History Main / CulturalCringe

* ''Series/Sense8'': Mahendra hates Indian food, almost gets assassinated due to his efforts to ban Hindu ceremonial rites, and is never seen wearing traditional Indian garments. One of the Hindus who later has a hand in his assassination attempt earlier said he wants India to be like America.

* Dominican Boy of WWC is so named because he hate admitting to being Puerto Rican.

* "American Idiot", a song by American band ''Creator/GreenDay''. The title says all you need to know.

* In ''LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'',\

** In an interview with Creator/{{Stephen Colbert}} on ''Series/{{The Late Show With Stephen Colbert}}'', on the topic of American World power, Oliver said, "You get blamed for everything when you're number one" and most of the world's problems can be traced back to a British man drawing a line over a map

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMHdGBz2AqI This sketch]] from ''Series/TheKidsInTheHall''.
** Scott Thompson transfers this trope to Canada (where KITH is produced) saying that Canadians burn their flags all the time--to keep warm. He then proceeds to pull a tiny Canadian flag out of his pocket and blow his nose into it.
* In ''LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'', the English [[Creator/{{John Oliver}} Oliver]] says in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YkLPxQp_y0 this video]] that Prime Minister David Cameron, a posh Southern Tory, "embodies all the things I hate about England and I'm English."
** in an interview with [[Creator/{{Stephen Colbert}} the titular comedian]] on {{The Late Show With Stephen Colbert}}, On the topic of American World power, he said that "You get blamed for everything when you're number one" and most of the world's problems can be traced back to a British man drawing a line over a map

* Dominican Boy of WWC is so named because he hate admitting to being Puerto Rican.[[/folder]]

!!Cultural Cringe by country

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: The Cringe in Argentina]]
Even though most Argentinians suffer from bad cases of egocentric nationalism, there are others that live on the opposite extreme, always feeling inferior and trying to compare the country with some European powers like Germany. The quantity of this individuals varies depending on the generation but they usually appear in times of economic crisis. Another variant is the Argentinians that are a-bit-too-pride of their European heritage and will deprecate their country (this is specially common among those of German and French ethnicity). It should be noted that the ones most prone to this kind of behavior are more often than not members of the middle to upper classes.

[[folder: The Cringe in Australia]]
As mentioned above, "cultural cringe" was originally coined specifically in regards to nineteenth century Australian psychological servitude and cultural anxiety. Australia has a grand history of poetry, art, classical music, television, film and architecture, but most Australians would not know much about it, and even if they do, "Europeans and Americans do it just so much better". Unfortunately, this results in a Catch-22 with Australian media: no one watches or reads it because they think it's not going to be good, and no one wants to produce it because no one will watch it. The hardest hit by this would be Australian films, which are almost completely overlooked unless they become hits overseas.

Funnily enough, this didn't happen with Australian popular music. Bands like Music/{{ACDC}} grew in the "pub rock" scene of the 70s and early 80s, with many notable Australian artists being phenomenally popular within Australia but virtually unheard of elsewhere. This can also work to partly explain the Australian national fixation with sport, being an area in which Australians also typically excel on the international level.

Cultural cringe may be fading in Australia: younger generations don't appear to feel it as much, or at least not consciously. Many among them find the perceived lower quality of local artistic product to be mystifying, and are very supportive of it when it is genuinely appealing.

Many Australians want to distance themselves from the [[LandDownUnder unsophisticated overseas stereotype]]. There is also a general disgust at the country's politicians - their lies, hypocrisy and, some would say, outdated prejudice and xenophobia. At school, Australians spend more time on the history of other countries than on the history of their own.

Australia's history as a penal colony is regarded with a mixture of pride and awkwardness: the popular ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia_(1788%E2%80%931850) though inaccurate]]) idea that colonial Australia was built entirely out of Britain's uneducated, criminal lower classes is a significant part of the national inferiority complex. Treatment of the UsefulNotes/FirstAustralians since European colonisation has also been a source of shame that is difficult to put to rest.

[[folder: The Cringe in Brazil]]
In Brazil, the term for cultural cringe is "mongrel complex" (literally, "[[http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_de_vira-lata complexo de vira-lata]]"), which characterized the Brazilian attitude when they lost the [[UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup 1950's World Cup]], but soon it started to characterize the attitude of Brazilians concerning their own country, to the point of many of them don't believe that Brazil has any reason to have self-esteem (likely one of the reasons why the TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires trope exists).

There were attempts to avert this during the Military Dictatorship, between 1964-1985, such as with the famous motto "Brazil: love it or leave it". Ironically, many of the songs written critically by Brazilian artists during that time are seen with a lot of nostalgia nowadays by the previous generation, in contrast with the way younger people tend to despise Brazilian culture as dumb, cheap and unsophisticated, compared to foreign (especially American) mainstream culture. Even music, of which Brazilians are traditionally very proud of, has been drowned in the radios by American pop and rock music, and the most popular national music genre with the newer generation, called Sertanejo Universitário, is very commercial and in many aspects (notably, the often oversexualized lyrics) similar to American pop music.

[[folder: The Cringe in Britain]]
The British have a Cultural Cringe that's been running for centuries, particularly in regard with continental Europe. Many among the British have felt that Europe had a more sophisticated level of high culture. That's the reason 18th century English aristocrats went off on the Grand Tour (Lord Chesterfield's ''Literature/LettersToHisSon'' describe this pretty well) to France and Italy, with LaurenceSterne ironically commenting at the beginning of his ''A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy'' that "they order these things" better there. Ironically, many of the preferred British spellings of English words (such as the superfluous U in words like "flavour" and "colour") that [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage differ from the preferred American spellings]] do so because at the time Samuel Johnson first standardized British English spelling, it was very much in vogue to mimic the French language, even in words that do not derive from Old French or even Latin. Even Britain's ''language'' reflects their CulturalCringe.

In more modern times, a belief has arisen in some quarters that the United States "does" pop culture like television and movies better, with extravagant praise for series like ''Series/TheWire'' (which was, of course, highly praised in the States too). The perception is that American movies and TV will ''always'' have a bigger budget and glossier production values and BritishBrevity is a result of having too little money to make 'proper' TV shows (see [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgwKU54rO0U this]] bit from ''Series/{{Screenwipe}}'' where Creator/CharlieBrooker shows an American focus group some British TV and can barely contain his embarrassment). [[labelnote:''note'']]Funnily enough, Americans will occasionally use the same facts to make the exact '''opposite''' argument, that American shows hide behind their big-budget production values and British shows compensate for a lack of spectacle with better writing, and some view British Brevity as simply meaning less Filler, so this argument can just go in circles.[[/labelnote]] And the long-held belief that Brits have [[BritCom a more sophisticated sense of humour]] than Americans has been eroded by the importing of shows like ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' and ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm''. British actors, directors, musicians and comedians are only really thought to have "made it" if they are known in the USA too. This is one reason why people like Music/JohnLennon, Creator/StephenHawking, Creator/ChristopherNolan, Creator/KateWinslet, Creator/EddieIzzard, Creator/JohnCleese etc. are so beloved in the UK; ''Americans like them too!'' WebOriginal/DiamandaHagan [[labelnote:''note'']]who's actually from Northern Ireland, but as a result is technically British - long story[[/labelnote]] once described the majority of British television as "costume dramas, documentaries about how the United States did nothing to help win World War I, and stories about how great it was to rule most of the planet".

The modern issues with British self-image can be summed up as ''"[[GloryDays We used to be better at this]]."'' The United Kingdom used to be a global superpower and sparked the IndustrialRevolution during that time. As such, many modern British believe that the United Kingdom once produced the world's greatest art, music, and engineering projects, but no longer is the world leader in any of those fields. It was a British philosopher, Roger Scruton, who in 2004 first repurposed the term ''oikophobia'' (literally "fear of one's own household") as a synonym for CulturalCringe.

That the United Kingdom is still a leading European power in most of the big political clubs, producing notable advances in several academic spheres, acting as a global financial hub and having the world's 6th largest manufacturing industry comes off a let-down when compared to past glories. However, those past glories are themselves a source of Cultural Cringe as the British Empire was formed on conquest, colonialism, violence, and racism. As British comedian John Oliver (of ''Series/TheDailyShow'' fame) mentioned, it's unpleasant to feel guilty every time you walk into a museum.

Despite all this, the cringe is rarely so potent that a Brit will allow others to join in. Brits will still display their PatrioticFervor should someone insult the United Kingdom.

There's also the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_cringe Scottish cringe]], which is directed towards England. Even Britons can start to feel that BritainIsOnlyLondon sometimes. In fact, Welsh, English, Scottish and Northern Irish identities all have separate cringe-factors of their own -- Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish people can feel powerless and insignificant because of England's political dominance, while English people are often cast in the role of permanent "evil overlords." On the flip side, however, many people exhibit ''British'' cultural cringe while being rather proud of their own distinct country.

[[folder: The Cringe in Canada]]
Canada's Cultural Cringe is more typically known among Canadian commentators as simply an inferiority complex. Regardless, Canada's cultural position between the United States and the British Empire has long given it a cringe issue, leading to [[LightBulbJoke jokes]] like:
-->Q: How many Canadians does it take to change a light bulb?\\
A: All of them, because no one wants to go first.

The Canadian Cultural Cringe was observed by Canadian playwright Merrill Denison, in his 1949 address to the Empire Club of Canada, ''[[http://speeches.empireclub.org/62586/data That Inferiority Complex]]''. He noted that Canadians gave little attention to domestic media, instead putting American or other foreign works on display, and observed that Canadians believed they had no culture or national identity worth expressing. This also extended to inventions or contributions to industry: "In the United States, such contributions to material progress would have been proudly recognized as national achievements and made part of the lore of every school child--in Canada they remained unknown or ignored."

During the 1970s, Canadian legislation tried to force a break in the Cultural Cringe, requiring radio and television broadcasters to air a percentage of domestically produced content, or content that is culturally Canadian. For radio stations, this is known as the MAPL system. While it was intended to promote Canadian cultural awareness and self-image, a number of radio stations sectioned off the required airtime with disparaging labels like the "beaver hour" or "beaver bin." As Canadian music grew in commercial popularity, this practice faded, and to some degree the situation has reversed (because most major Canadian metropolitan areas are near the U.S. border, the end result of that Americans tuning in to Canadian stations end up listening to Canadian music).[[note]]The strongest regions are probably the Seattle/Vancouver, Detroit/Windsor, and Toronto/Buffalo areas, and the genres most affected are probably pop and alternative/indie rock; at this juncture, Canada would like to apologize for Music/{{Nickelback}}, but refuses to make any apologies for Music/BarenakedLadies, Music/AvrilLavigne, or Music/AlanisMorissette (except for that one album).[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in China]]
Historically, UsefulNotes/CulturalRevolution was an extreme manifestation of China's Cultural Cringe. The Revolution saw the country's teenagers being swept up into a grassroots anti-feudal and anti-imperialist movement that targeted the people closest to them - their managers, their teachers, their parents - for their supposedly archaic and anti-societal values. We don't have figures for the numbers of people interrogated, tortured, and beaten to death in the so-called '(Revolutionary) Struggle Sessions' by mobs of angry kids but we do know it was at least a few tens of thousands. Less important but also targeted were symbols of feudal and imperialist society - books, plays, music, art, religious and archaeological sites and artifacts. At one point, out of a potential/'feudal' repertoire of several thousand, precisely ''eight'' plays could be legally performed. In the time since, the Revolution has become a new source of the Cringe in China and it is one of the very few instances in which the Chinese Communist Party admits it made a mistake.

Many local and regional Chinese governments are renowned for a healthy undercurrent of corruption and nepotism which comes at the expense of the taxpayer (if not their physical safety, if not their very lives as in some of the food-safety scandals). The central government isn't too cuddly either with a constant low level of repression to go around which hasn't spilled over into anything big or public since Beijing's Tiananmen Square stuff in '89, but never truly goes away. Embarrassment toward the government in China has gotten so strong that when US Ambassador [[http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-15/world/china.ambassador.locke_1_bloggers-sina-weibo-china?_s=PM:WORLD Gary Locke]] arrived in China, he became an instant celebrity simply because he carried his own things rather than having an entourage of assistants do it for him. The Chinese are used to seeing their government officials, even minor ones, being rich and able to get away with whatever they want. This also goes for [[RoyalBrat their children]]. It's gotten so bad that when Zhang Xuping murdered a corrupt Communist Party official, he was widely [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/zhang-xuping-china-teen-s_n_430147.html hailed as a hero]].

China has a ''very'' big inferiority complex about native media works, especially the ones done entirely on Mainland. Firstly, the Chinese government has the power to [[BannedInChina censor]] any media considered inappropriate, which stifles creativity. Foreign films and shows often outperform their domestic competition and have created a thriving video-pirating industry. As the government will not allow itself to be portrayed negatively in any way, creators find more freedom in setting their stories in historical periods. However these stories, especially those set during the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar, are becoming viewed as cliched and propagandistic because the party's requirements are a bit inflexible (TheParagon / InspirationalMartyr and dedicated Communist Party Member fights the Japanese) and so few true stories meet them[[note]] if only because the Chinese Communist Party did its best to keep its (local and unofficial) truces with the Japanese and avoid antagonising them so it could focus on taking over the occupied areas from anti-Japanese partisan groups. They executed one confirmed (by non-Communist Party sources) military campaign and two battles against the Japanese, but by contrast the Guangxi Clique and Guomindang conducted more than a dozen involving some fifty-plus battles (depending on how big a firefight needs to be to be so branded) [[/note]].

But even without ideology-based censorship and ExecutiveMeddling, there is an increasingly strong awareness and resentment of Chinese works' appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator. Movies that run on gaudy idol marketing with poor story and acting reap the box office for weeks straight, cashgrab games manufactured upon pay-to-play and win mechanics gain loads from willing players, TV shows that recycle cliched scripts or rip off other works without any input of its own dominate the cables. This ''pandemonium'' of capital-directed media runs itself endlessly, earning tons of money that give producers incentive to produce ''more'' of the low-quality work, flooding China with works that run on ViewersAreMorons.

As if that's not enough, the international critical or commercial success of neighboring medias like JapaneseMedia, KoreanMedia (at least the regionally successful Korean Wave), and even IndianMedia, are frequently cited to contrast with the failures of Mainland Chinese media. And it's just Mainland Chinese - Hong Kong and Taiwan media are excluded from the cringe due to commonly being seen as better alternatives.

China is also heavily polluted and overcrowded. Many of its people work in intolerable sweatshop conditions. Chinese parents are also starting to turn against China's EducationMama culture. The book ''[[http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/08/17/chinese-parenting-advice-undergoes-a-small-revolution/ A Good Mom is Better Than a Good Teacher]]'' spent quite some time on the bestseller list.

Despite (or perhaps because of) 19th/20th Century Neo-Confucianism's emphasis on harmony and politeness, many Chinese view their countrymen as rude and selfish, embodying the most extreme forms of AsianRudeness. Check out [[http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/chinese-netizens-admire-japanese-post-earthquake-behavior.html this]] article in which Chinese citizens marvel at how JapanesePoliteness kept things orderly during the 2011 earthquake and wonder how much worse things would be if a similar earthquake had happened in China. Even [[http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/09/17/xi-jinping-implores-chinese-tourists-to-stop-eating-so-many-instant-noodles-while-overseas/?mod=WSJBlog the President of China]] has asked his countrymen to be more polite while traveling overseas.

Much of China's Cringe is exemplified in [[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/foolish-and-backward-nation-a-self-effacing-chinese-satire-of-america/261946/#.UE-JOlxQ0JI.facebook this]] satirical essay that went viral on Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter.

There are also divisions by region and language. A [[http://www.theworld.org/2012/02/hong-kong-mainland-china-rift/ viral video]] of a subway argument illustrates the disputes between the people of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese. Some Hong Kongers see mainlanders as rude, unrefined "locusts" who come to the city in droves to take advantage of its resources, not leaving enough for the locals. [[http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/10/hong-kongs-enduring-identity-crisis/280622/ It is becoming increasingly common for people from Hong Kong to identify themselves as Hong Kongers rather than Chinese.]] Some mainlanders believe that Hong Kongers are snooty, unpatriotic, "unfilial children" because they often speak poor Mandarin and are "running dogs" who follow British cultural norms leftover from their days as a colony.

There is also resentment between the wealthier, urbanized coastal regions and the poorer, rural interior regions. Some coastal Chinese view rural areas as the place where the embarrassing parts of old China, such as superstition and sexism, persist. In return, rural Chinese resent the coastal Chinese for their prosperity and perceived preferential treatment by the government.

Taiwan is much the same in attitudes toward the mainland - even more so, thanks to PatrioticFervor, as nationalism gets tossed into the usual stereotypes. It's not uncommon to see internet flame wars between netizens of the two - though Taiwan also struggles with an identity of its own, as the younger generation slowly takes on Japanese and other Asian trends. This is a holdover from UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo, as Taiwan was much, much more accepting of Japanese rule, taking on dialects from Japan.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe In Finland]]
Finland didn't have literacy until Crusaders (mostly from Sweden) brought it and Christianity with them in the 1200s. Although Finnish history stretches back to the ice age and ancient Finns used to trade with Rome and participate in Viking excursions and so on, there basically wasn't a central state or a unified culture at all. The Swedes had an easy time conquering Finland.

Finland was part of Sweden until 1809, when Russia invaded Sweden (and thus Finland) and annexed Finland. Finland declared independence in 1917, when Russia was too weak to interfere. After independence Finland was invaded by the USSR twice (1939 and 1941), and lost a lot of land - including a region that was central to Finnish culture - but the USSR didn't manage to occupy Finland or to pick the sort of government Finland would have after the war. They did, though, get to have massive influence on Finnish politics that didn't end until the USSR was dissolved.

Because of this, Finns feel that they've existed between various larger regional powers, and consequently been invaded and ruled by them for most of their history. This is probably why they're often quite scared of getting invaded by Russia.

As a culture Finns feel that they're depressed and afraid, and constantly worried that they're entirely unremarkable and insignificant in every way and will soon disappear completely. While Finns take great pride in the achievements of famous and important Finnish people (and these days companies) and especially in the justice and welfare that their society has generally been able to build, that pride is largely a reaction to their perceived insignificance. Finns ask foreigners who visit Finland if they liked it, and suspect that they didn't but they're too polite to tell.

Finland is considered one of the Nordic welfare states, but Finns have a massive inferiority complex with the other Nordic countries because they're perceived as more wealthy, educated, and "European". (Probably better looking, as well.) Finns view themselves as basically a small tribe of natives that has barely been able to assimilate into European - or Western - culture.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in France]]
Yes, the cringe does exist in France. No, it's not because of CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys (in fact, that last one may be a surprisingly serious BerserkButton, because it's often ArtisticLicenseHistory), though some French people resent the fact that the French-speaking world could have been much larger than it is today, if not for many unfortunate historical events. Think that France is located between Britain and Spain, two countries with a much larger cultural/linguistic influence. Also, while they tend to find their own country as beautiful, with varied environments, they don't feel the same way about the rest of the French-speaking world. They see Belgium as a flat, boring land with dismal weather (but with funny people), Switzerland as a landlocked mountainous region with not much else to see, Quebec as a not-so-attractive place (except for work) with long, harsh winters, and French-speaking Africa as extremely underdeveloped, with all the dangers of the tropics.

Depending on who you ask, French people will also find their own country too statist/xenophobic/socially conservative/not well governed compared to their neighbours, with incompetent/irresponsible/corrupt politicians (or even sportsmen, or entire media) and inconsistent/bureaucratic institutions.

In particular, the country tends to be sharply divided politically, and any kind of political reform seems always surprisingly hard to implement. Though many, if not most, French people accept demonstrations and strikes as a part of national culture, even ''they'' find that sometimes, too much is too much.

These are some of the reasons French people seriously fear the long-term decline of French culture ; ironically, much of this fear is also a reaction against government efforts initially intended to ''promote'' French culture, as many French find these efforts to be ill-advised in some way or another ; for example, French people often find they have much unoriginal music, and fictions of deplorable quality (especially less than stellar TV series), with an overabundance of [[LeFilmArtistique pseudo-auteur films]] aimed at an urban upper class audience and bad comedies aimed at uncultured people.

Other sources of the cringe may include a bad/unoriginal sense for everyday fashion, general conformism, or the fact that their country is populated by too many [[FrenchJerk French Jerk]]s – yes, they're conscious of that stereotype, and they deplore it.

Once again, the USA an France share several causes of cringe : politically, a left-wing that thinks France is being too corporate and sees Nordic Countries/Socialist Latin American Countries as better examples of socialism, versus [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement what they see to be a xenophobic/reactionary]] right and far-right ; culturally, among geeks, seeing British and Japanese (and, in the case of France, American) pop-culture as superior to their own.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Germany]]
This was the case for decades as far as anything even distantly related to [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler the man with the moustache and his plans for the non-German peoples of the world and certain ethnic groups found largely but not exclusively in central-eastern Europe (and one ethnic-religious group in particular) are concerned]].

More broadly, this same gentleman and his actions almost permanently ruined patriotism in Germany. Germans can be proud of the UsefulNotes/DichterAndDenker, but in the same way that one is proud of a famous person from one's home town who went elsewhere: they are considered great people for the world, who happened to be from Germany, rather than great Germans. Flag-waving outside a sporting context is a particular no-no, and overt patriotism gets the same reactions as in America (i.e.: viewed as ignorantly nationalistic and xenophobic). Within the last decade or so, however, Germans have gradually begun to be prouder of Germany for Germany--but it's still far less than most other countries.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Israel]]
The Cringe in Israel originates is essentially rooted in being a small country with a massive public profile. The Israeli film (and increasingly television) industry is disproportionately large, producing twice as many studio films per capita than the United States in a typical year. The problem with this is that it doesn't have a population large enough (8.5 million) to support such a prolific industry. Consequently, Israeli media overwhelmingly caters to western sensibilities that view Israel as less of a country and more of an "issue." Cue an avalanche of OscarBait family dramas, war movies, and social commentaries. As of TheNewTens, many Israeli filmmakers have tried to branch out into a broader array of genre fare— all of which is tellingly referred to in the industry as ''fantazia''. As a result, there's an even larger than usual domestic demand for American popular culture to fill that gap.
* There's also a ''massive'' Cringe among some Russian Israelis who claim that Israel is an uncultured barbarous land; however, this is a subversion, as those Russians don’t associate themselves with Israel but with Russia.
** As with far-left Americans, there is a culture of ''refusniks'' - far-left draft-dodgers, usually radicals or peace activists - who view Israel as war-mongering.
Aside from this there are also ethnic groups in Israel with this sense of cringe regarding other groups, notably with Mizrachi Jews who associate their own heritage with barbarous LowerClassLout behaviour and ‘Azhkenazihood’ with civility. In return, Mizrachim, who were semi-officially treated as a political underclass up to the late 1970s, often view the disproportionately Ashkenazi entertainment industry as excessively apologetic and enamored of European culture. The current Minister of Culture, the Mizrachi Miri Regev, famously greeted said industry with a gleefully antagonistic TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Italy]]
Italians nowadays think themselves as the ButtMonkey of Western world, because of the extreme level of corruption among politicians and top-managers, that with TheMafia make a compact block of AlwaysChaoticEvil embodied by Silvio Berlusconi (who, weirdly, abroad is more famous for the sexual promiscuity than for his white-collar trials). Sadly, is not uncommon for Italians who are abroad being recognized as Italian and addressed with [[HeyYou "Berlusconi", "Mafia", etc]] wich can sometimes be a BerserkButton. People who complain about this are generally left-winged politically, who are accused by right-wing of "anti-Italianism". On the other hand, they complain about others' national pride as empty and fake (if any: patriotism is here an unknown concept, and we argued a lot if we needed to celebrate 150 Years of Unification). Many Italians think they have what deserve, and Italy actually does love the Mafia, corruption etc., to the point of selling themed merchandising (you can find a TheGodfather t-shirt virtually in every tourist shop in Sicily).

Other major causes of cringe are the dumbness of Italian shows, always getting to the LowestCommonDenominator and the general inability of "sell" Italy abroad. Italians think Italy care so little about its cultural heritage they don't deserve it.

You may notice that USA and Italy share several causes of Cringe (mainly, the "It's all SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll now damn it!" vs "It's all racist bigot redneck scum damn it!"). Actually, another typical feeling in Italy is that it's culturally and politically (not to say linguistically) an USA colony and can't think originally anymore.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Cringe in Japan]]
As noted below[[note]]though you'd never guess it from anime[[/note]], Japan has a relatively low sense of national pride. Much of this comes from Japan's desire to modernize in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which resulted in them importing technology and culture from the West. Symbols of their old culture were seen as embarrassing. For example, in 1863, a group of Japanese students visited a theater in Holland, wearing hats to cover their topknots. As hats weren't allowed in the theater, the students were forced to take them off. Their hairstyles caused the audience to burst out laughing and [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19347_6-weird-fashions-from-history-with-weirder-explanations.html the play had to be stopped early]]. As Japan sought to modernize, many Japanese began wearing Western clothing and hairstyles in the hopes of toning down the feudalism of their old culture. The Emperor [[ImportantHaircut cut his own topknot]] [[http://forums.samurai-archives.com/viewtopic.php?t=3930&sid=93ca79d8d842fa6a688cdcbf2d136de8 in 1873 and banned topknots for all Japanese except sumo wrestlers in 1876]]. And speaking of sumo wrestlers, some younger wrestlers have lobbied to exchange the traditional mawashi for outfits that more closely resemble shorts.

Another source of the cringe is the 6+ million people who died in famines[[note]] Chiefly the Bengal, Henan, and Gulf of Tonkin famines [[/note]] resulting from the Japanese Army's destruction or theft of their food-crops, the c.5-10 million Chinese refugees who died of disease and exposure after fleeing the Japanese occupied zones, the million or so civilians killed during anti-partisan actions throughout East and SE Asia, the hundreds of thousands of POW worked to death or murdered out of hand, the tens of thousands enslaved by the Army Recreation Centers to serve as outlets for sexual frustration among their troops ('Comfort Women'), and the several thousand used for biological weapons research and live human experimentation[[note]] e.g. Vivisection, which is like Dissection but when the thing is still alive. Also, no anesthetic.[[/note]]. Some Japanese school textbooks pretend the numbers of dead were lower or that some bad things that Japan did didn't happen at all - though only a handful of schools have actually bought and used these books. Most of these books, though, do try to make the whole 'killing millions of people through selfishness and xenophobic hatred' thing look a whole lot cleaner and more excusable than it really was. One sticking point is the fact that no Japanese government has apologised for the country's wartime conduct, even though many high-ranking politicians (including numerous Prime Ministers) have done so on the ''de facto'' (but not ''official'') behalf of The Japanese People. Doing so hasn't been a career-ending move for any of them, so people outside Japan are a little skeptical that it's just 'not wanting to look bad' that's keeping Japanese governments from going the whole way and just wrapping it up already. Interestingly, it's not hard to find Japanese actors willing to act as villains in Chinese or Korean movies about UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan during the SecondSinoJapaneseWar and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

More interesting still, this has caused outrage among xenophobic ultranationalists who are slowly gaining notoriety for the way they keep coming out with new 'revisionist' textbooks and making callous, inaccurate, and callously inaccurate statements [[note]] To the tune of 'you guys just ''pretended'' that all those millions of people died of starvation and were brutally murdered [[InsaneTrollLogic to make us feel bad]], you dirty little liars!'[[/note]] [[PoesLaw that they genuinely believe]]. [[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/14/japanese-mayor-comfort-women In 2013, one hard-right mayor]] went so far as to say that [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial even if their country really did kill 10-20 million people in all sorts of horrible ways]], it was [[DirtyBusiness all]] [[NecessarilyEvil for]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans a good cause]].

A further aggravating factor is the weak economic growth associated with the Lost Decade that followed the early 1990s bubble burst, as well as Japan's motor vehicle and electronics giants losing market share to its Asian neighbours in recent years.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Mexico]]
Although probably every Third World Country suffers from the Cringe, in UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}'s case it certainly doesn't help sharing more than a thousand miles of border with '''the''' world's biggest economic, military, and culturally hegemonic superpower. In very few places on Earth is the difference in well-being and wealth so obvious between two neighboring nations, where crossing one hundred yards across the border can lead to differences as clear as night and day. Having such a high standard to compare itself against leaves Mexico painfully aware of its disadvantages and inferiorities in many fields with little means to hide it or even ignore it.

In fact, the Cringe is so exacerbated that it gets its very own word: ''Malinchismo'', which doesn't exist anywhere else in the Spanish speaking world.[[note]]"Malinchismo" refers to "La Malinche," an indian female slave who was given as a gift to conquistador Hernan Cortes by the indians, became his mistress, and served as translator for his party with the tribes that they met. Post-colonial governments, though ''at least'' as white-dominated and oppressive of the Indians as the Spanish, vilified her as a "traitor", in what's basically the standard ex-colonial variation on the story[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism romantic nationalist mythology]], with extra misogyny included.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in New Zealand]]
This has particularly been the case in New Zealand outside of the sports arena, where [[AntiIntellectualism anti-intellectualism]] has been a long tradition. Many actors, musicians, writers, and other talented New Zealanders have often been ignored in their home country - that is, until the Americans, British, and Australians start [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff developing a fan base]]. The 'Maori renaissance' since the 1980s has also left mainstream New Zealand culture unsure of its place in modern New Zealand, to the point where accusations of PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad are common.

* The FlightOfTheConchords are a case in point - rejected by national broadcasters, they went to America and made it big. Only then did NZ broadcasters take notice.
** Public broadcasting as a whole has been [[NetworkDecay accused of this]] since the late 1980s, and not without justifcation.
* SplitEnz, the first New Zealand rock band to make it big globally, relocated to Australia, and later Britain, in the 1970s and 1980s to achieve global exposure, only to later return to New Zealand for good as successful solo artists.
* Comedian John Clarke avoided the same with his popular alter ego "Fred Dagg" on TV in the 1970s, but later it hit when his [[ScrewedByTheNetwork show was cancelled]] and he booked a one-way ticket to Australia at the end of the decade.

Cultural cringe in New Zealand is also prevalent in the economic debate, especially since the loss of guaranteed agricultural exports to Britain in 1973, and the subsequent upheaval of economic deregulation in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many New Zealanders of a free-market persuasion point to their country's position [[GloryDays near the top of the OECD in the 1950s]], and what they see as the subsequent decline. They commonly cite the 'brain drain' of highly-skilled New Zealanders for 'greener pastures' overseas and the fear of NZ joining the ranks of the Third World, as justification for further deregulation, as well as pointing the finger at TallPoppySyndrome. Those on the other side of the debate typically accuse the economic rationalists of [[CargoCult cargo-cultism]] and expecting [[AmericaSavesTheDay Uncle Sam to come to New Zealand's military and financial rescue]], with a case in point being NZ's anti-nuclear stance with the US. They also point to many of the aforementioned high-skilled New Zealanders returning home after a stint overseas, while still acknowledging the brain-drain.

Yet there have been notable aversions. Comedian Billy T James pushed many envelopes in his day, and much of it attributable to his [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] Maori humour. Sadly it didn't last, after his [[AuthorExistenceFailure heart stopped beating]] in 1991. More recently, Peter Jackson has made it big with the ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' trilogy, after a period of indie film-making to build up his reputation. Additionally, {{Music/Lorde}} has made it big on the global music stage.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Norway]]
Because of four centuries living under other countries (first Denmark, then Sweden), Norwegians have a ''huge'' inferiority complex. The result is usually a tendency to establish every other nation as better than themselves, and ''can'' result in some major political screw-ups, because ''any'' idea figured out by USA/Sweden/France/Germany (take a pick) is better than anything the Norwegians can come up with ''themselves''. Cue a lot of confusion when the Americans/Swedes/French/Germans actually ''abandon'' that particular train of thought because it didn't work. Norway will happily try it for another decade, no matter how lame it is. American ideas have been particularly popular.

* When Norway was trying to (emphasis on ''trying'') to celebrate their centennial as a free nation in 2005, a debate occurred, whether the jubilee should be labeled a "celebration" or just a "markation" of some kind. It seemed the government actually tried to avoid not offending Sweden, because Norway had broken up with them in 1905. The government also tried to avoid celebrating the break-up of a union, as the EU question was rather difficult, and the same government wanted to join. The whole discussion earned a lot of snarking, and a public feeling Norway actually had nothing to celebrate at all. Hilarity ensued when a Swedish newspaper pointed out that the Norwegian break-up actually encouraged the Swedish democracy to develop. The Norwegian officials went dead silent.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in the Philippines]]
The Cringe in the Philippines comes from centuries of rule by foreign powers. Filipinos have often tried to imitate the culture and appearance of whatever empire was ruling over them at the time. An old urban legend states that Filipinos used to pinch their noses with clothes hangers to look more like the Spanish. Even today, Spanish names are common in the Philippines and 90% of Filipinos are Christian. Indigenous religions have almost completely faded away.

Japanese (and increasingly Korean) and Western (particularly American) culture have also become marks of status. Early Filipino films centered on American lifestyles and Western subject matters, such as the European medieval era. Many Filipinos pride themselves on their ability to speak English or Japanese (the less accent the better), embracing Japanese or Western culture, visiting these countries, or having foreign-looking features such as lighter skin. Check out the celebrities section of the {{UsefulNotes/Philippines}} page and see for yourself how many of the country's most famous celebrities are light-skinned or foreign-looking. Products like skin-whitening soap are popular. A Filipina-American discusses this belief [[http://www.bakitwhy.com/giajoyce/blog/maybe-issue-here-goes-skin-deep here]]. See also ButNotTooBlack.

An unfortunate reaction to this Filipino cultural cringe is when Filipinos promote their own cultural things or inventions, the Filipino netizens will defend and troll foreigners who may legitimately criticize it for quality reasons - a trend that unfortunately pops up with other Asian nationalist beliefs.

In a severe case of DramaticIrony, the indigenous presence in the Filipino''-American'' community is gaining a lot of steam--much to the confusion of island-born Filipinos, the American diaspora in the West Coast have revived indigenous traditions and pre-Catholic beliefs such as traditional tattooing and polytheistic religions. The other Pacific Islander diasporas have a key role in this split, since so many Pacific Islander cultures have similar roots.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Portugal]]
The CulturalCringe in Portugal has a long-spaning history, and could be seen at various junctions.

For instance, it is referenced in ''The Lusiads'' by Luís Vaz de Camões, in a stanza which mentions that nobles prefer, among other stuff, foreign foods over national ones. Camões, nowadays considered the greatest Portuguese-language writer, was virtually unknown during his lifetime in Portugal (and appreciated in Spain, of all places). ''The Lusiads'' also contain a pro-Iberianist[[note]]i.e., all Iberian (or, as they were called at the time, "Spanish") realms should unify into a single Kingdom[[/note]] stanza, which is ironic for a symbol of Portuguese nationality.

Then, there is ''Os Maias'' by Eça de Queirós, which is basically CulturalCringe: The Book. It's basically a large TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to 19th-century Portugal, especially its elites.

The Republicans, who [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_October_1910_revolution finally came to power in 1910]], focused on the Catholic Church and the dominant "rotativist" (Historical and Progressive) political parties as the cause of its decline (which had actually been caused by the Iberian Union, which involved Portugal in the Philippine Dinasty's {{Forever War}}s with most other European powers and resulted in the loss of most of its Asian colonies, and the [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napolean Invasions]], which laid rest to Continental Portugal and resulted in the loss of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} when the King came back as well as the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Wars Liberal Wars]] between the pro-constitution Liberals and the Miguelite Absolutists, although the Church's opulence and science-hampering obscurantism, and the parties' corruption and [[NotSoDifferent high similitude]] certainly didn't help matters).

One thing in common throughout Portuguese history has been the idealization and, indeed, pedestalization of England and, later, UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}, even before Britain shed its own CulturalCringe during the 19th century. This was due to the [[BindingAncientTreaty Anglo-Portuguese Alliance]], first signed 1386, which contributed to the defense of Portuguese independence throughout time, at the price of heavy economic dependence from Britain, especially after the Portuguese Restoration - sometimes Britain treated Portugal as a client state. England/Britain was once a mobilizing myth for Portugal, although the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_British_Ultimatum 1890 Ultimatum]] (which turned Britain into something Portugal mobilized ''against'' for a while) and the 1986 entry into the UsefulNotes/EuropeanUnion more definitely have dented that appeal. Albeit, Portugal still cares very much about Britain, as proved by the 2014 CrossCulturalKerfuffle [[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/20/who-said-britons-were-drunk-dirty-and-deplorable-joao-magueijo-portuguese-writer over a satirical book]] [[https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/sep/15/foreigner-view-england-portuguese-professor-book-undercooked-beef published in Portugal by a Portuguese scientist who made his career in Britain]].

Other countries Portugal idealized at one time or another were Castille (before the Iberian Union - although they were also hated due to always threatening Portuguese independence; nowadays they're just hated, or at least treated with healthy contempt), France (also a very big cultural influence in Portugal), India (which is why Portugal launched the Discoveries - to discover a maritime path there), China, Brazil and, during the last stage of colonialism and to a certain degree today, UsefulNotes/{{Angola}} (although we do know it is a horrendous tyranny - and a country of great opportunities).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Romania]]
* When Romanian scientists are compared to foreign scientists, it was usually the foreign scientists who are treated better than the Romanian ones. Same applies to Romanian artists, musicians, and the like.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Russia]]
Russia has also long struggled with a Cultural Cringe. Up to this day, the country's intelligentsia proudly upholds a 200-year old tradition of scorning their country's "backward" culture and "atrocious history" and their people's "brutish" mores while literally gushing about the "civilized", "democratic" and "tolerant" West. To cite an infamous example: in TheNineties, Vladimir Pozner, a then-popular talk show host, suggested that the country's history and culture would have gone the "right way" if the country had adopted Protestantism as a state religion... [[YouFailHistoryForever back in 988]][[note]]Protestantism had been invented, by the way of the 95 Theses, in 1517[[/note]]. What's interesting, while Pozner [[NoTrueScotsman isn't really Russian]] (he's half-French and have spent much of his life in France), this position is ''very'' widespread in the educated circles. On the other hand, they're also Slavophiles, who're just as bad.

The aforementioned tradition may be older than 200 years. Fast Westernization that started under Peter the Great, cultural distance between landowners and serfs, and willing inclusion of foreign families into the Russian ruling class led to the situation where members of Russian noble families [[EloquentInMyNativeTongue did not speak Russian]]. Books and conversations were in French, which explains the first pages of ''Literature/WarAndPeace''. During Napoleonic wars, this suddenly became unpatriotic, and many young men and women started to take lessons from their family serfs.

A somewhat more mainstream view is that something is not quite right with the ''[[TheNewRussia modern]]'' Russian society and/or culture, but people tend to have huge disagreements as to when exactly it "all went wrong". The most widely discussed positions are "If only [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell the Soviet Union]] [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp never broke up]]" and "If only the [[RedOctober October Revolution]] [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilised never happened]]", but it is possible to find Russians arguing for pretty much every turning point in Russian history, from the invitation of the Viking prince [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik Rurik]] to the lands of the East Slavs in 862, to the invasions of the Mongol Horde, to [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the disappointing performance of]] [[SeriousBusiness Russian football and winter Olympic teams]] in 2009 and 2010, respectively.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Cringe in Spain]]
Spain has always been a country full of Cultural Cringe; you can see traces of it even during the XVI century when the country was at the peak of its power. However, its current form can be traced back to the cultural movement that came right after Spain lost all of its American colonies in the Spanish-American War in 1898, known as the "Generation of '98" ("Generación del 98").

Spain's national pride hit rock bottom at the end of that war, despite the elites who were sure that the country would recover its former glory soon enough. However, the low and middle classes never truly believed it, seeing the country as decadent, corrupt and self-indulging. Francisco Franco tried to restore the national pride [[UsefulNotes/TheFrancoRegime during his dictatorship]], but he only managed to make things worse. His nationalism was completely obsolete in the post-World War II world.

After the transition to democracy in the late 1970s, Spain regained some confidence, but its self-esteem never truly recovered. Even during the mid-2000s, when Spain became the 8th biggest economy in the world, many leftist and centrist Spaniards still saw Spain as embarrassingly inferior to other First World countries. In the most extreme cases, they honestly believed that Spain just wasn't a First World country at all, but a borderline Third World country more suited for Africa than for Europe (making reference to an old French insult for Spain that said that "Africa starts at the Pyrenees"). This sentiment went UpToEleven after the economic crisis of 2008, and many people believe that the cultural sentiment of the Generation of '98 is back again, probably even stronger. Case in point, a current popular derogatory nickname for Spain used by Spaniards is "Españistán", a portmanteau of "España" and "Afghanistan" created by [[MemeticMutation a popular]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSGp2Hh1jQ4 YouTube video]] that explains the specific circumstances of said crisis in Spain.

The sources for Spain's Cultural Cringe are countless. For starters, the absurd high levels of corruption, not only in politics but in pretty much everything that resembles an important hierarchy structure. Whereas people in the United States get rich so that they can afford to run for office, people in Spain run for office so that they can get rich (often by illegal means). The Spanish word for "business owner" ("empresario") has negative connotations for similar reasons. And the worst part? When these cases of corruption are discovered and even made public, perpetrators walk away most of the time.

Also, like in Germany, waving the national flag outside of sports events is a big no-no[[note]]Partly because sports is one of the few areas that avoid the cringe. And just barely[[/note]]. If you do so, you risk being accused of being a decadent far-right wing at best, and a fascist and/or a Franco supporter at worst (Yes, [[Series/SaturdayNightLive even if he's still dead]]). This is especially problematic in regions with independent leanings, like the Basque Country or Catalonia.

Spanish people also have a very low self-esteem when it comes to their own products, with the exception of food: if it's "Made in Spain", it cannot be good. Ever. [[note]]What makes this especially odd is that 'if it's Portuguese it can't be good' is also prevalent in Spain, as recently pointed out by the head of the INESE (the Spanish national insurance institute) who claimed that the reason the Spanish insurance sector is 'in the stone age' is because the leading management and computer systems for insurance purposes in use throughout the world are made in Portugal so the Spanish refuse to use it. This might be because, for many Spaniards, Portugal isn't that different than Spain.[[/note]] The same for cultural products, like movies, TV shows or music, which are mostly seen as inherently inferior to productions from other countries. For example, this is part of the reason why Creator/PedroAlmodovar has a better reputation overseas than in Spain. In the most extreme cases, even Spain's cultural legacy, which is considered one of the richest in the world, is considered to be poor and internationally irrelevant.

Related to the former is the sense that Spain is totally lacking in innovative and entrepreneurial spirit. Miguel de Unamuno, one of the most prominent and respected writers of the aforementioned Generation of '98, once summed up this sore point with the epithet "¡Que inventen ellos!" ("May others invent!"), which reached MemeticMutation status. If you are a Spaniard who dreams of becoming a famous scientist, you know that eventually you will be forced to get the hell out of Spain, since you will never get the funding or the resources you need otherwise.

To make things worse, the times when Spaniards DO innovate from within Spain, or at least get international success or recognition, more often than not they are suspected to have achieved that success by unethical or even illegal means. Meaning their success "doesn't count", and they shouldn't be taken as examples to be followed. A good example of this is Amancio Ortega, the owner of Zara, one of the most successful and famous clothing retailers in the world.[[note]]Albeit, to be fair, Zara has received genuine criticism outside of Spain as well.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Cringe in the United States]]
Over the past few centuries, the United States has struggled with a Cultural Cringe of its own. In its early years, this Cringe manifested in a "colonial mentality" towards Britain. Benjamin Franklin went as far as to apologize to the Scottish philosopher David Hume for using what were then Americanisms in a pamphlet (including "colonize" and "unshakable").

As time went on, Americans moved away from regarding British culture as setting the standard, although foreign plaudits have grown quite strong in many aspects of modern American culture--one common claim being that the United States has ''no'' unique history or culture, and that all of it was stolen from elsewhere (although this one's faded a little now that we have developed uniquely American art forms, Jazz and Comic books being the two most described.) Foreign media and pop culture (particularly Japanese and British) are regarded as superior to American varieties; it is ''difficult'' pulling off geek-cred without being a fan of something either British (''Doctor Who'') or Japanese (Anime, Tokusatsu). American television, be it news or entertainment, is commonly damned by many Americans as unoriginal, cheap, vapid, and sensationalist. Watching foreign films as opposed to Hollywood movies is seen as a mark of having better education. Foreign English-language news sources like Creator/TheBBC and The Guardian are considered more trustworthy than American ones. "Ethnic" cuisine is considered better than Anglo-American cuisine. Any time an American company decided to remake a foreign concept for American audiences, the initial response will be lukewarm at best and scathing at worst, with people wondering why we can't do anything original anymore. Even the American TV ''system'' isn't looked upon very highly, with the constant desperate fight for the highest possible ratings leaving people feeling like intelligent, well-written shows (and news media, to a lesser extent) don't stand a chance unless [[RatedMForMoney filled with gratuitous sex, violence, and bathroom humor]] {{pandering to the|base}} LowestCommonDenominator (the fact that this has been proven ''true'' on occasion, such as "Borg Babe" Seven of Nine saving ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' from an early cancellation, doesn't help matters.) American automobiles are also regarded as inferior to foreign ones--Japanese cars are considered better in terms of efficiency and European cars better in terms of luxury, the only real realm American cars can win in is power, with "good ol' American muscle cars" still being seen as king.

American self-image has also struggled [[TheWarOnTerror since the Iraq War]], which in their country has stirred up a political storm akin to [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar the one they had in Vietnam]]. In social situations with foreigners it's not uncommon for Americans to refer to their country as if it were AmericaTheBoorish (in other words, the "[[TooDumbToLive brainless]] [[FatBastard obese]] [[AlwaysChaoticEvil barbarians]]" flavor) and express [[BoomerangBigot loathing for their more militaristic and jingoistic countrymen]]. It is not at all uncommon, especially on the Internet, for Americans with left-leaning views to lament that their country is seemingly run by crazy [[TheFundamentalist religious fundamentalists]] in alliance with an [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney oligarchy of]] {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s[[note]] To be fair, their 2000 richest people ''do'' own about 1/5 of their entire country's wealth. It could be argued that those people earn their wealth by providing valued services, [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement but such a debate has no place on this page.]][[/note]], supported by a willfully ignorant, moronic, exploitative, and greedy middle class that gorges itself on soulless, commercialized pop culture, all of which needs to be burned down. These left-wing Americans will then hold up either the Nordic countries in Europe with very strong government control or Socialist "Bolivarian" Latin American Countries (Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador) as examples of countries that are better than America in every way, often ignoring the inconvenient facts that their societal models aren't universally applicable and the latter places have problems of their own . Many will outright reject any "Americana" with subversive counterculture and actions.

A lot of left-wing white Americans also feel cringe at an ethnic level, as several of America's most distinctive musical forms: {{Jazz}}, RockAndRoll and HipHop were created by African-Americans, as well as the fact that the country is still dealing with the effects of slavery and Jim Crow. The attention toward police shootings of black people show that racism is still a major problem in the U.S.

Right-wing Americans who buy into the cultural cringe, on the other hand, tend to take the tack that America is in a moral or spiritual decay brought on by the spread of godless hedonism through public education, declining religious affiliation, and [[TheNewRockAndRoll Hollywood / rock and roll / video games / the Internet]], or even the way that women and homosexuals and people of non-European ethnicity have been made full citizens with the same rights under the law as the country's male ethnic-European population--and damn that Obummer for letting in darkies to steal our jobs![[note]]Though on the bright side The Rapture is happening soon (on account of these being The End Times) so it's not actually necessary to send these people to hell since God will do it himself in short order. Anyhow, these two varieties of the Cringe have a nasty habit of giving each other plenty of 'grist for the mill' (or 'things to argue about'), as the Americans like to say.[[/note]] During the worst parts of the economic crisis, this became so prevalent that people on both sides of the political spectrum started to claim that the country was in [[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril_2012/on_political_books/the_rise_of_the_ameropessimist035860.php irreversible decline]] and doomed to go The Way Of Rome (ignoring the thousand-year continuation of the Roman Empire in what we call 'The Byzantine Empire' and various other nations inheriting a bit of Rome's power, and so on). This has even gotten to the point that many, many Americans fear that their government would gradually erase their freedoms and create a totalitarian nightmare ([[UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies fascist, socialist, or any other strawman here]]) that would make [[CrapsackWorld Oceania]] of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' look like the Boy Scouts. Suffice to say, the election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump hasn't done much to assuage these fears for his sizeable {{hatedom}}.

This low sense of self-worth is also showing up in American media; NationalStereotypingTropes like AmericaSavesTheDay are not simply being averted, but brutally and humiliatingly ''subverted'' more often (witness the plots of ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', the ''Red Alert'' and ''Generals'' series of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', and ''especially'' ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''; where the United States seems to cause problems or make them worse, leaving heroes of other countries to clean up the mess).
[[/folder]]


----

!!Changes in the Cringe

[[http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz253/NoNumbersPlz/survey-of-national-pride.jpg?t=1271027985 This survey]] conducted by the [[http://www.reputationinstitute.com/ Reputation Institute]] shows how CulturalCringe among nations has changed in recent years; it appears now that Canadians and Australians lead the pack for those who have the most PatrioticFervor for their country, while Americans (who are traditionally mocked for having "a flag on every building") are actually in the middle of the pack, near Russia in terms of national pride. Japan, it seems, is the country that now suffers most from the Cringe. Further details on the study can be found [[http://www.reputationinstitute.com/advisory-services/country-rep here]].

It's important to note that none of the counties in that study put themselves below 50, suggesting that even with the cringe, on average most people everywhere have a respect for their country.

----
!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/SakigakeOtokojuku'', an anime that frequently [[TestosteronePoisoning lampoons Japanese nationalism]].
* ''Anime/AxisPowersHetalia''. The author makes fun of ''everybody'', his homeland included.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49NOyJ8fNA This clip]] from ''Series/TheNewsroom'' in which an American gives America a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMHdGBz2AqI This sketch]] from ''Series/TheKidsInTheHall''.
** Scott Thompson transfers this trope to Canada (where KITH is produced) saying that Canadians burn their flags all the time--to keep warm. He then proceeds to pull a tiny Canadian flag out of his pocket and blow his nose into it.
* In ''LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'', the English [[Creator/{{John Oliver}} Oliver]] says in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YkLPxQp_y0 this video]] that Prime Minister David Cameron, a posh Southern Tory, "embodies all the things I hate about England and I'm English."
** in an interview with [[Creator/{{Stephen Colbert}} the titular comedian]] on {{The Late Show With Stephen Colbert}}, On the topic of American World power, he said that "You get blamed for everything when you're number one" and most of the world's problems can be traced back to a British man drawing a line over a map
* ''Series/TheAmericans'': Philip and Elizabeth cozy up to a Soviet defector in the fifth season who almost constantly lambasts the USSR in favor of the US. This annoys not only them (privately) but also his wife, who didn't want to defect.
* ''Series/Sense8'': Mahendra hates Indian food, almost gets assassinated due to his efforts to ban Hindu ceremonial rites, and is never seen wearing traditional Indian garments. One of the Hindus who later has a hand in his assassination attempt earlier said he wants India to be like America.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* "American Idiot", a song by American band ''Creator/GreenDay''. The title says all you need to know.
* "America (Fuck Yeah)", the theme song to ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'', lists several "American" things including porno, fake tits, [=McDonald's=], and ''[[BreadMilkEggsSquick slavery]]''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Dominican Boy of WWC is so named because he hate admitting to being Puerto Rican.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Stand-up Comedy]]
* During his stand-up special, comedian Creator/{{John Oliver}} quips that it's "impossible for me as a British citizen to go into any museum in any nation on the planet Earth without, within five minutes, starting to feel guilty."


[[/folder]]

In Brazil, the term for cultural cringe is "mongrel complex" (literally, "[[http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_de_vira-lata complexo de vira-lata]]"), which characterized the Brazilian attitude when they lost the [[TheWorldCup 1950's World Cup]], but soon it started to characterize the attitude of Brazilians concerning their own country, to the point of many of them don't believe that Brazil has any reason to have self-esteem (likely one of the reasons why the TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires trope exists).

->''"Don't wanna be an American idiot''
->''"Don't want a nation under the new media''
->''"Hey, can you hear the sound of hysteria?''
-->-- '''Music/GreenDay''', "Music/AmericanIdiot"

->''"The subliminal mind-fuck America"''

American self-image has also struggled [[TheWarOnTerror since the Iraq War]], which in their country has stirred up a political storm akin to [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar the one they had in Vietnam]]. In social situations with foreigners it's not uncommon for Americans to refer to their country as if it were AmericaTheBoorish (in other words, the "[[TooDumbToLive brainless]] [[FatBastard obese]] [[AlwaysChaoticEvil barbarians]]" flavor) and express [[BoomerangBigot loathing for their more militaristic and jingoistic countrymen]]. It is not at all uncommon, especially on the Internet, for Americans with left-leaning views to lament that their country is seemingly run by crazy [[TheFundamentalist religious fundamentalists]] in alliance with an [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney oligarchy of]] {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s[[note]] To be fair, their 2000 richest people ''do'' own about 1/5 of their entire country's wealth. It could be argued that those people earn their wealth by providing valued services, [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement but such a debate has no place on this page.]][[/note]], supported by a willfully ignorant, moronic, exploitative, and greedy middle class that gorges itself on soulless, commercialized pop culture, all of which needs to be burned down. These left-wing Americans will then hold up either the Nordic countries in Europe with very strong government control or Socialist "Bolivarian" Latin American Countries (Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador) as examples of countries that are better than America in every way, often ignoring the inconvenient facts that their societal models aren't universally applicable and the latter places have problems of their own . Many will outright reject any "Americana" with subversive counterculture and actions (flag burning, "fuck America", [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking punk rock]], "culture jamming", et cetera).

* [[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/foolish-and-backward-nation-a-self-effacing-chinese-satire-of-america/261946/#.UE-JOlxQ0JI.facebook This essay]], which went viral on Sina Weibo (the Chinese {{Twitter}}), satirizes Chinese culture by comparing it to American culture.

As if that's not enough, the international critical or commercial success of neighboring medias like JapaneseMedia, KoreanMedia (at least the regionally successful Korean Wave), and even IndianMedia, are frequently cited to contrast with the failures of Mainland Chinese media. And it's just Mainland Chinese - Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan media are excluded from the cringe, and further cringe arises if one insists that they're the same being as Mainland Chinese media.

One thing in common throughout Portuguese history has been the idealization and, indeed, pedestalization of England and, later, UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}, even before Britain shed its own CulturalCringe during the 19th century. This was due to the [[BindingAncientTreaty Anglo-Portuguese Alliance]], first signed 1386, which contributed to the defense of Portuguese independence throughout time, at the price of heavy economic dependence from Britain, especially after the Portuguese Restoration - sometimes Britain treated Portugal as a client state. England/Britain was once a mobilizing myth for Portugal, although the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_British_Ultimatum 1890 Ultimatum]] (which turned Britain into something Portugal mobilized ''against'' for a while) and the 1986 entry into the UsefulNotes/EuropeanUnion more definitely have dented that appeal. Albeit, Portugal still cares very much about Britain, as proved by the 2014 CrossCulturalKerfufle [[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/20/who-said-britons-were-drunk-dirty-and-deplorable-joao-magueijo-portuguese-writer over a satirical book]] [[https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/sep/15/foreigner-view-england-portuguese-professor-book-undercooked-beef published in Portugal by a Portuguese scientist who made his career in Britain]].

The Republicans, who [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_October_1910_revolution finally came to power in 1910]], focused on the Catholic Church and the dominant "rotativist" (Historical and Progressive) political parties as the cause of its decline (which had actually been caused by the Iberian Union, which involved Portugal in the Philippine Dinasty's ForeverWars with most other European powers and resulted in the loss of most of its Asian colonies, and the [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Napolean Invasions]], which laid rest to Continental Portugal and resulted in the loss of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}} when the King came back as well as the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Wars Liberal Wars]] between the pro-constitution Liberals and the Miguelite Absolutists, although the Church's opulence and science-hampering obscurantism, and the parties' corruption and [[NotSoDifferent high similitude]] certainly didn't help matters).

One thing in common throughout Portuguese history has been the idealization and, indeed, pedestalization of England and, later, UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}, even before Britain shed its own CulturalCringe during the 19th century. This was due to the [[BindingAncientTreaty Anglo-Portuguese Alliance]], first signed 1386, which contributed to the defense of Portuguese independence throughout time, at the price of heavy economic dependence from Britain, especially after the Portuguese Restoration - sometimes Britain treated Portugal as a client state. England/Britain was once a mobilizing myth for Portugal, although the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_British_Ultimatum 1890 Ultimatum]] (which turned Britain into something Portugal mobilized ''against'' for a while) and the 1986 entry into the UsefulNotes/EuropeanUnion more definitely have dented that appeal. Albeit, Portugal still cares very much about Britain, as proved by the 2014 CrossCulturalKerfufle [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/20/who-said-britons-were-drunk-dirty-and-deplorable-joao-magueijo-portuguese-writer over a satirical book] [https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/sep/15/foreigner-view-england-portuguese-professor-book-undercooked-beef published in Portugal by a Portuguese scientist who made his career in Britain].

* In ''LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'', the English Oliver says in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YkLPxQp_y0 this video]] that Prime Minister David Cameron, a posh Southern Tory, "embodies all the things I hate about England and I'm English."

** in an interview with Creator/{{Stephen Colbert}}, On the topic of American World power, he said that "You get blamed for everything when you're number one" and most of the world's problems can be traced back to a British man drawing a line over a map

* During his stand-up special, comedian John Oliver quips that it's "impossible for me as a British citizen to go into any museum in any nation on the planet Earth without, within five minutes, starting to feel guilty."
** On the topic of American World power, he said that "You get blamed for everything when you're number one" and most of the world's problems can be traced back to a British man drawing a line over a map

As if that's not enough, the huge success of JapaneseMedia internationally and the regional success of KoreanMedia (the Korean Wave) as well as the international success of [[KoreanMovies Korean Cinema]] are frequently cited to contrast with the failures of Mainland Chinese media. And it's just Mainland Chinese - Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan media are excluded from the cringe, and further cringe arises if one insists that they're the same being as Mainland Chinese media. To make matters worse, there is now an increasingly strong sentiment that [[HongKongFilms Hong Kong Cinema]] is slowly being pulled down in terms of quality ever since Hong Kong returned to China, purely because bad movie sells.

As if that's not enough, the huge success of JapaneseMedia internationally and the regional success of KoreanMedia (the Korean Wave) as well as the international success of [[KoreanMovies Korean Cinema]] are frequently cited to contrast with the failures of Mainland Chinese media. And it's just Mainland Chinese - Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan media are excluded from the cringe, and further cringe arises if one insists that they're the same being as Mainland Chinese media. To make matters worse, there is now an increasingly strong sentiment that [[HongKongMovies Hong Kong Cinema]] is slowly being pulled down in terms of quality ever since Hong Kong returned to China.

But even without ideology-based censorship and ExecutiveMeddling, there is an increasingly strong awareness and resentment of Chinese works' appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator. Movies that run on gaudy idol marketing with poor story and acting reap the box office for weeks straight, cashgrab games manufactured upon pay-to-play and win mechanics gain loads from willing players, TV shows that recycle cliched scripts or rip off other works without any input of its own dominate the cables. This ''pandemonium'' of capital-directed media runs itself endlessly, earning tons of money that give producers incentive to produce ''more'' of the low-quality work, flooding China with works that run on ViewersAreMorons. As if that's not enough, the huge success of JapaneseMedia internationally and the regional success of KoreanMedia (the Korean Wave) are frequently cited to contrast with the failures of Mainland Chinese media. And it's just Mainland Chinese - Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan media are excluded from the cringe, and further cringe arises if one insists that they're the same being as Mainland Chinese media.

But even without ideology-based censorship and ExecutiveMeddling, there is an increasingly strong awareness and resentment of Chinese works' appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator. Movies that run on gaudy idol marketing with poor story and acting reap the box office for weeks straight, cashgrab games manufactured upon pay-to-play and win mechanics gain loads from willing players, TV shows that recycle cliched scripts or rip off other works without any input of its own dominate the cables. This ''pandemonium'' of capital-directed media runs itself endlessly, earning tons of money that give producers incentive to produce ''more'' of the low-quality work, flooding China with works that run on ViewersAreMorons. With China's massive population, appealing to the Lowest Common Denominator is a very reliable way to earn heaps of money with minimal effort, and with China's continued struggle with raising the standards of the entire nation, the Lowest Common Denominator can get very low indeed. As if that's not enough, the huge success of JapaneseMedia internationally and the regional success of KoreanMedia (the Korean Wave) are frequently cited to contrast with the failures of Mainland Chinese media. And it's just Mainland Chinese - Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan media are excluded from the cringe, and further cringe arises if one insists that they're the same being as Mainland Chinese media.

But even without ideology-based censorship and ExecutiveMeddling, there is an increasingly strong awareness and resentment of Chinese works' appeal to the LowestCommonDenominator. Movies that run on gaudy idol marketing with poor story and acting reap the box office for weeks straight, cashgrab games manufactured upon pay-to-play and win mechanics gain loads from willing players, TV shows that recycle cliched scripts or rip off other works without any input of its own dominate the cables. This ''pandemonium'' of capital-directed media runs itself endlessly, earning tons of money that give producers incentive to produce ''more'' of the low-quality work, flooding China with works that run on ViewersAreMorons. With China's massive population, appealing to the Lowest Common Denominator is a very reliable way to earn heaps of money with minimal effort, and with China's continued struggle with raising the standards of the entire nation, the Lowest Common Denominator can get very low indeed.

In a severe case of DramaticIrony, the indigenous presence in the Filipino''-American'' community is gaining a lot of steam--much to the confusion of island-born Filipinos, the American diaspora in the West Coast have revived indigenous traditions and pre-Catholic beliefs such as traditional tattooing and polytheistic religions. (In fact, a good portion of indigenous Filipinos may have left for America ''because'' of the social hostility faced in the islands, and didn't have to revive anything.) The other Pacific Islander diasporas have a key role in this split, since so many South Pacific cultures have similar roots.

It is also worthy to note that some Mainland netizens also have resentments towards the Mainland Communist Party Patriotic Fervor itself, connecting all the perceived problems described above to it and claiming that the Party's actions had caused all of this trouble. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement It is a hotly debated topic for sure, so no more details needed.]]

In Brazil, the term for cultural cringe is "mongrel complex" (literally, "[[http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_de_vira-lata complexo de vira-lata]]"), which characterized the Brazilian attitude when they lost the [[TheWorldCup 1950's World Cup]], but soon it started to characterize the attitude of Brazilians concerning their own country, to the point of many of them don't believe that Brazil has no reason to have self-esteem (likely one of the reasons why the TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires trope exists).

There were attempts to avert this during the Military Dictatorship, between 1964-1985, such as with the famous motto "Brazil: love it or leave it". Ironically, many of the songs written critically by Brazilian artists during that time are seen with a lot of nostalgia nowadays by the previous generation, in contrast with the way younger people tend to despise Brazilian culture as dumb, cheap and unsophisticated, compared to foreign(specially American) mainstream culture. Even music, of which Brazilians are traditionally very proud of, has been drowned in the radios by American pop and rock music, and the most popular national music genre with the newer generation, called Sertanejo Universitário, is very commercial and in many aspects(notably, the often oversexualized lyrics) similar to American pop music.

Even though most Argentinians suffer from bad cases of egocentric nationalism, there are others that live on the opposite extreme, always feeling inferior and trying to compare the country with some European powers like Germany. The quantity of this individuals varies depending on the generation but they usually appear in times of economic crisis. Other variant are the Argentinians that are a-bi-too-pride of their European heritage and will deprecate their country (this is specially common among those of German and French ethnicity).
It should be noted that the ones most prone to this kind of behaviour are more often than not members of middle to high classes of the Argentinian population.