History Main / BoldINFLATION

* DorothyLSayers uses this (with italics) in several of her books to show the annoying speech patterns of certain characters. Miss Katharine Climpson, the harmless-seeming spinster turned enquiry agent in the ''Literature/LordPeterWimsey'' series of detective novels, often speaks in italics, conveying her gossipy nature. She does it in her own writing, too. This is meant to indicate her old-fashioned, Victorian outlook; overuse of underlining is often mentioned as a characteristic of Victorian women's writing, especially in letters. Characters in the ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' series often do it too.

* [[Franchise/{{Disgaea}} Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!]] who manages to constantly talk in bold font and emphasize whatever he says in a [[LargeHam ridiculously epic manner]] akin to [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs Captain Kirk on Crack]]! As such, fans see it as customary to write his name only in bold font and with the gratuitous use of exclamation points! This is particularly obnoxious because no such thing appears in the game, which just uses voice tracks.

* Angie Sage, author of the ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' series, tends to bold all Magykal words. Some people find it "annoying" and/or "condescending."

* [[Franchise/{{Disgaea}} Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!]] who manages to constantly talk in bold font and emphasize whatever he says in a [[LargeHam ridiculously epic manner]] akin to [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs Captain Kirk on Crack]]! As such. fans see it as customary to write his name only in bold font and with the gratuitous use of exclamation points! This is particularly obnoxious because no such thing appears in the game, which just uses voice tracks.

Generally a {{comic|Books}} and {{webcomic|s}} trope because of its print nature, though in some cases this literary atrocity has been inflicted upon the world in {{film}} and video game form. It generally looks somewhat less silly in comics than in plain text, although this may just be because readers are more [[SeenItAMillionTimes used to seeing it there]]. So much so, some readers just [[BlahBlahBlah ignore]] it entirely. It also shows up better than italics when using cheap, low-quality printing techniques on cheap, low-quality paper.

Generally a {{comic|Books}} and {{webcomic|s}} trope because of its print nature, though in some cases this literary atrocity has been inflicted upon the world in {{film}} and video game form. It generally looks somewhat less silly in comics than in plain text, although this may just be because readers are more [[SeenItAMillionTimes used to seeing it there]]. So much so, some readers just [[BlahBlahBlah ignore]] it entirely.

See also EmphasizeEverything.

* JohnHodgman is fond of using ALL CAPS for emphasis. [[Literature/CompleteWorldKnowledge WERE YOU AWARE OF IT?]]

** What makes you think they WANT it to be easy to read?
*** They didn't use [=AlTeRnAtInG cApS=].

* Characters in Adam Warren's comics - especially in ''Comicbook/{{Empowered}}'' - often use huge, bold, ''underlined'' capital letters for emphasis.

* The ''LightNovel/DirtyPair'' comics by Adam Warren and (occasionally) Toren Smith are drawn in a [[{{Animesque}} manga-influenced]] style, but the text has more American-style bold inflation than is usual for English translations of manga.

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in GarthEnnis' ''Comicbook/TheBoys''.
* {{Daredevil}}'s and Franchise/SpiderMan's foe The Rose, son of Kingpin, had a henchgirl, Delilah whose power, apparently, was to randomly speak in a different font. And throw tanks. What would happen if she met SelfDemonstrating/{{Deadpool}}? The [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Universe]] would [[NegativeSpaceWedgie ex]][[EarthShatteringKaboom plode]].

* Comics writer Creator/GeoffJohns (''TheFlash'', ''JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'', ''Franchise/GreenLantern'') has a tendency to place the emphasis on words at odd places in a sentence for no apparent reason. It's not that bad, but it does make one scratch their head from time to time. The same goes for {{Frank|Miller}} [[FrankMiller Miller]].

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* The book series ''Literature/{{Fearless}}'' puts what the writer (or other member of ThePowersThatBe) thinks is the most {{badass}} sentence on each page larger and in a different typeface than the rest, instantly transforming it into {{Narm}}.

* The ad copy for [[SCPFoundation SCP]]-[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1657 1657]]:

* A MultipleChoiceFormLetter sent to BrianBlessed used this in the negative responses.

* In ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'', Florent L'Belle constantly talks like this, though the emphasis is shown via capitalization rather than bolding. The series at large does have bolding in the form of RainbowSpeak, though.

* The ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' series always makes sure you know when [[color:orange:a certain phrase is important.]]

* Commonly used in {{fanfic}} by beginning writers, to unnecessarily stress words as part of directly transcribing their thoughts into text. Professionally published fiction rarely uses bold and italics for stress.

* Despite what software licence writers might think, writing an entire paragraph in ALL CAPS makes it harder to read and more likely just to be skimmed over, defeating the entire point of putting it in ALL CAPS in the first place. This makes sense for those written under the assumption that they won't actually be read, but there's no excuse otherwise.

* In a ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story reprinted in "Batman in the Fifties," Bats and Robin reminisced about the various Batarangs they'd used over the years, all while keeping us in suspense about what Batarang X was. This meant that the word "Batarang" appeared multiple times in nearly every panel. Every use of the word batarang in this story filled with batarangs as it discussed every batarang ever used since the invention of batarangs leading up to the introduction of a new batarang bolded every use of the word batarang until you want to kill all the writers with batarangs and never want to hear the word batarang again in your life. (If anything, that last sentence is a ''gross understatement'' of what it's like.)

* Some teenagers on forums have gotten into the habit of marking up each individual word (including underline and strikeout) in their signature quotes in an attempt to make their quotes look special. It doesn't work, kids.

* The page on ThisVeryWiki, the manga, and the anime for ''Manga/TegamiBachi'' all emphasize Heart, because HeartIsAnAwesomePower.

* ''Kevin Siembieda'', creator of ''{{Rifts}}'', has a ''deep and abiding'' love for ''unnecessary'' amounts of ''italics'' in any {{Sourcebook}} that he ''writes''.
* Most of the old Traveller RPG material insists on putting the name of the game system in bold. While it looks okay in small doses, it can look a little awful when you have to list all of the Traveller systems, like Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller: The New Era. Similarly ''{{GURPS}}'' (that's right: bold, italic ''and'' all caps). It frequently ends up looking silly given that the system has an enormous volume of {{splat}}books and the writers load them with references to one another.

Generally a {{comic|Books}} and {{webcomic|s}} trope because of its print nature, though in some cases this literary atrocity has been inflicted upon the world in {{film}} and {{video game|s}} form. It generally looks somewhat less silly in comics than in plain text, although this may just be because readers are more [[SeenItAMillionTimes used to seeing it there]]. So much so, some readers just [[BlahBlahBlah ignore]] it entirely.

May be a subtrope of PaintingTheMedium. Inversion of CreepyMonotone. See also BlueText for a related phenomenon on [[TVTropesWiki This Very Wiki]].

* The page on ThisVeryWiki, the manga, and the anime for ''TegamiBachi'' all emphasize Heart, because HeartIsAnAwesomePower.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in GarthEnnis' ''TheBoys''.
* {{Daredevil}}'s and {{Spider-Man}}'s foe The Rose, son of Kingpin, had a henchgirl, Delilah whose power, apparently, was to randomly speak in a different font. And throw tanks. What would happen if she met {{Deadpool}}? The [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Universe]] would [[NegativeSpaceWedgie ex]][[EarthShatteringKaboom plode]].

* An issue of ''Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}}'' had a scene lampshading this. SelfDemonstrating/DoctorDoom was being escorted through an airport by two American security agents, one of whom was CaptainAmerica in disguise. Dr. Doom threatens the two agents and [[ThirdPersonPerson refers to himself in the third person]], with DOCTOR DOOM stylized. Cap asks, "How do you do that... [[PaintingTheMedium talk in all]] capitals like [[MediumAwareness that]]?"

* One ''AlienVersusPredator'' graphic novel began with a scene where some scientists were examining the body of a dead ''Alien'':
--> Scientist #1: "This creatures has an armoured exoskeleton and acidic blood.
--> Scientist #2: "What sort of predator could this have evolved as a defence against?"
* Comics writer GeoffJohns (''TheFlash'', ''JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'', ''Comicbook/GreenLantern'') has a tendency to place the emphasis on words at odd places in a sentence for no apparent reason. It's not that bad, but it does make one scratch their head from time to time. The same goes for {{Frank|Miller}} [[FrankMiller Miller]].
* {{Marvel}}'s [[TheMightyThor Thor]] and Throg (Frog-Thor) speak in a different text, due to them being Gods. Interestingly, Ares doesn't.
* While Marvel's ''UltimateXMen'' is no worse of an offender than any other comic, it features at least one scene of Professor Xavier sending an email liberally sprinkled with italicized words, making him sound like a crazy person on the internet. As well as literally fully capitalising some words. In a widely published essay. And he wonders why people still think he's insane...
* A signature of JackKirby's writing, especially during TheSeventies, and ''especially'' in [[NewGods the Fourth World saga]]. Unlike many examples on this page, The King's choice of emphasis usually ''does'' reflect a fairly natural (if overly ''urgent'') speech cadence.

* ''Fanfic/ThoseLackingSpines'', a parody of ''KingdomHearts'' fanfic:

* One word: Superdictionary.
* In ''AmericanPsycho'' Patrick Bateman tends to ''emphasise'' unusual ''words'' in his ''sentences''. It's not ''exactly'' the same trope, but still ''tends'' to fit the ''spirit'' of the thing.

* JohnHodgman is fond of using ALL CAPS for emphasis. [[CompleteWorldKnowledge WERE YOU AWARE OF IT?]]

* ''Series/TopGear'' Jeremy Clarkson[='=]s speech is the best example of this... in the world.

* ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' has does this constantly ever since its days as a comic book. Authors especially like emboldening nouns and adjectives! ''GratuitousYiddish expressions'' will always be bold as well, schmuck!

** RussellBrand, when dissecting an unflattering Sun article about him in his stand-up routine, drew the audience's attention to this trope. Some time afterwards, the Sun had another article about him, in which they seemingly [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] it, emboldening words such as WAS and HAD.

* ''{{Buckles}}'' is an example of both this and overuse of exclamation points!
* In a variation, in his later years on ''MandrakeTheMagician,'' Lee Falk (who wrote the strip into his 90's!) had... a great... fondness... for ellipses... And also! Sentence fragments! But Mandrake was always [[RuleOfCool awesome]] anyway. The strip's current writer doesn't seem to have these quirks.
* ''MarkTrail'' features BoldInflation almost like a full character, alongside its beautifully drawn animal pictures! Also there's something about humans punching humans in there somewhere. I dunno the details.
* ''PearlsBeforeSwine'' once accused {{Soap Opera}}s of an oral version of this, imitated in-comic by bolding every third word. "We can do that!

* Most of the old Traveller RPG material insists on putting the name of the game system in bold. While it looks okay in small doses, it can look a little awful when you have to list all of the Traveller systems, like Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller: The New Era. Similarly ''{{GURPS}}'' (that's right: bold, italic ''and'' all caps). It frequently ends up looking silly given that the system has an enormous volume of [[{{Splat}} splatbooks]] and the writers load them with references to one another.

* The G-Man from the ''HalfLife'' series speaks like this, emphasizing his otherworldly nature.
* The first VideoGame/ResidentEvil game had it quite clearly. Especially Barry Burton.

* The ''SuperMarioBros.'' series is a repeat offender, most apparent in the VideoGame/PaperMario games.

* In ''Donkey Kong 64'', whenever Funky Kong says K. Rool's name, it is rendered in shaky text.

* Also done in ''{{Okami}}'', and is just as annoying due to [[NinjaButterfly Issun]] wanting to explain everything.
* And we can't forget [[{{Disgaea}} Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!]] who manages to constantly talk in bold font and emphasize whatever he says in a [[LargeHam ridiculously epic manner]] akin to [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs Captain Kirk on Crack]]! As such. fans see it as customary to write his name only in bold font and with the gratuitous use of exclamation points! This is particularly obnoxious because no such thing appears in the game, which just uses voice tracks.

* ''KingdomOfLoathing'' does this to give you hints on one late-game puzzle. You have to insert a series of keys to progress, and if you put in the wrong sequence, you get the message "perhaps if you '''con'''cen'''tra'''te a little harder, you'll figure it out." Sure enough [[spoiler:said sequence is the Konami Code.]]

* ''FinalFantasyVIII'' tends to emphasize certain [[color:blue:[keywords] ]]due to their plot importance rather than context within the sentence.
* Arcturus Mengsk in ''{{Starcraft}}'' and ''Starcraft 2''. Though it doesn't show up in subtitles, you can ''hear'' it in every other word he says.
* And in ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'', there is MAAR, who TALKS like THIS ALL the DAMN TIME.

* Lampshaded in ''[[{{VideoGame/Borderlands2}} Borderlands 2]]'', where one of the loading screen messages notes that TORGUE guns not only fire EXPLOSIVE rounds, but are [[BangBangBang LOUD]] and require EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS.

* [[TVTropesWiki Repeatedly Used On This Very Wiki]], especially when I Am Not Making This Up is invoked. Articles that use BoldInflation:

** Most trope pages with a "Don't do this" disclaimer at the end of the intro - this tends to show up on subjective tropes, or tropes that [[NoRealLifeExamplesPlease shouldn't have Real Life examples]].

** Any time we mention [[BrianBlessed BRIAN BLESSED]] or [[{{Disgaea}} Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!]].
*** [[CiaphasCain CIAPHAS CAIN]], [[FakeUltimateHero HERO OF]] [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} THE]] [[TVTropesWikiDrinkingGame IMPERIUM!]] is similarly treated by many of his adoring fans.

* [[http://www.theonion.com/content/columnists/view/harvey Jackie Harvey]], fake columnist for ''TheOnion'', parodies this trope as it applies to gossip rags.

[[folder:Web'''comics''']]
* ''DominicDeegan'' falls into this all too often. The words in bold tend to be the usual {{pun}}s, and while their emphasis would be weird in normal conversation, it serves to highlight those puns to the more moronic listeners (and the [[ViewersAreMorons more moronic readers]]).
** Though most of the time, the bolded words are completely random, and may just be due to Mookie writing the text by hand, causing people to be emphasizing words in their speech for no reason.
* Spoofed in ''WebComic/SluggyFreelance'': When a mission was announced, the wrong parts of the mission were emphasized (specifically, the part where it was noted that AnyoneCanDie). The speaker immediately berated the sound technician for putting reverb on the wrong part of the statement, to which he replied "Oh, my bad!"
* PlayedForLaughs in ''{{Narbonic}}'' with ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST, who also only speaks his name in ALL CAPS.
** So does [[WebComic/GirlGenius OTHAR TRYGGVASSEN]], ''GentlemanAdventurer!''
* Tycho from ''WebComic/PennyArcade'', who feels the need to use italics ''every second sentence''.
** Talk out the strip, though, and the bold/italicized text works with the emphasis. It's not random, like most of the examples above.
* ''WebComic/DandyAndCompany'' used to suffer from this, perhaps due to the cartoonist's comic book influence.
* T Campbell of ''PennyAndAggie'' has a nasty habit of bolding all the time, and often in the least intuitive places.
** Another weird textual habit of T's (and he has many -- note that there's no period after his first "name") is that he'll ''of''ten i''tal''icize only the par''ti''cular syllable being stressed. This shows up most often in ''{{Fans}}''.
* In a variation, ''TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' uses underlines for emphasis, instead of boldface or italics.
* ''HowIKilledYourMaster'' uses this for emphasised words.
* Taking after video game inspirations, in ''[[MSPaintAdventures MS PAINT ADVENTURES]]'', during the [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001904 INTRODUCTION]] [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002212 OF A]] [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003894 NEW CHARACTER]] a number of IMPORTANT KEYWORDS, including their NAME, will be ENTIRELY CAPITALIZED. This does not happen during normal narration, save for certain game jargon such as the [[WeaponOfChoice STRIFE SPECIBUS]]. On rare occasion simply used for emphasis of a phrase.
** On a related note, ''SweetBroAndHellaJeff'' also does this. Of course, considering [[StylisticSuck the nature of the comic in question]], more often than not the inflated words aren't the ones which would be sensible to emphasise, and even the physical form of the emphasis is inconsistent - sometimes it's boldface, sometimes it's enlarged text, sometimes it's text enlarged even further, and sometimes it's colored.
* ''Webcomic/{{Waterworks}}'': Nearly every single noun is bolded, perhaps as a nod to video games. This is only in the original forum thread version. [[http://mspfanventures.com/log.php?adv=43 The mirror]] eschews all this boldage.
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* ''SquirrelBoy'': Rodney says his cousin is "Good at pretending to be something [he's] not". When his cousin notices the bold inflation, Rodney says he doesn't have any control over it.
* In the ''WeirdAlShow'' ''Fatman'' segments, the narrator does an audio version of this trope with various words being shouted.

----

* Originally, [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} POKéMON]][[hottip:*:For those wondering why the é in POKéMON is left uncapitalized, it's because the font the games use leaves no room for an accent mark over a capital E.]] games wrote the names of every proper noun in all caps. In other words, you play as a POKéMON TRAINER in the KANTO, JOHTO or HOENN region on a quest to get every BADGE from every GYM LEADER and eventually take on the ELITE FOUR, having to go through the likes of TEAM ROCKET, TEAM AQUA, or TEAM MAGMA on the way. Diamond and Pearl ended this practice, but their generation still capitalized the names of individual Pokémon due to backward compatibility with the GameBoyAdvance games, which use the old method of capitalization (for example, Diamond and Pearl would still say PIKACHU instead of Pikachu, but would say Town Map instead of TOWN MAP). Black and White did away with this as well, meaning no more ALL CAPS at all (for example, a pre-release screenshot of the starter selection refers to the fire starter as Tepig instead of TEPIG, and battle screenshots are similarly capitalized).

* In ''VideoGame/{{Tyrian}}'', the datacubes and ship descriptions are often sprinkled with bolded text. Names and values are almost always bolded, but sometimes, it is done for emphasis. For instance: ''The '''Gencore Maelstrom''' is a refined '''Phoenix''' with an additional '''2cm''' of main hull. It also features deluxe plush seating with '''extra-wide armrests''' and '''synth-velour lining'''.''[[hottip:*: Note the content of the bolded text. "Gencore Maelstrom" and "Phoenix", name; "2cm", value; "extra-wide armrests" and "synth-velour lining", sheer emphasis.]]

* In ''JustForFun/PokemonVietnameseCrystal'', the entire game is written in all caps. This makes the nonsensical, TranslationTrainWreck dialogue of the game that must funnier.

* In a ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' story reprinted in "Batman in the Fifties," Bats and Robin reminisced about the various Batarangs they'd used over the years, all while keeping us in suspense about what Batarang X was. This meant that the word "Batarang" appeared multiple times in nearly every panel. Every use of the word batarang in this story filled with batarangs as it discussed every batarang ever used since the invention of batarangs leading up to the introduction of a new batarang bolded every use of the word batarang until you want to kill all the writers with batarangs and never want to hear the word batarang again in your life. (If anything, that last sentence is a ''gross understatement'' of what it's like.)