Take That, Audience!: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Hey, [[Sarcasm Mode|that's neat]], I paid money for this game and it insults me."''|'''[[The Spoony Experiment
{{quote|Demo[graphic]-Slam!
|John Stewart|[[The Daily Show]]}}
Aiming a jab at the audience, usually for being such a loser that they'll [[Self-Deprecation|waste their time watching/reading/playing this nonsense]], or so dumb they'll pay good money for it. In videogames, this extends to mocking the player's lack of skill.
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Sometimes combined with [[Artist Disillusionment]].
{{examples}}
==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RweXg3YMOHg This beer commercial] from 2014 seems to be poking fun at [[Conspiracy Theorist]]s who insist deceased celebrities aren't dead, depicting [[Elvis Presley]], [[Bruce Lee]], [[Tupac Shakur]], [[Marilyn Monroe]], [[Kurt Cobain]], and [[John Lennon]] hiding out at on an island paradise, doing their best to keep anyone from finding them.
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' features personified nations. It pokes fun at each nation and its people. So, if you live in a country represented by a Hetalia character, it has insulted you. [[MST3K Mantra|Fans don't seem to mind]].
** In one episode of the English dub, the narrator makes fun of the American fans watching, "assuming" that they don't know where Poland is, or that anime fans know nothing about [[WWII]].
* Some fans believe that ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|End of Evangelion]]'' was this to the series' [[Unpleasable Fanbase]] after their reactions to the way the series ended. Given the fact that they involved ''death threats'', some of us would probably have the same reaction.
* In the KC Grand Prix arc of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh! ]]'', Vivian was a [[Loony Fan]] of Yugi turned [[Stalker Without a Crush]] intent on making him her "love slave" - something of a cliche in fanfiction that results in the [[Abduction Is Love| target of the affection falling for the stalker]]. Many fans believe she was an attempt to show fans how someone would ''actually'' react to such a stalker, as Yugi clearly did not reciprocate that sort of affection and had to beat some sense into her to get her to back off.
== Comic Books ==
* Superboy-Prime in ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'' has been all but a big middle finger to obsessive comic book [[
▲* Superboy-Prime in ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'' has been all but a big middle finger to obsessive comic book [[Nerd|nerds]] which ironically only ended up [[Hoist By His Own Petard|proving how badly the character was written]].
** ''Adventure Comics'' took it [[Up to Eleven]], while adding some self-aware humor and good-natured [[Lampshade Hanging]].
* The very first issue of the rebooted ''Justice League International'' has a character calling a bunch of protestors "nothing but a bunch of [[Basement Dweller
* In the first ''[[Great Lakes Avengers]]'', [[Squirrel Girl]] and Grasshopper appear in an offstage prologue. Grasshopper says "The only people reading comics now are
* ''[[Wanted (Comic Book)|Wanted]]'' spends its last few pages mocking the readers for enjoying the book.
==Fan Works==
== Film (Animated) ==▼
* The ''[[Pony Psychology Series]]'' has an entire chapter where Celestia gives Luna a lecture (in rather horrid and scientifically accurate detail) about the environmental disaster that [[The Night That Never Ends|Nightmare Moon's plan]] might have caused had it succeeded; more than likely, this was done to scold fans who portrayed Nightmare Moon as some [[Draco in Leather Pants|misunderstood visionary]].
* ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'': "I can't believe we're paying to see something we get on T.V. for free! [[Leaning On the Fourth Wall|If you ask me, everyone in this audience is a giant sucker! Especially YOU!]]"▼
▲* ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'': "I can't believe we're paying to see something we get on T.V. for free! [[Leaning
* The horror satire/social commentary film ''[[Funny Games]]'' is intended as a giant [[Take That]] at the concept of viewers enjoying watching non-real people suffer and die for their own amusement. It carries itself as a psych-horror film, but it breaks the fourth wall several times to ensure that the viewer feels guilty ''for enjoying the film as a horror film.'' There's even an in-character debate about whether or not fiction and real life are the same thing.
* ''[[Wanted (
{{quote|
* ''[[Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back]]'': "A Jay and Silent Bob movie? Feature length? Who'd pay to see that?"
* ''[[Sucker Punch]]'' according to Zac Snyder. The brothel-goers are supposed to represent the male nerds in the audience watching for the [[Fan Service]].
* The film seminar scenes in [[Woody Allen]]'s ''[[Stardust Memories]]'' are widely believed to be an unflattering representation of Woody's own ardent fans:
{{quote|
'''''Woody''''': It was symbolic of a car. }}
* This jokey example from ''[[
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* This jokey example from ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'': In the episode "Backwards," in the scene where the cast are fired from the pub in Retsehcnam, the manager is actually addressing "the one prat in the country who has bothered to get a hold of this recording, turn it round and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying. What a poor sad life he's got!"<ref>Keep in mind that back then, reversing a recording was really hard.</ref>
* ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'', especially the earlier series. A tie-in book even claimed the 'typical' HIGNFY fan was a [[Serial Killer]].
* The
{{quote|
** During the sixth episode of ''[[Nathan Barley]]'' (a collaboration between [[Charlie Brooker]] and [[Chris Morris]]), there's a brief shot of a police sign appealing for witnesses to a crime to step forward. [http://i.imgur.com/TmD1v.jpg The small text at the bottom of the sign] insults the viewer for being sad enough to pause the DVD to check if the shot contains a [[Freeze
{{quote|
** A similar thing happened on the fourth episode of the first series of ''[[
{{quote|
* Of course, there's also [[William Shatner]] and his ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' skit ''Get A Life''.
{{quote|
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "[[Doctor Who
{{quote|
'''10th Doctor''': It's probably best that way.... }}
** A more direct one happens during "The Almost People." There is a small but loud group of ''Who'' fans who dislike [[Matt Smith]] [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|because of no other reason than he's not]] [[David Tennant]]. That had to have had something to do with this scene, when a clone of Eleven is having his skull runneth over coping with his past regenerations:
{{quote|
* [[Heroes|Tim Kring's]] infamous "saps and dipshits" comment, in which he insulted any viewer of the show who used DVR.
* One episode of ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'', via a [[Soapbox Sadie]] on the witness stand, all but called the audience [[Complete Monster
* [[The Monkees]]' TV special, "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee" did this in the "Wind-Up Man" number.
** I'm a wind up man / Programmed to be entertaining / Turn me on / And I will sing a song about a Wind-up world / Of people watching television / Wind up man / Can you hear me laughing at you?
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== Music ==
* The band in Bugger Off composed by [[Tony Miles]] thanks the audience for showing up, and rudely tells them to leave (calling them bastards and comparing them to swine).
* Blues Traveler's single "The Hook" is basically about how the lead singer could sing anything as long as the audience thinks it sounds good.
* The Nirvana song "In Bloom" is squarely - or at least as squarely as anything the typically cryptic and abstract Cobain ever wrote - aimed at that sections of Nirvana's audience who just liked the tunes and didn't much care for or were even aware of the underlying message. In the unused liner notes for ''In Utero'', Cobain was brutally direct:
{{quote|
* Inverted in Molly and the Tinker's "The Anti-Singalong Song", in which the performers get the audience to sing about how they ''won't'' sing along, because the singers are just being lazy and not doing their jobs.
** [[Fridge Brilliance]] also plays it straight, as the lyrics profess that folksingers assume audiences are spineless patsies who can be conned into doing their work for them. And, hey, the audience ''is singing along'', even if it's about how they don't want to...
* The Fall's "How I Wrote Elastic Man", about a singer who complains that whatever he does, everything everyone ever wants to know is how he wrote [[One-Hit Wonder|that one song]]... and they don't even get the title right.
{{quote|
How I wrote "'''P'''lastic Man"
How I wrote "'''P'''lastic Man" }}
* Showbread's song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naTWuhf6wZE "Shepherd, No Sheep"] from their 2009 album "The Fear Of God" is a whole song consisting of this trope coupled with [[Misaimed Fandom]] and [[Artist Disillusionment]], talking to their old fans who latched onto their first album "No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical" because it was a high-energy, distorted rock album with screamed vocals released at a time when Screamo and Metalcore were steadily gaining popularity.
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* [[Mindless Self Indulgence]] frequently takes jabs at their audience, both through their lyrics and hurling between songs during their live shows.
** Their third album has a song called 'You'll Rebel To Anything (As Long as It's Not Challenging)' which seems to be dedicated to insulting their fans. As the chorus says:
{{quote|
''I'm telling you that fifty million screaming fans are fucking morons'' }}
** The same album has another song titled "Stupid MF." It pokes fun at the audience for being unable to understand Jimmy Urine's fast-paced singing.
{{quote|
"Should I talk slower like you're a retard? Should I talk slower like you're retarded?" }}
** The live segment at the beginning of "Backmask," where Jimmy talks to the audience:
{{quote|
Audience: "Suck!"
Jimmy: "We!"
Audience: "Suck!"
Jimmy: "DICK!" }}
* [[Tool]]: "Hooker with a Penis" has a few, combined with ''self-admitted'' [[The Man Is Sticking It to
{{quote|
I sold out long before you ever even heard my name
I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit
Then you bought one. }}
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* A staple part of the humour in ''[[The Now Show]]'' is making fun of [[BBC]] Radio 4 listeners.
* Part of the (very thorough) [[Self Deprecating Humour]] of ''[[
* Pretty much every episode of the XFM [[The Ricky Gervais Show]] contained some form of insult to the listeners, usually berating how few listeners there were and that the minority listening should just turn over or switch it off.
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* [[Aristophanes]]'s plays were written to be performed only once, in front of an audience he knew personally, so he did this a lot, (making this trope [[Older Than Feudalism]]):
** ''[[
** ''The Frogs'': "Wait, if we're in Hell, shouldn't there be a lot of sinners around?" "Sure, check out the audience."
* In ''[[Hamlet]]'' (written of course by the English [[William Shakespeare]] and performed for English audiences, but set in Denmark), the graveyard scene has this exchange:
{{quote|
'''First Gravedigger''': Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
'''Hamlet''': Why?
'''First Clown''': 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he. }}
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* Do really badly in ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' (a.k.a. ''Rekka no Ken'') and the ending will note about the player "To this day, historians look back and question how these incomprehensible strategies ever led to victory."
** If the player loses enough units in ''Shadow Dragon'' to be unable to meet the maximum number of units deployable for a chapter, they will receive filler units named after numbers. Lose them, and (in the US translation) you receive more... with names like Owend, Lucer, and Auffle (Owned, Loser, and Awful).
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Blaze Union]]'', one battlefield depicts a gaggle of delinquents first trying to score with the female party members, then actually attacking and trying to rape them when that fails. Said delinquents are given the same kind of musical cues and attention that the player characters
* In ''[[The Lost Vikings]]'', the eponymous vikings routinely [[Leaning
** One of the games will say you ''really'' suck if you die on the first level. As you have to intentionally work at it to die, this is clearly an [[Easter Egg]].
* The Dude will insult you for [[Save Scumming]] in ''Postal 2''.
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* N's dialogue in ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' against the trainers who only use Pokémon as tools and only care about competing seems to be a jab against the [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys]] part of the fandom.
* In ''[[Tokimeki Memorial]] 2 Substories: Dancing Summer Vacation'', at around the middle of the game, if you decide to train at ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'' before paying a visit to your DDR tournament partner Miyuki, she'll phone you between two training sessions, and, all while being happy to see how serious you are at training, she'll say the following ([[Cloudcuckoolander|and will fail to notice afterwards]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|why the protagonist, aka you, feels awkward after that!]]):
{{quote|
* The ''[[Free Space]] 2'' level editor will call you a moron if you try to confuse its ship naming system.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' dedicates most of its plot and themes to telling you how much it hates you. Kojima did not want to make another, and he makes you [[Player Punch|feel it]]. Snake is miserable, cynical, and unable to justify why he's still fighting. Raiden comes back, exactly as the fans wanted him to be, except all his development has been undone and he's also miserable, cynical and unable to justify why he's still fighting. In a broader sense, compare ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'', in which Snake tries to convince Raiden that he should take the best of what he knows and pass it onto the next generation with ''Metal Gear Solid 4'', in which the characters are too selfish, self-absorbed, or otherwise flawed to properly understand what The Boss was trying to teach them, and ends with {{spoiler|Big Boss sadly concluding that "Maybe the world would better without snakes"}}.
** Or how about from ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' during {{spoiler|the "Colonel"'s}} malfunction, "Honestly, though, you have played the game for a long time. Don't you have anything else to do with your time?"
* A subtle one is in the Infocom game ''[[Suspect]]'' where the behavior NPC detective is implied to be a recreation of how most players acted when assuming the detective role in the earlier ''[[Witness]]''... which is to say, not very competent at all.
* An NPC in [[The Elder Scrolls]] (Morrowind to Skyrim) named "M'aiq the Liar" basically tells the series' massive [[Unpleasable Fanbase]] to can it. But as of Skyrim, he even makes a couple [[Take That Us]] comments too.
* ''Sonic 1 Remastered'', a [[ROM Hack]] of [[Sonic the Hedgehog]], changes the text on the normal "No Chaos Emeralds" screen from "SPECIAL STAGE" to "YOU SUCK AT SPECIAL STAGES".
* In [[Umineko no Naku Koro
* When the first trailers and screenshots of [[Diablo III]] were released, there was a ''lot'' of backdraft over the game not being [[Fan Dumb|"dark enough"]], to the point everyone thought the game was going to be a [[Lighter and Softer]] cash-in. Blizzard's response? [[Joke Level|Whimsyshire]], the game's new cow level, which has you fighting your way through a [[Tastes Like Diabetes]] landscape of rainbows, smiling clouds, dancing flowers, and unicorns.
* In the the 2020 relaunch of ''[[Battletoads]]'', the Dark Queen has traded her sexy [[Dominatrix]] outfit from the original game for more modest (maybe more "cartoonish") [[Evil Sorceress]] robes. After her old associate Jeff criticizes the change, she something to say to him about it (and by association, [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|to fans who complained about the change]]) doing so as she dangles him from their spaceship’s airlock:
{{quote|'''Dark Queen:''' I guess we’ve changed Jeff, I’ve grown more impatient and you want to control what I’m wearing. Like you’re entitled to it because we hung out twenty years ago.}}
== Webcomics ==
* The ''[[8-Bit Theater
** Brian Clevinger has repeatedly stated that the best jokes are the ones played on the reader.
== Web Animation ==
* Strong Bad from ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' does this a lot in his [[Fourth Wall Mail Slot|Strong Bad Email series]]. The episode that took the cake and ran with it, though, was [http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail188.html SBEmail #188 "fan club"], where it turns out that his loser brother [[The Eeyore|Strong Sad]] formed an SB fanclub with Strong Mad and The Cheat called "Deleteheads". He also mercilessly took a jab at [[Fanfic|Fan Fics]] and their [[Mary Sue
== Web Original ==
* From ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'' (also getting in [[Self-Deprecation|two digs at himself]] at the same time):
{{quote|
** Also, seeing the face of the viewer is apparently enough to make an imp's head explode.
* Andrew Hussie, creator of ''[[Homestuck]]'', does this all the time to the [[Fan Dumb]] if something is misinterpreted or some logical leap not made.
{{quote|
* [[The Spoony Experiment
{{quote|
'''Spoony''': Same kind of losers who watch let's plays instead of meeting girls. }}
* [[PONY.MOV]]:
{{quote|''"Yo, these people are a bunch of freaks"''|Rainbowdash 5000}}
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[
* The announcer on ''[[Danger Mouse]]'' would start prattling off hypothetical questions at the end of some episodes, and at the end of a particular episode he quipped "Why do you watch this stuff?"
* ''[[Family Guy]]'': "You know what really grinds my gears? You America. [[Precision F-Strike|Fuck you!
* From the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode ''The Why of Fry'':
{{quote|
** "Here's a definition for you. Idiot. Noun. YOU! HA!"
** Implied in the commentary to "The Prisoner of Benda," with the [[Squick|hookup of Fry (in Zoiberg's body) and Leela (in the professor's)]], especially to those who have been pressuring the writers to hook them up onscreen.
** This one, after a [[Fan Service|fanservice-y]] photoshoot that saved Planet Express from bankrupcy:
{{quote|
* ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff," was a direct hit at the fans [[Misaimed Fandom|who think]] GIR is cute. To recap, GIR unleashed his [[Super-Powered Evil Side|evil mode that's hidden deeply inside himself]], [[Super Strength|assaults a police officer by picking up his car and carrying it back to the house]] <ref>The police officer's brain was then replaced with a squid brain by Zim.</ref>), [[Evil Genius|quickly tried to gain the knowledge necessary to conquer Earth (much faster than Zim ever did)]], and tried to [[Turned Against Their Masters|KILL ZIM!]] [[Jhonen Vasquez]] hoped the episode would make people "uncomfortable" with the robot. It [[Misaimed Fandom|didn't work.]]
** Jhonen Vasquez seems to have a problem with people liking anything he makes, so uses this trope a lot. Apparently he thinks [[True Art Is Unappreciated]] and becomes absolutely furious that stuff he makes continues being popular.
* The ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "The Beak" has an odd example in its second song, making fun of the viewers for being weaker than the eponymous superhero.
{{quote|
** There's also Irving, a nerdy outcast sort of character whose obsession with the titular duo is taken by some fans as a playful dig at the fandom.
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Bye, Bye Nerdie," in which Lisa discovers that bullies detect nerds via their scent, ends with the bully Francine sniffing straight ahead of her and leaping at the audience.
** In the later seasons of the
* In ''[[South Park]]'', when Stan and Kyle finally reach their goal in scoring 1,000,000 points on [[Guitar Hero]], instead of saying something along the lines of "You're a rock star!" the game mocks them and says they're fags for playing the game so much.
* During the episode of the Boondocks where Grandpa fights an old blind man, the show stops before the killing blow and Huey muses to the audience that they could be reading a book right now. The screen stays still a few more seconds, like the show is telling you to do something better with your time then watch two old men beat each other.
*
{{quote|
'''Dot:''' What kind of sick creature gets enjoyment out of playing this sort of game? ''*[[Breaking the Fourth Wall|both glare at the camera]]* }}
----
{{quote|
''[[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|No.]]'' }}
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[[Category:Insult Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:
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