The thing with “cringe” is that it isn’t exactly new to on-screen comedic productions in the 21st century. Social awkwardness, self-unawareness, faux pas, and so on have always been staples to getting laughs out of audiences. But like “gross-out,” “slapstick,” “frat house,” and so on, “cringe comedy” became the term for the quasi-subgenre in recent decades largely thanks to Steve Carrell’s iconic character Michael Scott from NBC’s The Office. He REALLY made scenes simply agonizingly uncomfortable to sit through, his “best” moments on par with the worst in horror films.
One might wonder if at some point over the last few days that the concept crossed the mind of actor/comedian Bill Hader following his experience at Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party on Saturday night. Separate reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and the Hollywood Reporter together paint a pretty cringey picture of a 32 year-old man being dragged to the party by his parents who could not leave him home alone that night. The man, Nick Reiner, was not invited but O’Brien kindly accommodated his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, when they asked if they could bring him. O’Brien didn’t really announce it though, and the A-listers present who noticed him were questioning whether the 6 ft 3, 320 lbs Nick had simply wandered in off the street somehow.
Then things got cringier. Nick wandered around the party, asking guests – some of whom he’d already been introduced to – their names and if they were “famous.” Yet it wasn’t cringey enough for Nick who then approached Hader as the comedian was chatting with another guest, asking him the same question. Hader then calmly told Nick that it was a private conversation he’d been interrupting, to which the deranged failson stared silently and menacingly at Hader for a cringey amount of time.