Nerd culture has seen a strong resurgence over the past decade—while it’s hard to pinpoint an exact starting point, the first Marvel movie to earn $1 billion at the box office, 2012’s The Avengers, seems as good as any. The sheer number of movies based on comic books that have been released in recent years suggests as much. Of the 10 highest grossing films of the 2010s, half were Marvel releases—not to mention shows like Stranger Things, set in the 1980s, which helped introduce aspects of retro nerd culture, like Dungeons & Dragons, to entirely new generations. 

Despite the mainstreaming of fan culture, there are elements that continue to be dismissed as “cringe” or “embarrassing.” Often (though not always), these elements are associated with fans who happen to be women or members of the LGBTQ+ community, like fan fiction or cosplay. 

Late last summer, following the release of the fourth season of Stranger Things, many young fans dressed up as one of the (ultimately doomed) new characters, Eddie Munson, attending conventions and fan events decked out like the eighties metalhead. The response to the inevitable videos that flooded TikTok from these conventions was swift and, it appeared to me, disproportionately hostile.

Countless people responded to videos of these fans with condemnation, calling them “cringe” and decrying their behavior as embarrassing. Those who spent their formative years in fandom spaces were confused—what was so unusual about the way these fans were engaging with Stranger Things that warranted such intense backlash? What made people view these fans as “cringe”? What is “cringe,” and why do we associate feelings of shame or embarrassment with people deriving enjoyment from something they love?

‍Fortunately, there has been a slow but sure backlash to the backlash, with more people challenging the idea that earnestly enjoying something is cringe, or whether “cringe” exists at all. One TikToker I discovered during this time was Berklie, who goes by icaruspendragon online. A fan in every sense of the word, Berklie is perhaps best known for her love of the dark fantasy drama series Supernatural and her friendly interactions on social media with one of its stars, Misha Collins, that culminated in a meetup. According to Berklie, cringe is dead, and we killed it—a catchphrase that conveys a staunch refusal to feel shame about having certain hobbies or interests that others consider uncool, nerdy, or embarrassing. I spoke to Berklie about online fandom and killing the notion of cringe once and for all. This interview has been edited for clarity.

C: What was your introduction to fandom? Was it Supernatural?

B: Yes and no. I discovered fan fiction before I discovered fandom proper, so it depends on how much you separate the two; I think they’re intrinsically tied, because I don’t really think you can have one without the other. I discovered fan fiction via The Hunger Games. I got into Supernatural later, around 2013, just by nature of being on Tumblr—it’s like I saw one too many gifsets of Misha Collins and here I am.‍

C: And you’ve been making TikToks about fan stuff for about a year now, right? I feel like it’s been a big year for you—meeting up with Misha Collins, for example.

‍B: Just over a year now. I don’t think Nostradamus himself could have predicted the twists and turns of the past year, but I wouldn’t change anything. 

‍C: That’s great. So what prompted me to reach out was a video you made about people trying to distance themselves from the more “cringe” elements of fandom, trying to adopt a “cool girl” approach to cultural consumption that involves distancing themselves from other fans they view as “cringe” or “lame.” As a fan of Stranger Things, that’s something I’ve noticed a lot in recent months, so I was keen to hear your thoughts on people dismissing other fans, or entire aspects of fan culture, as “cringe.”‍

B: I think that fandom has become more mainstream, especially within the past five years. Ten or 15 years ago you wouldn’t dream of talking about it as publicly as I do. So with fandom becoming more mainstream, more people who aren’t used to this particular kind of subculture are getting exposed to it. 

‍Fandom has always been a kind of beacon for people who are on the fringes of other groups and subcultures. So when a show like Stranger Things, which has a wide appeal, catches people on the fringes as well as people doing the othering of those on the fringes, you get this mish-mash of people being really into fan culture alongside people who simply don’t understand what fan culture or participatory culture is all about. People are just hardwired to be ashamed of certain things, and for whatever reason, fandom is one of those things that people feel like they have to be ashamed of.

C: Have you noticed many changes in how people participate in fandom since you’ve been doing so? Do you think TikTok in particular has had an impact on how people engage and participate?

B: I think so, yeah. Just by nature of it being more accessible—we have to keep in mind that as technology gets more accessible and fandom happens online, there is a surplus of people that are interacting in these spaces now, differently than they did 10, 15, or 20 years ago. 

I think a large part of this shift is because fandom is more accessible now. You get a lot more people who are casual fans (or at least not as intense as other fans) in these spaces, and you get different people from different backgrounds who bring new perspectives to fandom.  I think that’s been the biggest shift: it’s become a lot more accessible. Of course, it still has miles to go, just as everything has miles to go in terms of accessibility, but it’s different compared to what it was when I first encountered fandom (on FanFiction.net). It was not a kind space—you were in the trenches on that website. It was do or die, honestly. 

C: What would you say to people who still believe in guilty pleasures or feeling ashamed of liking what they like?

B: My big thing right now is two sides of the same coin where I say “cringe is dead and we killed it,” but I also say “embrace cringe,” and I think once you kill the thing inside of you that cringes, you are able to embrace the things that used to make you cringe.

‍I recognize that my interests aren’t necessarily everybody’s interests, and a lot of people think that the intensity of my enjoyment is very strange, but I think it’s important to recognize that if you’re not doing anything that hurts anyone or hurts yourself, who cares what people think? That’s so much easier said than done, though. There’s so much unlearning I had to do surrounding shame and self-hatred, but being in these fandom spaces and being loved for who I was and not who I was trying to be in real life really helped bridge that gap for me.

Obviously, I have no problem being “cringey” on main, because I’m the same person online that I am in real life, so it’s been really freeing for me, and I’m much happier now than I’ve ever been when it comes to how I feel about myself.