Cringe Gaming Intros

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About

Cringe Gaming Intros refers to a series of videos parodying the overblown CGI intros that are associated with gaming YouTube channels. These parodies see users replace any instance of text where the channel name might usually be with ironic meme phrases like, "she took the kids," as well as distorting the video in various ways, such as bass-boosting the music. The first of these edits was uploaded in 2019, with the trend seeing a revival in May 2021.

Origin

On August 28th, 2019, YouTuber^[2] shidbot420 posted a video titled, "Cringe Gaming intros be like," parodying the overblown style of intros one might see on a typical YouTube gaming channel. The video is set to loud, generic dubstep music and starts with a view from a reticle and a gun cocking sound, followed by firing and a reveal of the text, "I hate minorities" in bold blue. The text bounces around and flashes to the beat of the music before fading out (shown below). It gained over 1.9 million views in two years.

Spread

New cringe gaming intro parodies popped up occasionally over the next year, some gaining significant attention. For example, on September 24th, 2020, YouTuber^[3] Barnyy! posted one, garnering over 283,000 views in eight months (shown below).

In early May 2021, the trend began to blow up, resulting in numerous new cringe gaming parodies over the course of the month. On May 4th, 2021, YouTuber Icy MBW Senpai posted a cringe gaming intro featuring the staring hamster garnering over 200,000 views in two weeks (shown below, left).
On May 8th, YouTuber RetroNitro FX posted a similar parody in which the phrase "IPLAY MINCRFAT" is presented on the screen, although the audio is so bass boosted that the word is hardly readable due to the audio visualizer's effects working so hard (shown below, right). The video gained over 103,000 views in two weeks.

[This video has been removed]

On May 16th, YouTuber Meme Zee posted a video consisting of a number of cringe gaming intros, garnering over 175,000 views in four days (shown below). On May 19th, YouTuber^[1] Lessons In Meme Culture covered the meme, garnering over 280,000 views in two days.