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From the website:

• Acceptable Targets: Depends on the writer, really. Usual subjects include teenagers, hipsters, Canadians, or Phil Collins.

"[H]omeless, alone and dead. And ass-worm mouthed. Or worse. (You could be Phil Collins.)"

• • Fans of anime are more or less always made to look like Otaku.
  • Played for Laughs, but Nerds and Fandoms are common targets for quick jokes. Cue Flame War in the comments between people offended by this, Trolls, people who simply see it as a joke and others who legitimately hate nerds.
• Adaptation Displacement: "Hey, that site with those funny lists used to be a magazine?"
• Archive Binge: Those little "Recommended" links at the bottom of each page are diabolical.
  • Even worse now with the "This day in Cracked" sidebar that shows articles released on that day, going back to the site's formation.
• Base Breaker: Christina H. is either an annoying Scrappy who likes constantly reminding people that she's a woman or an actually pretty funny writer who took a few articles to figure out what to do. It doesn't help though, that she primarily tackles socially uncomfortable issues, like racism or suicide.
  • She also appeals to more of the Periphery Demographic, focusing on good natured respect and observations about society rather than writing solely humorous pieces.
• Browser Narcotic: The trope actually got its name from this XKCD's alt-text, which used the term to describe Cracked.com (although TV Tropes itself was used to illustrate the phenomenon).
  • Now especially true with Cracked's Random Article button.
• Crosses the Line Twice: If Daniel O'Brien did any of the things he writes about in his column, Charles Manson would be freaked out. Swaim is the Only Sane Man in comparison.
  • Case in point: his apology to the Pennsylvania town where he recreated The Hunger Games at the youth center.
  • Which is kinda funny considering the role reversal in the web series Agents of Cracked.
  • Frosty the Snowman declares War on the War on Christmas. That is all.
  • The default picture used as an avatar if the user provided none? That's the Unabomber, folks.
• Dude, Not Funny: The article where Soren makes fun of the kids he tutors was considered this by some users, but it's not exactly clear whether the kids in the article are his actual students.
• Fan Dumb: Most new columnists that join Cracked will get floods of commenters complaining how unfunny they are or how they're trying too hard to be like some other columnist. Cody got this when he started, but now the popular target is Christina H.
  • Whenever any comic, at all, regardless of quality, is posted, most of the comments will be about how much it sucks.
  • Many of the writers have, of course, taken the opportunity to ruthlessly mock the types of people who routinely comment on their articles -- and internet articles in general -- every chance they get.
• Freud Was Right: We can't count how many dick jokes there are.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: Not sure if this counts, since it was after the fact, but in a list "5 Ways To Enjoy Terrible Winter Olympic Events", it mentions that luge and skeleton is easy, because it's like a sled. Right after the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili during a crash while luging.
  • It could've been an unfortunate coincidence that the article was posted at that time since it takes a while for them to actually post them.
    • Which, in a ridiculously meta twist, was a Funny Aneurysm Moment itself, due to the same thing happening in Agents of Cracked, involving the death of Nicholas Cage.
• Hell Is That Noise: 7 Bizarre Sounds From Outer Space featured Saturn, or as it was called, the screeching space phantom.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This article about Seltzer and Friedberg that dissects their distinguishing brand of (un)funny movies also makes a prediction at the very end that their next parody movie will be about ninety minutes of crap. And about vampires.
  • Swaim's 7 Words You Can't Say On The Internet video, which includes him doubting that a lot of Scientologist figureheads are lurking in 4Chan threads. And then Anonymous declared war on Scientology...
• Internet Backdraft: Thanks to the very preachy, social justice centered articles that have been written over the years, lots of former fans have voiced their displeasure in the new direction Cracked has taken and have given up going to the site in disgust.
• Iron Woobie: John Cheese is showing signs of this with his new article. It's about how not to pass on the abuse to your kids that you suffered as a child. He uses his horrible childhood as an example.
• Jumping the Shark: 6 TV Shows That Completely Lost Their Shit.
• Misaimed Fandom: "5 Reasons Why Women Will Rule the Future." It's (hopefully) just a joke, but judging from some of the comments, not everybody saw it that way.
• Memetic Badass: Theodore Roosevelt. Bully!
  • And astronauts, as they are considered by the US to be the equivalent of nuking the moon.
  • And octopuses, thanks to winning the Superpower Lottery.
  • Nikola Tesla is a favorite of the writers.
  • A minor one is Nikolai Krestinsky. Who was mentioned in this article.
  • The Strid has managed to become one without actually being alive (we hope).
• Memetic Sex God / Memetic Molester: The Running Gag is that writing for Cracked automatically makes you one.
  • Soren Bowie has the power to turn straight men gay and gay women straight.
• Nausea Fuel: Michael Swaim outright admits it.
• Nightmare Fuel: Just about any top ten list that happens to involve deadly animals or creepy locations.
  • This article by Sore Bowie.
  • This Article [1]
  • This will creep you out.
  • The other two only up the concentration of terror.
  • -nothing-
  • NONE OF YOU ARE SAFE.
  • "Its contagious!"
  • Pretty much all examples on this list, but look me in the eye and tell me you didn't shiver when you read "Waiting. Waiting to play you her song."
  • 5 Inexplicitly Horrifying Episodes of Classic Comedies. For bonus points, most of the episodes listed are Adult Fear type stuff in some way or another.
  • The 8 Creepiest Glitches Hidden in Popular Video Games.
  • Spiders, starts out rather tame, but once you scroll down to the bottom of the article...
  • Also see The 7 Most Unintentionally Creepy Places on the Internet, 19 Unintentionally Terrifying Children's Album Covers, The 12 Most Unintentionally Disturbing Christmas Ads, The 5 Most Unintentionally Scarring 80s Music Videos, The 10 Most Disturbing PSAs from Around the World, The 13 Most Unintentionally Disturbing Children's Toys, 10 Awesome Ads (For Traumatizing Children), and The 11 Most Unintentionally Creepy Christmas Ornaments
  • They also are happy to give you reasons not to own a motorcycle too.
• Paranoia Fuel: This article. And this one. Actually, Cracked's writers just don't seem to have much confidence in the human brain at all.
  • There is also the Cursed Iceman in this article which doubles as High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
• Periphery Demographic: While Cracked is an American site with much of its contents revolving around the American culture, a substantial number of readers are from other countries.
  • A fair number of people enjoy Cracked not for the comedic articles, but the more introspective and philosophical articles.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Cody's stock went up in the eyes of many commentators after his review of Armond White's Review of Toy Story 3.
  • Christina wrote this article. How do you hate someone who wrote that?
• The Scrappy:
  • Some readers view Cody as this. When he first joined the site, there was a page pointing out that his work was a bit strange, and that not all of it would make the front page.
  • If the comments section are anything to go by, Christina H.
  • Webcomics in general tend to suffer from this. Most people still flinch every time they hear the words "White Ninja."
  • Fatawesome.
  • Basic Instructions.
  • Luke McKinney seems to be well on his way to this. First writing a (sexist) and poorly researched article about sexism in comics, then making another article where he called all the negative commenters on his last article a bunch of virgin losers.
  • Winston Rowtree typically get flack for his comics. This is probably the most obvious example of hate against him.
  • The '5 Supposedly Fun Activities Nobody Actually Enjoys' articles, as evident by the comments.
• Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Almost everything written by David Wong. Just go see the Moment of Awesome page.
  • Most of Cheese's articles, particularly this article where he spells out quite clearly that parents cannot control their kids indefinitely. The most you can do is educate them (read: the actual Goddamn truth, especially if you want any relationship to remain between you and your kids) and recognize that they will make their own choices.
  • And then there's 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor, which is pretty much required reading if you buy into any of the various bits of mythology on poverty, like the poor being lazy. The article explains, in brutal clarity, how poverty is a self-enforcing cycle that manages to claw back any gains those trapped in it make.
  • 6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying explains why people are so angry at the rich, it's not because the poor are envious, its because the rich are hypocrites and distant from the masses.
• Squick: This list. And several others.
  • They love to lampshade Nightmare Fuel and Squick by proclaiming something along the lines of "OHGODKILLITKILLITAHHHHHHH" or "Not Safe For Soul".
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: For something that started out as a cheap MAD Magazine rip-off, the Retool to being a humor website helped them in their favor by quite a bit, even gaining a larger fanbase than the slowly decaying MAD.
• Tear Jerker: 5 Things They Never Told Us, a simple but successfully crushing article for students to read to prepare them about the loss of youthful energy, the anticlimactic realization that you are an adult but still have no idea how life works, and summer going from three months off of freedom to just a simple change in the weather for you.
  • This List of Anvils to prepare children for the harshness of reality.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: The Choose Your Own Drug Fueled Misadventure series of stories by Robert Brockway involve plots on a lethal overdose of drugs. Literally.
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: The 10 Most Perverted Old School Video Games.
• The Woobie: John Cheese.

From the magazine:

• Magazine Decay: The constant Executive Meddling in the later days, followed by the switch to a copycat of Maxim, followed by the outright termination of the mag.
• Nausea Fuel: The last few years of the mag were rife with bodily function jokes, including a whole article on different types of farts and another on different types of puking.
• So Bad It's Good: Let's face it, most of the "jokes" were lame. But the very same lameness that made you groan is also what gave the magazine a lot of its charm.