If you want earnestness in art then sometimes it's going to be cringe and sometimes it's going to be pretentious
Thinking about this, still. You don't have to like everything out there, but if people aren't allowed to be cringe they'll never let themselves be overly authentic. If people are afraid of coming across as pretentious, they'll be afraid to take themselves seriously. And once you take that away, what's left are irony-poisoned works that don't really have anything to say