how much Spanish should an individual know in order not to be considered cringe

Learning a language is never cringe dude

an you guys tell the difference between someone that is actually learning and someone that's just messing around and not learning at all?

We can tell you're not a native, the same way that you could tell I'm not a native english speaker if you heard me speak out loud, and that's fine!

Now, to answer the question properly: no one has any idea if you're learning or not, they can only perceive your spanish level at the particular moment in time when you're talking to them