The most cringy thing for me is when the FANS use TRPs as a defense for their favorite. That's when you know that there is nothing to root for. Shukla has displayed pathetic narcissistic, aggressive, violent, kamchor, insecure, manchild behavior in the show. Yet, he is good-looking and his 'aggressive' streak is exciting for people. They live vicariously through it because in their real lives, they want to be like that, but can't because of social implications. When a society raised on Bachchan movies, hyper masculinity, and gundagardi in the name of politics sees a contestant like Shukla they can't help but admire him. And they use 'ratings' as the reason, even though realistically speaking, ratings are dictated by audience preference, but here audience preference is being justified by ratings.
Another example of this:
Salman Khan fans who say things like who cares about script, acting, story, bhai ka picture 300 crore ko kamalegi! 😆 When art, ethics, subjective realities and opinions are justified in the name of business, ratings, box office collections - stay away from those people because alot of times, they themselves don't know why they like certain actors/shows/movies/contestants.