Appreciation post: my old friend from high school made me watch my 2009 MySpace video out loud

Ran into Dave at the gas station in Portland last Tuesday, haven't seen him since 2011. He pulls out his phone and plays a clip I forgot I filmed with a flip phone, me lip syncing to some emo song in my dad's basement. I laughed but then he said 'you know, you actually look happier in that dumb video than you do at your job now.' That hit different, not gonna lie. He wasn't being mean, he was pointing out how much I fake cringe at stuff that was just me being real. Now I'm wondering, is the cringe actually the thing we're laughing at or is it that we can't stand who we used to be? Has anyone else had an old friend reframe their cringe instead of just roasting it?

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patricia_schmidt1410d ago

My cousin did something similar at Christmas, showed everyone my old Xanga posts and honestly it made me realize we spend so much time running from our past selves when those versions were just trying stuff out. Like the cringe is really just proof we cared enough to try, and somewhere along the line we traded that for playing it safe and calling it maturity.