- Adaptation Displacement: His song "Retard Bus" is more well known than the obscure punk band it is about. Neither the exact name spelling of the band is known, since lyric sources differ.
- Aluminum Christmas Trees:
- One of his better-known songs is "Rock N' Roll McDonald's" — people outside of Chicago may be surprised that such a place actually existed .
- In "Vampire Bat," Wesley Willis talks about how he was assaulted by vampire birds. There are actual vampire birds in the real world, known as vampire finches, but good luck finding one outside of the Galápagos Islands.
- Crosses the Line Twice: Not just the song content, but the level of Strictly Formula is taken up to eleven making something that otherwise would be a fault something he's praised for. Every song is nearly 2:50 after hearing that it was ideal length, follows the exact same pattern of verse, chorus (line repeated 4-6x), verse, chorus again, instrumental interlude for about a minute and a half, verse, chorus, "Rock over London, rock on Chicago" and an advertisement slogan. Many pre-programmed rhythm settings were reused quite a few times with a similar tempo.
- Dancing Bear: His "gimmick", if it can be called that, is that he was a diagnosed schizophrenic who created hundreds upon hundreds of Strictly Formula songs where he rants over his keyboard's pre-programmed beats before singing an off-key Title-Only Chorus. Both his fans and detractors acknowledge this.
- Parody Displacement: Many people didn't know the infamous slogan from the software Winamp is actually a Shout-Out to a Wesley song.
- Signature Song: "Rock N' Roll McDonald's", primarily because of it being used in Super Size Me leading to Revival by Commercialization.
- So Bad, It's Good: Took this to an art form. His songs are ridiculously formulaic, and his lyrics are basically schizophrenic ramblings, but this has made him one of the biggest names in Outsider Music.
- Squick: Willis has numerous songs which consist entirely of ordering the listener to perform oral sex on animals. He claims that he wrote these disgusting lyrics in order to gross out and scare away the demons haunting him.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The song "Kill Whitey" is about... a guy named Whitey who Wesley didn't like.
- The Woobie: Some of his more downtempo songs about his condition can elicit this response, like "Chronic Schizophrenia", "They Threw Me Out of Church", and especially "Outburst".
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