Host Ira Glass talks to two different people who have stories they just can't get over ... stories that make them cringe ... and stories from which we can glean what makes a cringe story different from other kinds of stories. (7 minutes)

Act One. What We Cringe About When We Cringe About Love.

Cringing means literally "to shrink from something dangerous or painful." So what could be more potentially dangerous or painful — more cringe-worthy — than love? Nancy Updike reports on the characteristics and bylaws of cringe love. (10 minutes)


Song: " When You Were Mine," Cyndi Lauper


Act Two. The Growing Aesthetic of Cringe.

There are movies and TV shows and photographs and books whose whole point is to make us cringe. In fact, it's a growing aesthetic in America right now. Cringe is the new horror. It shares some characteristics with horror, but has overtaken it in pop culture. And the land where cringe is king is the land of reality TV. Adam Sternberg, a writer and founder of fametracker.com, a.k.a. The Man From F.U.N.K.L.E., says that when you cringe at reality TV, it's not for the reasons you might think. (6 minutes)

Act Three. M*A*S*H Notes.

Ira reports on a week he spent on the set of the TV show M*A*S*H in 1979, supposedly to do a story about the program for National Public Radio. He was 20 years old. He didn't know what he was doing. This week, he listened to the tapes for the first time in over two decades, and found much to cringe at. (13 minutes)


Song: " Boys on the Radio," Hole


Act Four. Cringe and Purge.

A lot of stories from your life, the more you tell them, the less power they have over you. But cringe stories often don't seem to lose their power over time. Every time you remember, you cringe. Bruce Jay Friedman reads his story "Humiliation," from The Collected Short Fiction of Bruce Jay Friedman, about someone who gets obsessed with a decades-old cringe moment ... and decides to do something about it. (15 Minutes)

Song: " Hanging on the Telephone," Blondie