It's forced humor, and a misapplied un-funny version of mildly funny nerd humor at that. It gives me the same kind of chills that I get from people who wear "I <3 bacon" type t-shirts.
In Spanish we have an expression for the way you feel: "vergüenza ajena", which loosely translates to "feeling the embarrassment someone else should feel for their actions." It's pretty nifty, if not very catchy :P
I like this. There's a lesser-known phrase in English with a similar meaning, "embarrassment transfer".
Or, "cringeworthy"
In Dutch we call this "plaatsvervangende schaamte".
Apparently it's "fremdscham" in German.
See, that's catchier! Now we are talking.
fremdschämen is the verb
In Finnish that is called "myötähäpeä"
What kind of t-shirt would you have a positive response to?
> What kind of t-shirt would you have a positive response to?