the punchers, so to speak (although we’ve changed a little and good, it’s not needed anymore because everyone bullies chuds now).
Cringe culture was big around 2016ish, while it mostly targeted blue hair liberals it often extended to making fun of whatever marginalized group you can think of.
It was always there, of course, but not enough to actually be taken seriously unless you had high-school bully brain. Anyone that wasn’t a chud or too tech illiterate to curate their algorithm tended to lose interest. Fast forward to the 20s’ and now instead of targeting specific marginalized groups or political stuff, there is a more widespread sort of bullying towards any sort of ‘otherness’. Strong emotions, being passionate, being too quirky, looking out of place, being too young, being too old. Being too much of well, anything. Let’s just say it’s not a fun time to be neurodiverengent in particular.
So we know from those files that Gamergate (and I think some Chan spaces?) were involved with promoting right-wing idiology. Well, sure is interesting that after people started posting about the Israel genocide on tiktok, the US freaked out and took control. And now we see a massive resurgence of cringe culture, again. Alongside with other right-wing garbage (think manosphere and so on)
Of course, it’s always been there and is likely just a totally organic consequence of people growing up with social media and the digital panopticon. But notice how everything that is cringe fits neatly into what the right think the left is? I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn in a decade or so that all of this was at least taken advantage of by the right as a form of social policing, a way to undo all that pesky self acceptance and understanding the lgbtq community and other marginalised groups worked so hard to normalise. It’s a way to punish outgroups while getting under the libs “safe to make fun of” radar (and many leftists too, you are not immune!) Seems like a good way for the right to bring back that repressive order they love so much and make everyone afraid to step out of their assigned role again.
it’s not a well articulated conspiracy (it’s barely a conspiracy), but basically there’s this whole network of nano influencers (100-10k followers, mostly meme page admins) 4chan chuds that are basically the source of all evil on the internet. all the harassment, doxxing, death threats and astroturfing that happens is because these people periodically send links alongside what to say to their followers, to either boost a fake controversy or dogpile on a person/group because “it’s fun”, and there’s always one or two people with access to botnets that will generate fake traffic so that something doesn’t have 10k views and 2k comments. the reason you see some internet personalities freak out or quit suddenly is because they are used to getting 100 private messages, and then suddenly they get 5 thousand messages telling them to kill themselves.
these things exist (i’ve seen multiple of these on telegram), the conspiracy part hinges on the scale and whether or not there are back channels coordinating these (centrally or decentrally it doesn’t matter). personally i think these are being decentrally coordinated through places like 8kun or whatever public but small and hard to access platform these people congregate in.