Original characters vs cringe

To me, "cringe" means the same thing as "non-conformist". Doing something "cringe" is not always wrong, although it can be embarrassing if others find out.

Also, if no one made up "homebrew" original characters, there'd be no new characters except those by corporate mass media. So not all OCs are bad. I also think the modern world has this "cult of intellectual property" that overvalues originality. So to me, derivative isn't always bad either.

That said, there are a lot of crappy OC designs out there, like "Sonichu", "Chase the Hedgehog" (red sanic recolor), and plenty of pony characters.

lol

 

to me cringe = secondhand embarrassment
like when the slow kid starts doing a comedy routine at lunch and he's too slow to understand why it's cringe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_embarrassment

there's a Wikipedia entry on that

 

Which I think can be rooted in conformity. If something is "normal", it can lack "secondhand embarrassment".

 

eh not necessarily a bad idea

There could be good stories from that, not always crappy "Mary Sue" deviantART-y stuff.

(although in the modern world most would likely see that idea as "cringe")

 

if you put a creative work online, you have to be ready for potentially harsh criticism, because people are going to tell you exactly what they think with no filter and without taking your feelings into consideration

the OC thing reminds me of something I heard before -
if you copy someone, people will say you're the next whoever, but if you copy a dozen people, people will say you're original
people often make a start by copying what they like, even if their attempts are crappy

I recommend Austin Kleon's Steal like an Artist (and Show Your Work and Keep Going) about creativity

 

Back in college, in third and even forth year workshops I had to peer review a lot of cringey pieces and I can definitely say there are levels of cringe and OCs. A lot of cringe came out a lack of experience, it seemed everyone in class wanted to write a romance story but had little to no experience with relationships. As someone who is married it was easy for me to see where they failed to understand the dynamics of married life or even something as simple as what constitutes as a reasonable date; what made me cringe was the way in which the story fundamentally revealed the author's naivety. I think that carries over into the world of fan fiction as well; we expect that children don't know a lot about the world, so when a kid draws or writes something we don't find it cringey, in fact, we often see it as charming, but when an adult writes about the world they should know and fails, it's pathetic and often times it reveals something embarrassing about the person in the process.

 

I may not see certain aspiring artists as adults, even if they have adult bodies.

Like a certain designer of a certain sanic and pikachu hybrid.

 

Related

 

Those people tend to hate their younger selves and anything that reminds them of their adolescence. I think some do this as "I wish someone said this to me when I was young". This is a problem for two reasons.

#1 - The people giving harsh critiques in an effort to "prevent" others from making the same mistakes absolutely would not have listened to any of these criticisms when they were young.

#2 - The people giving harsh critiques aren't professionals, they're hobbyists with slightly more experience.

 

People giving harsh critiques can still be wrong though.

And they can also be jerks like that Dobson guy.

 

Doesn't help when they go the Zoidberg route. "Your work is bad and you should feel bad".

 

Like I said, a lot of stuff on the internet - especially in Current Year - is overly puritanical and judgemental "why this is wrong" and "why that is wrong" and "here is how you suck".

And like I said, reading that kind of stuff too much can be draining.