The reason why you should ’embrace cringe,’ according to Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift delivered a commencement speech at New York University’s 2022 graduation at Yankee Stadium. Despite not receiving a four-year college experience, she received an honorary “Doctor of Fine Arts” degree from the university.
“I’d like to thank NYU for making me, technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in case of an emergency. Unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section.”
Taylor Swift pointed out that hard things will continue happening.
During her speech, she talked about the ups and downs, giving new graduates life hacks on navigating post-graduate and early career life. However, hard things will lead to recovery. It will also lead to learning from said hard things. Aside from that, it will also lead to growing more resilient because of it.
The last time Taylor Swift stood in front of a stadium as huge as the Yankee Stadium, she danced in heels and wore a glittery leotard. She expressed how repeated humiliation at a young age forced her to devalue the ridiculous notion of an ever-fluctuating social relevance and likeability.
The eleven-time Grammy winner ended her advice for the graduating class to embrace cringe.
Cringe happens alongside the magnificence of failure. Since the advent of the internet, people have pushed aside fictionalized cringe comedy. Now, people prefer paying attention to real people either embarrassing themselves or experiencing something personally mortifying which has happened to all of us at some point in our lives.
Of course, Taylor Swift herself has experienced it before. And, here is what she says about it:
“Learn to live alongside cringe… No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively.”
If Taylor Swift says to embrace cringe, we should do so.
