And now here’s a video of 100 people giving us their best ugly-crying faces

Being a crybaby gets a bad rap, but shedding tears on cue requires some real talent. Now, kids have this particular act down to a science (apparently, hearing the word “no” instantly activates their waterworks), but The Cut‘s video of 100 people making themselves cry demonstrates how whipping up tears on the spot poses a bit of challenge for some non-theatrically trained adults.

Perhaps some of the struggling fake criers failed to Google how to cry on command or maybe they’re like many of us who are socially conditioned to believe that it’s not OK to cry in public (it absolutely is), but the results from this experiment were interesting nonetheless.

There were a lot of sad faces, lip quivers, shivering, outright screams, self-fanning (which is supposed to do what exactly?), an appearance by The Laugh-Cry™, plus our personal favorite: the dramatic, waving hand, don’t look at me I’m crying cry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv2qnoUfjPU?feature=oembed

So, here’s the deal: Crying often is actually good for you! If you embrace your body’s urge to relax, relate and release your emotions, it can be so cathartic, allowing you to let go of pent-up emotions you didn’t know even know existed. A nice, long cryfest can almost feel more refreshing than a workout, except your focus is on burning through emotions instead of calories (note: crying does burn calories, too).

Seriously, if Oprah can find something to cry about, so can you.

With that, we’re off to practice our ugly cry faces in the mirror.