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/r/CringePics/
a community for 5 months with 114,798 subscribers!
It was five months ago when the moderators of /r/cringe made the controversial decision to remove all image posts in /r/cringe, and in a myriad of angry meta posts and /r/SubredditDrama submissions, /r/CringePics was born. And in those five months, /r/CringePics has quickly grown to be one of the largest and most entertaining subreddits of all time. /r/Cringepics is also one of my personal favorites. I probably have more posts saved from this sub than any other. Some of the ones that I love the most are this one, this one, and this one. I actually spent about five minutes trying to limit myself to just three posts from this wonderful place, because I have so freaking many.
Although the definition of cringe means a whole lot to a lot of different people, I think what makes /r/CringePics such a great subreddit, is our ability to empathize with some of the individuals in the submissions. Maybe not to such an extreme as the posts, but we've all been in a similar scenario as some of the images in /r/CringePics. We've Myspace/Facebook/AIM messaged someone we crushed on a little too aggressively and totally made a fool of ourselves. We've been through dramatic fashion and lifestyle changes that we look back upon and cringe with embarrassment (I used to be a little too emo for my taste). There is a photo of you somewhere that is so cheesy you would die if it were to be seen by a group of your peers. This sub works because we can relate in some way.
While it is fun to revel in the awkward, the socially inept, and the straight up bizarre individuals in these submissions it is necessary that we try to be as civil as possible. It can be very easy for a person to get their feelings hurt in this subreddit. That is why it is imperative that you read every single rule in the sidebar before submitting. I can't stress this enough. Please read the rules, and feel free to PM the moderators if you have any questions.
Give it up for /u/drumcowski and the rest of the superb moderators of /r/CringePics! :D
1. What inspired you to create /r/cringepics?
drumcowski: When /r/cringe was started, all types of content were allowed (though the emphasis was always on videos). I didn't think there would ever be an issue with this since I always believed the most cringe-worthy content would come from videos. A few months into /r/cringe's existence - images started to become more prevelant. I didn't find any of them cringe-worthy, but since they received a large amount of upvotes I left them up. Once people realized images get more upvotes than videos, people started submitting more and more images - which didn't sit well with me because I didn't feel like any of those images were as good as our videos, yet they were overshadowing them and getting ten-times the upvotes.
I asked the community if they would welcome banning images - which was met by a pretty harsh "No." and "Fuck you Hitler mod". From that response, I shelved the idea hoping the problem wouldn't grow any larger. A week or so later, I realized that I would rather put up with the drama than have /r/cringe get dragged down by image posts - so without consulting anybody I made an announcement that all images would now need to be posted in /r/cringepics. This decision was met by even more criticism than when I proposed the idea before - and I spent the entire day doing damage control by myself. For a few days, any post that was submitted to /r/cringepics would get downvoted off the front page, leaving the subreddit visibly empty to any new visitors. People were saying that /r/cringepics had no chance of taking off - and they tried to make sure that became a reality, which didn't bother me since I never cared if it was successful or not as long as images would no longer fill up /r/cringe.
Eventually the dust settled (though there were multiple posts a day on /r/cringe demanding the ban on images be lifted) - and after a week or so /r/cringepics started to build up a few pages of content. Today - /r/cringepics has grown from 0 subscribers to almost 80,000 subscribers within 3 months and it has consistently been one of the fastest growing non-default subreddits. I'm pretty surprised by how rapid it's growth has been, especially considering how it all began, and it's no surprise that a subreddit born into drama would be one of the most linked-to subreddits in /r/subredditdrama.
2. What is /r/cringepics? What should people expect to find in your subreddit?
drumcowski: /r/cringepics is a subreddit dedicated to cringe-inducing images, though people should expect to find very little cringe-worthy content but lots of "look at this weird person I know" - which is one of the things we've recently begun trying to change.
stopscopiesme: In theory, it's images that make you cringe and shudder usually due to some sort of social faux-pass. In practice, it has a bit of overlap with "things that make you rage" or "people you'd like to make fun of."
IAmAN00bie: Cringepics is exactly what it sounds like. Users submit pictures depicting situations that are "cringe-worthy". Cringe is the feeling of embarrassment you get from seeing/watching another person's embarrassing moments. /r/cringe is for videos of cringe-worthy moments whereas /r/cringepics is for the pictures. Both subs serve the same purpose, to make you cringe, but through different mediums. When you browse /r/cringepics, you should expect to see the most embarrassing pictures from the Internet.
iaacp: /r/cringepics was made in the wake of a large amount of low quality imgur posts being the majority of what made up the frontpage of /r/cringe. In /r/cringepics, you should expect to find pictures of people that make you uncomfortable - usually because said pics are awkward and give you a feeling of discomfort.
3. What's your favorite submission on /r/cringepics?
drumcowski: This one.
stopscopiesme: I'm a real sucker for over-enthusiastic MLP fans. This submission is a primo cringe goldmine. I read all of it... even the extra content the OP linked where the guy writes a novel about his passionate love for Twilight Sparkle. I think it's tied with this submission though. That was in the very first week the sub was opened, when people were saying it would never take off. That submission was the first one to get the seal.
IAmAN00bie: I have two pics that I want to show that perfectly represent what /r/cringepics should be. The first one shows a moment that makes you feel physically uncomfortable. She just looks so awkward sitting there while being kissed, like she doesn't want anybody to know or she wants him to stop because they're being watched. You can imagine being in her situation and what's going on through her head, and feel the embarrassment through her eyes. The second example also demonstrates how "cringe" should be empathetic. It's pretty sad, yeah, but anybody in that situation who found out that they fucked up like that would be thinking "oh god what did I do...." I feel embarrassed for him, even though this has nothing to do with me personally.
kreius: http://www.reddit.com/r/cringepics/comments/16wmrx/friend_calls_a_guy_out_for_faking_relationship/
iaacp: I have a terrible memory that couldn't possibly remember my favorite, or even my top 10 favorites. This one never fails to make me start cracking up, although it's more funny and weird than awkward and uncomfortable. This one is a classic.
lilstumpz: This is just... depressing.
4. Is it hard to run a subreddit that is based off of a reaction/feeling? It would seem like all the time you would get "this isn't cringe-y enough!
drumcowski: At first it seems a bit overwhelming to have to make decisions on subjective content, when I might not find something cringe-worthy but there could be a dozen others who do. Eventually you have to take a step back and focus on moderating based on other more-important factors. If a post receives multiple reports, then we'll take a look at it and decide if it definitely doesn't belong on the subreddit - we rely heavily on user reports to catch things we may have missed.
ManWithoutModem: Not really, it is easy to skip over those comments.
IAmAN00bie: Sort of. Cringe is a difficult concept that's missed by a lot of submissions, so most of the time it's not that hard to filter through them. If a submission definitely isn't cringe-worthy (is it funny? not cringe-worthy. is it rage-inducing? not cringe-worthy.) then we remove those. If I'm not at least 90% sure that the submission belongs here, then I let it sit and see what the comments say. I recognize that there's a difference between comments and upvoters, so even if a submission front-pages the commenters might tear the submission apart. I rely on the reaction of the commenters to gauge if a submission should stay (and only if it's clearly one-sided, if there's any split in their opinions then it usually stays).
stopscopiesme: It's actually not too common for the top comment on a submission to be "this isn't cringe-worthy." It certainly is subjective though, and I find myself hovering over the "remove" button a lot of times wondering if it's okay to let it stay or not. Moderators have a limit on how they can control the content, and the overall weight of the subscribers finds many things cringe-worthy (like 4 panels) that I do not.
kreius: That's a huge part of it, but sometimes the comments themselves can be cringe worthy. So meta.
5. Best part about being a moderator of this subreddit?
drumcowski: Being able to make decisions that may appear to be detrimental to the subreddit, but in reality are in the best interest of the subreddit in the long term. Recently we banned images of kids, not because the content wasn't cringe-worthy, but because we believed that sort of content could potentially do more harm to the person than it would benefit our subreddit.
kreius: Helping the community, and being around to kill posts that could be considered bullying.
iaacp: Banning jerks, and interacting with subscribers that try to help us clean out the filth. I love the helpful people that report and message the mods.
Addyct: replying 'k' to every modmail. It's basically my only job.
lilstumpz: Chatting with the other moderators. They're really swell guys despite the fact that we're anonymous from one another.
stopscopiesme: It's nice being able to have a hand in shaping and directing one of my favorite subreddits.
IAmAN00bie: I get to filter through the best and the worse posts. I get to stop bullying in its tracks. Cringe, like I've said before, is empathetic. We're not here to laugh at someone's appearance. Bullying is our biggest concern and our biggest criticism, so doing whatever I can to minimize it is something I love.
ManWithoutModem: Getting people that post dox shadowbanned from reddit.
6. Any rules that you would like new subscribers to be aware of?
drumkowski: All of them - read the sidebar in it's entirety, there's no excuse for breaking the rules when they're listed on every page.
7. Anything else you'd like to say? To your subscribers or people interested in joining your subreddit? The floor is yours.
drumcowski: A lot of people don't like this subreddit, even I'm not too fond of it - but a LOT of effort goes into moderating this place. We can't catch everything, so please - if you see a comment or submission that breaks a rule, report it or send us a modmail with a link to it. This place still needs a lot more work, and we can accomplish far more with everyone's help.
kreius: Stop posting shit with kids in it, we were all 10 once, this isn't cringe worthy, it's probably going to get removed.
lilstumpz: To everyone that has abided by the rules... thanks for making this subreddit an awesome place. There's been moments when I've cringed so hard that my balls curdle up like a cowering turtle.
stopscopiesme: Cringing should have an element of compassion. It can be a lot of fun to be catty about the people you see on here, but it's an awful thing when r/CringePics digs up someone's personal profiles and they get an onslaught of bullying and harassment and have to delete their accounts. People seem to think they're part of "LE CRINGE ARMY," delivering sweet vigilante internet justice to people naive enough to embarrass themselves on the internet. It's not all of you, but it's enough that r/CringePics can and does have a serious negative impact. So don't be an asshole. And if you see someone else being an asshole (especially if you see someone linking a personal profile or trying to use r/CringePics as their personal army) report and/or modmail.
IAmAN00bie: Please remember what the definition of cringe is. You'll probably see a lot of submissions that remind you of embarrassing moments you had in your life. Don't hate yourself or the person for doing what you did, but use that pic to remember those embarrassing moments fondly and have a hearty, awkward laugh at your own expense (just not at someone else).
ManWithoutModem: Also, drumcowski (my alt) went into detail on how I feel in just a more verbose style. So go read that a second time or something.
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