About

Dies From Cringe, also known as Dies Of Cringe, refers to a series of reaction images with a character sprawling as if they've died after seeing something deeply embarrassing, aka cringeworthy.

Origin

On December 18th, 2017, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Hi, I'm Steve added a definition of "dies of cringe" to the site that explained "To see or hear something, so f*cking cringy you die." (shown below).

The catchphrase didn't gain popularity until early 2021. On March 15th, 2021, Tenor^[2] user amareloPvP uploaded a GIF using a character from Killer Bean fainting with the caption "dies from cringe" (shown below).

Spread

Starting that day, the GIF began seeing use as a reaction on social media. Variations soon followed on Tenor. For example, on August 21st, 2021, Tenor^[3] user RocketMan341 uploaded an edit by using the character Aether from Genshin Impact (shown below, left). On January 28th, 2022, Tenor^[4] user MroddMEMES uploaded similar edit by using the character SpongeBob from SpongeBob SquarePants (shown below, right).

On June 25th, 2021, TikTok^[5] user @this.is.fvcking.cringe uploaded a video using the Killer Bean version as a reaction. The video received more than 249,000 views in one year (shown below, left). On June 27th, 2021, TikTok^[6] user @_.hawii uploaded an edit that received more than 4 million views in one year (shown below, right).

On June 23rd, 2021, YouTube^[7] user TrackingLuis uploaded an edit titled "Dies of Cringe Meme" that received more than 188,000 views in one year (shown below, left). On December 12th, 2021, YouTube^[8] user manlikeisaac uploaded a Shorts video that received more than 1.6 million views in one year (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References