Cringe is a Constraint

On questioning what such labels really mean.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely my own. They do not represent, reflect, or imply the views, positions, or policies of my employer, past or present.

My central claim is that assigning things the label “cringe” often just adds more constraints to achieving a goal.

I was, until recently, guilty of this myself, but once I realized this, it seemed obvious (in hindsight) that this was not a “useful” belief to hold and it would be much more prudent to drop such labels altogether.

“Useful” here is anything that helps you achieve your goals. If a belief / mindset helps you achieve your goal, then it’s useful and you should keep it, and if it doesn’t, then you shouldn’t. As simple as that.

Story time: I was talking to my friends last night who asked me “Devansh, do you believe in free will? Do you believe we really have the freedom to make our own choices? Or is it all destiny?” I immediately replied “I choose to believe in free will and that we write our own destiny, not because I necessarily know for sure that’s true but because it’s the more useful approach. Imagine 2 worlds - one with free will (“world FW”), one with destiny (“world D”). If believing in free will makes you work harder and leaves you better off in world FW while not leaving you worse off in world D, then it’s strictly better to believe in free will, as long as there’s a non-zero chance that FW exists.”¹

Now, why do i think labels like “cringe” (and “lame”) are not useful?

Let’s consider the example of software engineering.

Imagine you are a software engineer. You’re trying to build a web application that solves some real-world problem (pick your favourite).

You start working on the project and use Cursor and Claude Code and all the fancy latest AI technology to help you speed up your project.

You find it to be very useful and it improves your productivity by 3x. You, being a responsible and competent software engineer, still take time to review the code because you know that AI can make mistakes.

About half-way through the project, I come up to you and say:

What?? You’re using AI to do your work? Aren’t you supposed to be a software engineer? How is vibe-coding “real work”? Anyone can do that! Cringe.

What do you do?²

If you feel like using AI to help you with your work is like “cheating”, then it means that you care more about doing the work yourself than the end result of getting the work done.

You’re giving yourself bonus points for working hard, but, um, why? Why are you making things harder then they should be? There is nothing virtuous about it. There’s nothing noble about working hard purely to show that you’re working hard.

In this case, you should ask yourself: what is my goal here, really? What am I trying to achieve? Does it matter more how I achieve it or that I achieve it?

If you are emotionally attached to the code you write, you love your code, you feel better when you write your own code because you’re putting in more effort and working harder, then you’re more focused on the process of programming than the end result, the product itself.³

(Simple test: If I gave you a magic wand that could build the entire project exactly how you would in 1/10th of the time, would you use it?)

If you think that software engineering is about programming by yourself, then you might even look down on others who use AI to code. In the heat of the moment, you might pledge to never use AI because vibe-coding is for losers and you’re better than that.

But at the end of the day, you have to ask: what’s the point of it all?

In most cases, the final outcome matters more than how you got there.

And by not using the tools available out of pure spite or a superiority complex, you might just be making it harder for yourself.

Maybe a politer way to put this would be: it’s easy to judge people and call them “cringe” for doing things in ways that you wouldn’t do, it’s much harder to have empathy and put aside your own preferences and seewhythey’re doing it a certain way, maybe even learn from that.

The right way, in my humble opinion, to think about this would be: always pick the best tool for the problem at hand. For example, if you think vibe-coding is more effective for a certain project (or even a certain part of the project), do it. If you think it’s going to take you more time debugging the code that AI writes, then don’t use it. In any case, your decision to use a tool or not should be based on whether it helps you do the work better / faster or not, NOT by your feelings towards the tool or what you think it would reflect on you if you used it.⁴

As an extreme example, think of how stupid it would be if someone called you out and said you were being lazy - and cringe, of course - for using google instead of going through physical books.

Another example would be if this were a 24-hour hackathon and you decided you were not going to use any AI tools because they are for losers. Yeah, sure, good for you, but do you think this is the most effective way to do things if your goal is to win a hackathon?

More importantly, if another team wins the hackathon and you found that they used AI (or even vibe-coded their entire project), are you going to call them out for that? If so, then you weren’t trying to win in the first place! You cared more about not doing things you found cringe than winning.

This same idea can be found in almost every domain.

Let me give a personal example.

Since my first year of university, I used to find the word “networking” ultra-cringe. I always thought of it as shallow and transactional, and a sign of duplicitous behaviour. I had the picture of a typical founder-bro in my head, who would go to networking events and try to make connections for his own benefit.

But ~3 months ago, I was attending a talk and heard the speaker say “personal relationships are key”. Somehow, I found myself much more receptive to this framing.

Instead of immediately dismissing the idea, I thought about it and realised that:

obviously, knowing the right people can help a lot - so personal relationships and connections can definitely help. i.e., it is clearly useful.

networking isn’t inherently duplicitous - the intent is pretty clear to both parties and it can be mutually beneficial if you find a win-win arrangement

I realized that my real issue was never with networking, but with people who had hidden agendas and ulterior motives on their mind while forming connections - and the two were not synonymous.

It was a big pretty moment for me as I overthrew / revised this belief…

To be clear, I don’t mean to say that you should do literally whatever it takes to win. There is such a thing as right and wrong. And winning the right way is as important as winning itself.

But very often, “cringe” just means that you find it uncomfortable, not that it’s useless. Recognize this. And think from first-principles instead. Why do you find it cringe? Do you think it’s going to help you achieve your goals? If so, does it even matter if it is cringe or not? Or, are you just afraid to step outside your comfort zone and using this label as an excuse?