Wednesday, November 28, 2018 // The Statement
7B
The Comical Strangeness of
Second-Hand Embarrassment
BY SAM ROSENBERG, SENIOR ARTS EDITOR
H
eavy breathing, a rapid heartbeat, trem-
bling knees, a tightened throat — these are
typical symptoms for someone who expe-
riences performance anxiety. You know, that noxious
feeling you get when you’re about to go onstage and
speak, dance or sing in front of a crowd of people. I’ve
had that anxiety for most of my life. Depending on the
circumstances, I naturally become nervous and over-
whelmed when the attention is put on me, especially
when I don’t see it coming. And while I have been
able to find healthy coping mechanisms for combat-
ing these nerves, there is another anxiety I have that
is a bit harder to figure out: “second-hand embarrass-
ment” — that icky, white-hot, skin-crawling panic
you get when you watch someone else perform, wor-
ried that they might mess up or when you’re in a con-
fined setting and something uncomfortable occurs.
Like most of my neuroses, this anxiety stems from
a somewhat traumatic experience I had growing up.
When I was about three years old, my family and I
saw a kids-only production of “Peter Pan” that my sis-
ter starred in. She played Jane and was hooked onto a
wire in order to create the illusion that she was flying.
Even though she didn’t fall, just the mere thought of
her crashing down onto the floor was enough to make
me erupt into a volcano of tears. Ever since then, I find
myself on edge whenever I’m among a large gather-
ing of spectators at all kinds of public events — movie
theaters, lectures, plays and musicals, you name it.
As a prepubescent boy, this anxiety manifested most
often whenever I heard sexually explicit rap and pop
music at parties, particularly ones of the bar mitz-
vah variety. The fact that there were adults around
us while Lil Jon yelled, “To the sweat drop down my
balls!” made me want to collapse into oblivion. Hear-
ing LMFAO talk about getting their cocks sucked was
equivalent to nails on a chalkboard. And I’m pretty
sure Kesha’s “Blah Blah Blah,” with its cringe-wor-
thy, hypersexual lyrics, almost gave me a heart attack
once — no offense to Kesha. I love her other songs, just
not that one. At my own bar mitzvah party, I specifi-
cally told the DJ to bleep out the cuss words in “Boom
Boom Pow” by The Black Eyed Peas, but imagine my
horror when I heard Fergie rap “I’m on that next shit
now” as I danced with my oblivious aunt. That period
of awkwardness has thankfully subsided, but look-
ing back on it, I’m a bit sad this unshakable dread
robbed me of having a good time at these kinds of
parties, frequently forcing me to leave the dance
floor and seclude myself in a bathroom or somewhere
far enough away where I couldn’t hear anything.
Watching movie trailers in a movie theater can also
be really difficult for me. I know that sounds strange,
but just hear me out. I tend to watch a lot of movie trail-
ers on YouTube out of paradoxical boredom and obses-
sive interest, and I’ve seen so many that I am able to
distinguish which trailers are bad and formulaic. If it’s
a trailer for a studio comedy, there’s likely going to be
quirky characters in quirky situations, jarringly swift
editing, a light pop song to lighten the mood and some
cheesy line of dialogue that doesn’t line up with what
the character is saying on-screen. If it’s a trailer for a
drama, there’s usually a solemn orchestral score, sad
or serious-looking characters undergoing a serious
change, a morose indie folk song or a funny moment to
lighten the mood. These kinds of repetitive formulas
might not bother the regular moviegoer, but for some
reason they unsettle me. Maybe it’s because I find dis-
comfort in their emotionally manipulative attempt at
advertising the movie. Maybe it’s because I worry about
how those around me might react, and that their reac-
tions will be negative. Maybe I’m just too quick to judge.
Whatever the case, it’s something I have a difficult
time controlling. It’s even more disorienting when
movie theaters put trailers that don’t match the tone or
genre of the movie that I’m there to see. This past sum-
mer, I went with my family to see “Tully,” a dramedy
about a struggling mother of three who hires a night
nanny, and the trailers that played before it were “The
Darkest Minds” (a boilerplate “Divergent” ripoff),
“Johnny English Strikes Again” (that goddamn Brit-
ish action comedy franchise that has zero justification
for its continuance) and “Hotel Transylvania 3: Sum-
mer Vacation” (are you fucking kidding me?). Knowing
how out-of-place these trailers were and the mortified
response they could elicit from the audience, I looked
straight down at the ground for the entire duration of
the trailers because I knew I would probably explode
right there on the spot if I glanced up at the screen.
It seems odd that visual and aural stimuli are the
main agents that stir this stress inside me, consider-
ing how much I love music and film. Even when I’m
not at a movie theater or at a party, I somehow am
still capable of experiencing second-hand embarrass-
ment induced by mundane, everyday occurrences.
For instance, witnessing a technical malfunction
or interruption during a lecture — like when a video
has trouble buffering, when there’s a commercial for
a movie that plays beforehand or when the professor
forgets to turn off AutoPlay and another video appears
— is probably one of my top 10 fears of all time. See-
ing a college a cappella group perform a medley of
suggestive pop songs is also a big no-no for me — if
I wanted to watch a sexy rendition of a Top 40 jam,
I’d just watch “Pitch Perfect.” Both situations, while
equally upsetting, can trigger me for different rea-
sons. I tend to cringe at the incompetence of the for-
mer scenario and the ostentatiousness of the latter.
Suppressing this anxiety has not been easy. It’s
one of several insecurities I have that I’ve only been
able to curb either by managing it or discussing it.
My strategies for managing it range from incessantly
doodling in my journal to typing out my thoughts in
the Notes app on my phone to excusing myself and
waiting alone outside for an extended period of time.
And usually, I get a mix of bewilderment and fasci-
nation when I tell my family and friends about this,
which is expected because it’s not something people
tend to talk about when it comes to mental health
discourse. Anxieties are strange, especially ones
that feel very specific to who we are. It is only when
we can share our experiences that we can maybe
harness some power over the things that inhibit
us from being the very best versions of ourselves.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL