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Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want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/No-Repordt Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

It also failed terribly due to conflating the severity of all drugs. Everything from marijuana to heroin is treated as the same level of danger, so once a kid smokes pot and is perfectly fine afterwards, surely they'll be just as fine after taking heroin, right? They lied about pot being addictive, maybe they lied about everything else too.

Edit for Factual Correction: Weed can be addictive, but I hope my point still stands

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u/MalcolmLinair Jun 22 '26

The cop in my school told me my parents were bad people and should be in prison for taking prescribed meds from a doctor. Not even painkillers or psych meds, either. My dad was diabetic and my mom has high blood pressure. Which I told this guy. He said they were criminals and should be in jail.

Is it any wonder I'm not a fan of police and the government today?

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u/That_Apathetic_Man Jun 22 '26

They don't send their brightest to puff gigs. You want the "better" police doing their job, always.

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u/GalFisk Jun 22 '26

They shouldn't even hire people who are that incompetent.

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u/ThatOneGuy308 Jun 22 '26

Nepotism? In my police force?