History Main / WhyWeCantHaveNiceThings

* In 2011, a man named [[https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-prisons-end-special-last-meals-for-inmates-after-ridiculous-request Lawrence Russell Brewer]] was executed. Before he was executed, he was allowed to request a last meal, and he requested two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. The problem was, he didn't eat ''any'' of it. As a result, Texas did away with bespoke last meal requests for its death row inmates.

* Throughout history, there have been stories of initially-peaceful protests where violence/vandalism broke out, either because some of the protestors themselves get out of hand (Type 2) or as a deliberate action by outside agitators to discredit the protests (Type 1). This can lead to governments/law enforcement cracking down on the entire protest, even if many/most of the protestors ''were'' just peacefully marching and not doing anything wrong.
* The Franchise/{{Pokemon}} trading cards were always popular among collectors. In 2021 due to various factors like people trying to sell the cards online for a high price, stores were frequently sold out and people would get into fights against each other since both parties wanted the cards for themselves. The affected stores tried to limit the cards to only one pack per customer, but when that didn't work, they temporarily stopped selling them completely. Everyone else that just wanted the cards to play with or to give to their children were screwed over. A similar phenomena occured when UsefulNotes/McDonalds bundled Pokemon cards with their happy meals where scaplers would buy said happy meals in large amounts just to get the cards, leaving none for actual customers.

* In a episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', Timmy's Dad constantly says "Why can't I have nice things?!" after seeing all the stuff Timmy wished up from [[strike:Wal-Mart]] the Wall-to-Wall Mart. [[RunningGag He then starts saying this about everything else.]]

* Ordering food on the Internet (whether it's take out or groceries) is extremely convenient, but some people have abused online ordering by ordering only one item, like a stick of gum or one serving of french fries. In order to save on money being spent for gas, many establishments now impose a minimum delivery total to ensure that people order at least a few items so that time and gas isn't wasted.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E11WildBartsCantBeBroken Wild Barts Can't Be Broken]]", after the Springfield Isotopes win the pennant and make the playoffs, Homer, Lenny, Carl and Barney go on a drunken spree, vandalizing Springfield Elementary. When Homer goes looking for his car the morning afterwards, Chief Wiggum erroneously concludes that the vandalism is the work of the Springfield Elementary students, and a curfew is enforced against the kids, which makes it illegal for them to be out after sunset. The kids attempt to sneak out to watch a movie at the drive-in, but Chief Wiggum catches them, and so they must clean up a billboard with Wiggum's picture. The kids then resort to a pirate radio show, where they reveal the adults' secrets, and the kids and adults confront each other in a musical number, with Grampa Simpson complaining about the noise, and a curfew banning everyone under 70 years of age from being out on the streets passes by a one-vote margin, with Homer refusing to cast a ballot which could have resulted in a tie vote, which would have deadlocked and defeated the measure.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E18TrilogyOfError Trilogy of Error]]", Lisa shows Homer the grammar robot she built for her science fair. When the robot corrects Homer's "Me like beer" to "I like beer", he pours beer into its mouth, making it short circuit. Lisa then exclaims this phrase almost verbatim in frustration.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Lisa shows Homer the grammar robot she built for her science fair. When the robot corrects Homer's statement "Me like beer" with I like beer", he pours beer into its mouth. Lisa then uses this exact phrase while taking it to be fixed.
** In "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", after the Springfield Isotopes win the pennant and make the playoffs, Homer, Lenny, Carl and Barney go on a drunken spree, vandalizing Springfield Elementary. When Homer goes looking for his car the morning afterwards, Chief Wiggum erroneously concludes that the vandalism is the work of the Springfield Elementary students, and a curfew is enforced against the kids, which makes it illegal for them to be out after sunset. The kids attempt to sneak out to watch a movie at the drive-in, but Chief Wiggum catches them, and so they must clean up a billboard with Wiggum's picture. The kids then resort to a pirate radio show, where they reveal the adults' secrets, and the kids and adults confront each other in a musical number, with Grampa Simpson complaining about the noise, and a curfew banning everyone under 70 years of age from being out on the streets passes by a one-vote margin, with Homer refusing to cast a ballot which could have resulted in a tie vote, which would have deadlocked and defeated the measure.

* Part of the reason why photos of UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden's corpse will not be released to the public is because of fears that it will be used as [[ForumSpeak Garbage Post Kid]] bait. The more Internet savvy or just Internet-''visible'' have long been struggling to keep both good and bad material related to themselves off the Internet due to {{GIFT}} Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't, and sometimes it has [[StreisandEffect the opposite effect]].

* A local New York City newspaper disabled comments on their articles posted on their website. The staff said that it was costing them money to have moderators and algorithms deleting offending comments over and over (with no results) from [[{{GIFT}} people being nasty towards each other and the people in the articles]]. Said people even harassed and threatened people that were victims of crime and even those who were still in high school. The harassment caused people that had information for a news story to not come forward because they didn't want to deal with people looking up their names and location and harassing them.

* In an episode of ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond'', Ray and Robert get into a hilarious fight that involves Bugles, an ugly sweater, and a lamp at Frank and Marie's house. Said parents walk in in the middle of the fight. Marie notices the broken lamp and quotes the trope.

* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Transformers}} G1'', an idyllic meadow where wildflowers bloom and butterflies flutter is devastated when the Autobots and Decepticons start brawling over possession of a pool of electrum one of them discovered there.

* A NoTalkingOrPhonesWarning combined with an advertisement for Advertising/MAndMs employs this concept. In the ad, the M&Ms are in a movie and Red M&M is trying to save several of his fellow M&Ms who are strapped to a TimeBomb. Suddenly, a phone rings, ruining the scene, and Red stalks off in a huff, complaining that this is why they can't make movies. As the clock continues to count down, one of the M&Ms asks worriedly why it's still ticking.

* ''Series/{{Buffyverse}}''. Members of the Watcher's Council have trouble with their charges lack of respect for antiquity.

* In the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "Disharmony", vampire Harmony rips a page out of an ancient book to dispose of her gum, causing Wesley to flip out.

* Part of the reason why photos of UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden's corpse will not be released to the public is because of fears that it will be used as GarbagePostKid bait. The more Internet savvy or just Internet-''visible'' have long been struggling to keep both good and bad material related to themselves off the Internet due to {{GIFT}} Sometimes it works, usually it doesn't, and sometimes it has [[StreisandEffect the opposite effect]].

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchhiking#United_States Hitchhiking]] has been [[http://richardbellush.blogspot.com/2014/06/ virtually dead in the U.S.]] for many years, thanks to "stranger danger" warnings and too many actual incidents where either the hitcher or the hitchee was the victim of robbery, rape, murder or all three. In Canada, some techies created [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitchBOT Hitchbot]], a robot with a camera, a Twitter feed, and AI, to see [[WhatMeasureIsNonHuman if humans could care for robots]]. She was supposed to be transported by whoever found her and left in some public place for the next person to find. In the summer of 2014 she traveled across Canada from Halifax to Victoria, then visited Germany and the Netherlands. When her creators updated her a bit and sent her to hitchhike through the United States, she ended up being stripped and decapitated in Philedelphia.

* During the COVID-19 outbreak, many local businesses enforced a rule that all customers need to wear masks in order to protect each other and the staff. Due to many people being anti-mask for various reasons, those people verbally and physically assaulted employees over the masks rules. [[https://twitter.com/hugostacos/status/1277267379425288197 One business temporarily closed down]] to protect its employees from the very irate customers that were throwing things and using racial slurs when they were told to wear a mask. Another business also had to shut down (after one day of reopening to boot) due to their customers [[https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/11/ice-cream-shop-closes-employee-harassment-coronavirus-distancing-dnt-vpx.wfxt also refusing to wear masks and harass the employees]]. The shutdowns not only affected the employee's livelihoods, but also screws over the nicer customers that just wanted to get food to eat.

* Depending on your definition of what a "nice thing" entails, the U.S. State Department has decided to ban all Americans from [[BileFascination traveling as tourists]] to NorthKorea following the death of [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/06/19/otto-warmbier-dies-days-after-release-from-north-korean-detainment/ Otto Warmbier in June of 2017.]] Warmbier had been traveling with a tourist group, when he decided to take down a propaganda poster in his hotel room, [[FelonyMisdemeanor a crime that earned him a 15-year hard labor sentence in early 2016]] [[JaywalkingWillRuinYourLife and ultimately cost him his life.]]

* According to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKOtPR0DZdU this video]], back in Sweeden in [[TheSixties the 1960s']] this person's grandfather bought a monkey from a sailor that came into his shop one day. After being locked up in it's cage for several months, the monkey attacked and severely wounded its owner when it was finally let out, and the police were called in to deal with the situation, but after they couldn't capture it, they shot and killed it. A few months after the incident, no charges were filed as he had commited no real crimes, so the Sweedish government created new laws that banned any animal that could be classified as an exotic pet within its national borders.

* SoPhiladelphiaause of a few ''bakas'' who feel that it's OK to trash hotel rooms, pee in the hallway, write graffiti, harass other congoers, harass people who are at the hotel for other reasons, throw loud parties, etc., hotels will refuse to host {{Fan Convention}}s. Or else they'll jack up the cost of the rooms, which in turn causes the price of con tickets to go up. So, please. Be considerate when you go to a con. Otherwise, you may find that you don't have a con to go ''to''.

** The WebVideo/InternetHistorian goes over the fall [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Rainfurrest]] in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmULc5VANsw this video]]. The things some of the con goers did to get the con banned can only be described as CrossesTheLineTwice. However in the Q&A, IH also notes that the event organizers are partially to blame as they little to nothing to curb degenerate behavior over years, to the point where a few individuals felt they could behave, well, like animals. Still a few individuals, and an internal saboteur, ruined it for everybody.
* Related to the above, there used to be a longstanding policy among continental European hotels and lodgings to not rent to English football fans due to (somewhat justified) fears of hooliganism.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchhiking#United_States Hitchhiking]] has been [[http://richardbellush.blogspot.com/2014/06/ virtually dead in the U.S.]] for many years, thanks to "stranger danger" warnings and too many actual incidents where either the hitcher or the hitchee was the victim of robbery, rape, murder or all three. In Canada, some naive techies created [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitchBOT Hitchbot]], a clunky robot with a camera, a twitter feed and a slightly smartassed mouth. She was supposed to be transported by whoever found her and left in some public place for the next person to find. In the summer of 2014 she traveled across Canada from Halifax to Victoria, then visited Germany and the Netherlands. Her creators then updated her a bit and thought it would be a nice idea to send her across the United States. [[http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/15741/hitchbot-last-days/ Here is what happened.]]
* Sometimes, because of a few ''bakas'' who feel that it's OK to trash hotel rooms, pee in the hallway, write graffiti, harass other congoers, harass people who are at the hotel for other reasons, throw loud parties, etc., hotels will refuse to host {{Fan Convention}}s. Or else they'll jack up the cost of the rooms, which in turn causes the price of con tickets to go up. So, please. Be considerate when you go to a con. Otherwise, you may find that you don't have a con to go ''to''.

** Speaking of the Olympic Games, Munich 1972 opened with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obPxAMiRiv4 this kind of thing]] and a sweet spirit of lighthearted celebration intended to wipe out the evil memories of the "Nazi Games" and look forward to a future of universal brotherhood. Of course, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4aPBbJuFLA this happened]]. Ironically, part of the reason the terrorists were able to get in in the first place was that Olympic Village security didn't want to be fascists and responding to complaints of "Gestapo tactics" by both athletes and journalists had relaxed their rules, especially at night. The terrorists just pretended to be more drunken Americans climbing the fence after hours.

3) '''The perpetrator is either [[HanlonsRazor ignorant of the outcome or innocent]], instead thinking they are doing what they consider to be the right thing. This largely depends on perspective, as you'll see in the example -- because what is considered fun or nice to one person, may not be felt the same way by another. In fact, this disruption might be a godsend.'''

* Atom's for peace, an Eisenhower administration pet project, gave nuclear reactors to developing countries to start their own nuclear power projects and help boost their economies. Nearly all the recipient countries tried to make nuclear weapons with these reactors and two of them (India and Pakistan) succeeded.

* People who make false rape/sexual harassment charges. The alleged victim would be either looking for sympathy, out to destroy a person's life out of spite, or simply out of a twisted since of humor. All the same, someone's life is usually ruined even if the falsehood comes to light, but with every faker discovered, it becomes harder and harder to take these cases seriously, because the question is 'did the attacker have ill intent, or does the victim think this is a game?'
* The Body Positivity movement. It was intended to help people with physical deformities, either due to injury or born with them, or people who otherwise didn't have the 'ideal' body shape to feel better about themselves. People took the 'a bit of chunk is no big deal' and used it to justify sitting around, eating junkfood and generally just not taking care of themselves. Cut to the 2010s in which the group has re-branded itself the 'Fat Acceptance' movement, preaching about how not stuffing one's face with cake and candy is what they call 'fatphobic', as are any other words against them, despise doctors to the point of vilifying them and throw around 'skinny bitches' as a general insult.