History ComicStrip / Dilbert

%% NOTE: Scott Adams' racist statements in Feb 2023 are already under discussion on the bigotry cleanup thread. Please don't add any further examples/details here without discussing on that thread first.

%% Specifically, we can't sidestep "No recent examples" waiting periods by commenting out examples until that waiting time expires. Pre-commented examples aren't allowed and will be cut.

** One Sunday strip implied [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-07-24 the company's data center had attained sentience.]]

* AntiAdvice: [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2013-05-02 In this strip]], Dilbert asks PHB how he would tackle a specific problem, with him actually surprised that Dilbert cares about his opinion. In the last panel he tells Wally that now he can discard any choice an idiot would make.

* BackgroundHalo: [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2003-01-18 Wally can radiate an]] "aura of extreme incompetence".

* BooksVsScreens: Dilbert [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-11-08 tries]] to convince Dogbert that books are more cerebral than television, only for it to emerge that Dogbert is watching several educational programs while Dilbert is reading total dreck.

* ButHeSoundsHandsome: [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-08-07 In this strip]], PHB hires Dogbert's firm to persuade the media to write negative stories about their competitor. When Dilbert asks about if this is ethical, Dogbert assures him that their competitor is already doing it, since they already have hired a firm to do just that. When Dilbert then asks who did they hire, Dogbert just says is probably someone awesome.

** [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-12-23 The PHB reads two memos]], one which says that all official company documents must be recycled to meet the corporate sustainability goals, and one says that all official company documents must not be recycled to meet the corporate security goals. He reads them off at every weekly meeting because he doesn't know how to get rid of them.

* CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit: Dogbert [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2018-04-23 runs a scam]] where he promises to [[HumanPopsicle cryogenically freeze]] the brains of his clients and then unfreeze them into a 3-D printed new body when their investments are worth a fortune. But in actuality, as soon as their brains have been removed, he dumps the unfrozen brains into the river. Thanks to ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney, he gets off with a slap on the wrist and is charged with aggressive littering instead of murder.

* LackOfImagination: In [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1993-02-09 one strip]], Dogbert does a word association exercise with the employees to "unleash the creativity that the company has suppressed." He says, "chair", and the pointy-haired boss offers: "Donut?" All the others immediately answer "donut" as well.

* LazilyGenderFlippedName: In [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-07-31 this strip]], the boss tries to give a certificate originally meant for Wally to Alice instead. He hastily corrects the name on the certificate to Alice's supposed "Indian name", "Wallyina".

* LiteralMinded: In [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2012-09-21 this strip]] , PHB asks Asok to throw Carl "under the bus" because he "choked the pooch", Asok angrily says he will take care of it. Then he says that he found a website that lists idioms and that he had done some bad things.

*** She goes bonkers trying to keep from yelling at Wally [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-11-01 for clipping his nails nearby]]. Turns out he has a library of annoying sound clips on his computer.
*** She [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2019-04-11 fixes the Pointy-Haired Boss's]] issue with the keyboard clicks on his phone.
** The boss hires a former terrorist [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-12-27 to design the software's user interface]]. The noises he picks to play include nails on a fingerboard, the sound of vomiting, and a bird hitting a window, and those sounds are for when a user does something ''right''. When the user makes a mistake, he has the software play the sound of a vomiting bird hitting a chalkboard. Dilbert is distressed by the former and faints when he hears the latter.

** Tina double-subverts this: when she's on the cusp of realizing that her low pay is her own fault, she pulls another party to blame out of thin air in [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2004-08-13 this]] strip.

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1991-11-24 Dilbert finds a wallet]] and decides to return it to its owner. Said owner is a career criminal who forces Dilbert to hand over his own wallet then slap himself.

* PoisonAndCureGambit: When Dilbert's company decides to go into the medical industry, they decide to "create" business by [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-08-30 unleashing a deadly virus]].

* RedPillBluePill: Referenced in [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-08-20 this comic]], except with brain chips. Naturally, everyone picks the blue chip that keeps them in the illusion.

** In [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-11-04 this strip]], the PHB declares that he's going to smack people who say stupid things to him. Dilbert responds with the trope's title, which causes the boss to smack himself and convinces Dilbert that maybe he should give it a shot.

** [[https://dilbert.com/strip/1998-02-02 Another strip]] explicitly mocks Norman Solomon, author of ''The Trouble With Dilbert''. Adams also devoted a chapter of his book ''The Joy of Work'' to answering Solomon's criticisms.
** [[http://www.dilbert.com/2013-11-06/ This strip]] snipes at how difficult it can be to tell Skype to close and stay closed.

* VideoCallFail: This provided a good source of humour during the strips released during Lockdown. One notable example is [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-11-23 this strip]], where a fellow employee shows Dilbert his screen, only to get the wrong screen ([[TakeOurWordForIt which is not shown to the reader]]) and ends up quitting in embarrassment. Despite this, Dilbert thought it was the "best one ever".

Was also made into a short-lived, but [[WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}} critically acclaimed animated show]], and [[TheBoardGame a board game]].

''Dilbert'''s syndicated run ended in March 2023 following the fallout from racist remarks made by Adams. Adams then paywalled the [[http://www.dilbert.com/ Dilbert website]] and announced that he would be rebooting the strip in a more adult style.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: In one strip, Dilbert invites a pretty coworker to lunch. To his excitement, she agrees! Then she asks if it would be ok to invite a male coworker to go over some work with him. She then invites the coworker without bothering to wait for Dilbert's reluctant yes. She then describes the group as [[Literature/TheThreeMusketeers The Two Musketeers plus Dilbert"]] and disagree when Dilbert asserts there really were Three Musketeers. Then, the woman suddenly realizes that she needs to be elsewhere, leaving the two male coworkers by themselves. Dilbert's remaining coworker then says that they are like the ''One'' Musketeer.

''Dilbert'''s syndicated run ended in March 2023 following the fallout from racist statements made by Adams. Adams then paywalled the [[http://www.dilbert.com/ Dilbert website]] and announced that he would be rebooting the strip in a more adult style.

Dilbert's syndicated run came to an end in March 2023 following the fallout from controversial statements made by Adams, as a consequence, Adams paywalled the [[http://www.dilbert.com/ main website]] and revamped the strip to be more adult

Can be found at the main website [[http://www.dilbert.com/ here.]]

%% Image replaced per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1594835675047776900
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:299:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dilbert_2.jpg]]

In February 2023, Adams posted a video in which he made inflammatory comments about race relations in America, leading many newspapers to immediately cancel the strip. Andrews [=McMeel=] Syndication, which handles distrubution for the strip, cut all ties with Adams at the end of that month.

In February 2023, Adams posted a video in which he made inflamatory comments about race relations in America, leading many newspapers to immediately cancel the strip.

* HairTriggerTemper: Tina the Tech Writer interprets everything as a slur against her profession and/or gender. Dogbert manages to set her off by mentioning that the Venus de Milo has no arms ("Oh, so you're saying women can't lift heavy objects?!") as well as Film/TheThreeStooges ("Why are all documentaries about men?!") Adams ratcheted this trait back after her introductory arc, possibly because of audience complaints he got.

It wasn't always, though. Originally, the comic focused mostly on Dilbert's personal life, with his workplace being an incidental setting. However, Adams worked at a similar high-tech company at the time and his spot-on jabs at the culture made the office-themed strips the most popular. After realizing this, Adams gradually reworked the comic to focus almost entirely on Dilbert's workplace. In the process, the other employees at the company became more prominent characters while prior supporting characters became TheArtifact and were {{Demoted To Extra}}s unless they could integrate themselves into the workplace setting.

* CaffeineBulletTime: Dilbert at one point begins carrying around a giant coffee cup on his back because it functions as a "will to live" substitute. As a result, he goes through simple bullet time (finishing all his projects in one day) to getting ''X-ray vision, precognition, and telekinesis''. Although it was AllJustADream...

** While the strip had occasion to reference politics broadly, since Adams became active on Twitter and especially beginning around the time of the 2016 US Presidential Election, the strip has become more overtly political, with entire weeks worth of strips focusing on sociopolitical issues and using the office as a microcosm of white-collar America and their responses to them.
%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** While the script had occasion to reference politics broadly, since Adams became active on Twitter and especially beginning around the time of the 2016 US Presidential Election, the strip has become more overtly political, with entire weeks worth of strips focusing on sociopolitical issues and using the office as a microcosm of white-collar America and their responses to them.

* HairTriggerTemper: Tina the Tech Writer interprets everything as a slur against her profession and/or gender. Dogbert manages to set her off by mentioning that the Venus de Milo has no arms ("Oh, so you're saying women can't lift heavy objects?!") as well as Film/TheThreeStooges ("Why are all documentaries about men?!") Adams ratcheted this trait back after her introductory arc, possibly because of complaints he got (see UnfortunateImplications).

* PoisonAndCureGambit: When Dilbert's company decides to go into the medical industry, they decide to "create" business by [[https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-08-30 unleashing bg a deadly virus]].

* BlindingBangs: [[http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1991-02-10 A tactic for avoiding Dilbert.]]

* YouCanPanicNow: Though not technically featured in any particular strip, Scott Adams has [[http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking-adams-law-of-slow-moving-disasters noted]] that whenever humanity has become aware of a serious problem years in advance, it has been averted. When the PowersThatBe said, "Panic!", people went out and '''solved the problem.'''
-->Can anyone give me an example of a potential global disaster that the '''general public''' saw coming, ''with at least a ten year warning'', and it actually happened as predicted?

* ItsRainingSalesmen: The comic offers this reflection as four salespeople cling to him:
--> I hate shopping. There's never a salesperson when you want to buy something. But when you're just looking...