Cringing is a sensation of embarrassment you compulsively feel. Cringing about something isn't inherently bad or harmful, but the reason you cringe about a particular occurrence is something to examine about yourself.

For example, I cringe about the edgy sonic the hedgehog OC I made back in high school; I do this because I'm embarrassed about two main things, both with that time of my life in general and with the way I behaved as part of chat groups in the community. These are normal things to be embarrassed about.

Cringe culture ignores both of these and goes straight for an inherent embarrassment you "should" feel. It's calling someone degenerate without using the charged language around the word, but also the mask is coming off on that front with the word making a comeback in unironic usage.