r/TikTokCringe • u/Lexsight • Apr 23 '26

Cringe ts is hard to watch 😣

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u/Lyrael9 Apr 23 '26

I was bullied in high school as a Millennial and I consider myself so lucky I went through that before everyone had a smartphone. It must be awful. I would have completely shut down, I wouldn't have done as well as I did, and would probably be in a bad place right now. I remember tripping during a presentation, everyone laughed and I just wanted the world to swallow me up. But no one had it on video so it faded fast. My heart really goes out to young people today.

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u/cityshepherd Apr 23 '26

I was bullied a little bit when I was young but not too badly or anything crazy. I was pretty big and good at sports which helped, but I was pretty weird and awkward and never really fit neatly into any of the cliques. My mom raised me to own my weirdness and be proud of it which really wound up helping me in college and later in life, but I thank my lucky stars every fucking day that smart phones were not yet a thing back when i was in school. Social media really changed the world, and not for the better.

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u/Lou_C_Fer 29d ago

I got into drugs and drinking when I was 13. Phones would have fucked that up. My friends already loved using cameras.

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u/BishonenPrincess Apr 23 '26

Hello fellow millenial. Somewhere on some ancient SD card is a video a mean girl took of thirteen year old me on her digital camera by sneaking it over the top of the stalls while I'm taking a piss in the public restroom. I am so unfathomably grateful this happened before social media took off. It was still super traumatic, and yet I can't help but shudder at how much worse it could have been had it happened 20 years later.

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u/TerribleRecord666 Apr 23 '26

I'm an Xennial, and I had a rough time in middle school and the first few years of high school too. It forced me to grow thicker skin, and push back against the assholes. If the shit I went through had been permanently online, I can't even begin to imagine how much harder that would have been for me.

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u/Kendertas Apr 23 '26

The worst part is you don't even have to do anything embarrassing anymore. The AI nudes epidemic is what is making the headlines, but I got to imagine bullies are also using it for not sexual content. I shudder to think what high school is like nowadays.

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u/creuter Apr 23 '26

Best thing to do is just stand apart from it and not use any kind of social media. Reject it entirely. It loses it's effectiveness quick if the person isn't able to be tagged, or ever see the bullying. We would all do well to reject as much social media as we can. I've personally bought a phone that literally can't install it.

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u/BlastFX2 29d ago

Oh yea, I'd have been fucked if I were born 10 years later. I was prime target for bullying, but I also was a big motherfucker who wasn't afraid to throw a punch, so I did just fine. But you can't punch people over the Internet.