When is Self-Promotion Cringe?

I was chatting with my friend recently and I mentioned wanting to blog more again. She immediately brought up "Substack Bros" and the discussion veered into the cringe that comes from blatant self-promotion that we see when people push their opinions on Substack, LinkedIn and elsewhere. I am definitely weary of being a "Substack Bro" (for the sake of precision I'd imagine we define this as yet another cis tech man on the internet with Opinions), but at the same time, I wanted to lean into this discomfort a little bit and share publicly how I wrestled with this problem in my head.

What does it mean for something to be 'cringe'? I've been thinking about this since I watched Contrapoint's fantastic video essay on Cringe. She defines cringe as "vicarious embarassment". Cringe is a way we use shame as a tactic to police people who have deviated from a social norm in some way.

Since watching the video, I've been endeavouring to be precise. When I think something is cringe, I sit with that feeling and I try to unpack it a little bit further. When I call someone a Substack Bro, what unspoken social norms are they violating? How should they alter their online presence to be less deserving of my ire? I don't know, but here are some unformed thoughts in my head.

Capital, Exaggerating Accomplishments and Assumed Authority

The blog used to be a humble medium where we thought out loud in tandem with our readers. I came of age (and maintained a silly little Wordpress blog) behind the Great Firewall of China, at a time when e-Commerce was on the horizon but not ubiquitous. At the time, people who maintained blogs were mostly sharing little travel stories or snippets of their life with small audiences.

Over time, as Amazon.com affiliate links, MOOCs and SHEIN drops took over the internet, everything has become SEO spam optimized for lead generation. Everyone's a thought leader in AI and Blockchain with a history of driving operational excellence at FAANG. XiaomaNYC BAFFLES Chinese Man by speaking in obscure dialect in Queens restaurant.

There's a very masculine energy about this online self-projection. Any vulnerability displayed in the one-sentence-per-line poem form we call the LinkedIn "Bropost"must be in service of a Life Lesson that comes from the purchase of a MOOC or billable consulting hours.

Before capital, the internet was a quieter, more queer place. We didn't really have the answers, but we didn't have to, because we weren't selling anything. When I started a blog in high school, I was lonely and trying to wrestle with growing up in an environment that was terrible for my mental health. I wasn't trying to sell anything. I just wanted company.

Platforms, Algorithms, and Consent

Back in the early days of the social web, there was a clear relationship between who you followed and what you saw. The feed was chronological and when you saw content, you had clearly clicked through some consent flow to push that content into your feed. Over time, the source of what we consume has become more algorithmic. TikTok/Instagram now mostly serve up content to you based solely on the predicted heuristic of "you might like this".

I'd imagine part of the "cringe" of LinkedIn broposting and modern-day Twitter/Bluesky must come from "The Algorithm". When we see a post boosted that contains SEO-generated spam by someone we don't know, or a poorly argued hot-take TikTok by a confused teenager, the only thing we consented to was wasting our time on the platform. We trusted that the algorithm would serve us "something we like" from anonymous content creators somewhere around the world and that implicit social contract has been violated because we Didn't Like It.

The ironic thing about being a Substack Bro is that it's so harmless. The Email Newsletter is about the most consensual platform that exists. An audience member who receives an email newsletter has filled out a form and clearly opted into receiving the #ThoughtLeadership of its author. At any point in time, the unsubscribe button exists, allowing you to opt out of future drivel. To that end, having a silly newsletter is a lovely little thing.

Identity and Cringe

I think one reason we're fascinated by cringe content, is that our brains want us to learn how to avoid being laughed at.

-Contrapoints

Another element of Contrapoints' definition of Cringe is a banger. Cringe is a way that we learn what is socially unacceptable. In other words, when we think something is cringe, our implicit thought is "wow, thank goodness that's not me in that situation".

If we accept Contrapoints' definition, and if we accept that aggressive forms of self-promotion are cringe, what are the social norms that are being violated? I wonder if for me, personally, there's something here to do with how self-promotion is not normalized in my background and culture. Now, I really don't like opining on cross-cultural psychology. I especially resent beginning a sentence with the phrase "As an Asian American man...", but maybe there's something to it. 9m88, a Taiwanese R&B star, wrote a song called "Airplane Mode", chronicling her struggles with self-promotion as a Taiwanese woman studying jazz vocals in New York. In Taiwanese culture, she asserts that "the highest quality comes from the most silent" [0]. For 9m88, self-promotion doesn't come naturally because she feels the acute contrast between the culture she was raised in, one that does not believe in self-promotion, with the culture she found herself in. I wonder if my cringe at self-promotion is, in some way, cultural, seeing other people do something that is not ingrained in the way I was raised.

A lot of ire is directed at cis white men for being Substack bros, but a lot is also directed at men of color. In my experience, Asian American men are particularly vicious toward one another. We use the phrase "boba liberal" quite often (worth another thesis on its own) to call out the cringe of poorly articulated self-promotion from the Simu Lius of the world. When I sit with that longer, I wonder where that cringe comes from. Maybe it's this feeling gnawing inside of us that there isn't enough room for the voices of people that look like me. That's a perspective rooted in a scarcity mindset. We feel this cringe whether it's Andrew Yang making a complete fool of himself on the public stage or if it's that acquaintance in our own social circle who claims, yet again, that the solution to all complex sociopolitical Asian American Issues is "more representation". In a world where there's limited oxygen for people that look like us, it would make sense that we feel anger and resentment at people for using up that limited space in a way that feels wasteful.

When I cringe at someone else for sharing their thoughts, however imperfect and poorly-articulated, with the world, is that because someone clipped my own wings? What does my reaction to others' usage of their own voices say about my relationship with my own voice?

So what then?

So having named some factors that contribute to the 'cringe' of self-promotion, what are we left with?

One solution is obviously to just stop sharing. A mentor of mine calls this his "Dark Forest Theory" of internet engagement, where he's learned that the only way to win is not to play. Definitely a valid strategy.

But on the other hand, self-promotion is good. Particularly if someone's voice is underrepresented, self-promotion offers the opportunity for networking. I've had so many conversations with people I've met at conferences where the starting point was a blogpost they wrote that resonated with me. The world is not going to tilt toward uplifting a more just representation of voices if marginalized people are invisibly policing each other into silence. There was a tweet[1] I read a long time ago that said something like "the only thing more arrogant than self-promotion is assuming that people will just find you". I kind of agree with that!

However, more importantly, there should also exist a clear relationship of consent between me and those I aim to reach. I'll share it with friends, and maybe if I feel like it, on social media platforms where there's some degree of relationship between me and my audience. I'll also keep an RSS feed for people to follow along. Conversely, I don't think I could ever make content for TikTok, Threads, or any other algorithm-driven platforms where there's not a direct relationship between me and someone who is consuming content I create. If someone doesn't want to hear from me, there should be an easy and clear way for them to make sure I never show up again.

When I think about the relationship between self-promotion, wrestling with ideas publicly and cringe, I think of this quote a high school honor band director shared with us:

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

-Martha Graham

Maybe if we gave each other space to share ideas, however imperfect, publicly with each other again, the internet can recover some of the joy it's lost over the years.

And if you don't like what I wrote, I promise I won't be offended if you close this browser tab or remove me from your RSS feed or block this domain.

Thoughts? Let me know! I'd love for this to be a dialogue. Write me via Email or Mastodon or however we keep in touch.

[0]: Original in Mandarin: 最高品質靜悄悄.

[1]: I'd cite my source but I can't find this Tweet for the life of me. If someone knows what it is, please feel free to email me!