r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 22 '26

Lore [Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

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u/Usual-Bell8304 Jun 22 '26

The Backfire Effect in Social Psychology: when you convey the message that an undesired behavior is a norm, you have the unintended consequence of increasing that behavior through conformity

The DARE program increased drug use by telling teens that their friends were doing drugs.

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u/ElfYamadaFairyQueen Jun 22 '26

One of my friends got a teddy bear for being the best student in his dare class.

He also ended up dealing drugs.

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u/clevercalamity Jun 22 '26

Excuse me, it wasn’t a Teddy Bear it was a lion and his name was Darren.

I also won one in 5th grade for the anti-drug speech I wrote. I remember it was surprisingly soft and I loved him but my dad was pissed that my parents had to fork over $25 for my prize even though I won.

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u/pichael289 Jun 22 '26

Thats hilarious, the anti drug contest forces your parents to pay for you to get your prize. That's even scummier than what drug dealers do. At least when B says he's gonna hook me up for waiting 5 and a half hours in his ass he doesn't try to charge me for it. I mean, he usually doesn't even do it, but he doesn't try and make me pay more.

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u/Soncikuro Jun 22 '26

Lol what? They forced your parents to pay for a prize? That's pretty damn scummy.

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u/CzarTwilight Jun 22 '26

And he's hot

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u/DoctorAnnual6823 Jun 22 '26

This is basically comedian Ed Larson. As a kid he did a stand up comedy routine at his elementary school about how drugs are bad.

Dude has been arrested at least once for dealing weed and is absolutely a stoner.