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[[quoteright:302:[[Webcomic/SandraAndWoo https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sandra_and_woo_insult_webcomic_authors_capture_1.PNG]]]]

->'''Stan:''' You see, Mabel, those monsters are just tiny clay figures moved around one frame at a time by an anti-social shut-in.\\
'''Soos:''' Those people are called "animators".
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E6LittleGiftShopOfHorrors Little Gift Shop of Horrors]]" ("Clay Day")

The author wants to portray their character as a loser but doesn't want to offend people in any particular occupation. So they make the character's occupation their own. This allows for a lot of SelfDeprecation, which is probably the whole point. It also means that the parody will be much better informed than one from someone [[ShallowParody who knows less about the profession]] -- being on the inside means they include anecdotes and details that other scientists or teachers or priests or whatever will find greater recognition and (hopefully) humour in.

The loser cartoonist [[TerribleArtist can't draw]], the writer [[HerCodeNameWasMarySue has an obviously Mary-Sue version of him/herself]], or some other type of StylisticSuck. These characters may also be prone to extreme WritersBlock, which can justify the times that they aren't working/don't have a job.

This '''must''' be where a character's career is the same as the ''author'' of the work. A hack novelist main character in a novel would be an example, but a hack novelist in an animated show or a cartoonist in a novel would not be.

Compare AcceptableTargets, SelfDeprecation, WriteWhatYouKnow, and especially WritersSuck.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The two protagonists in ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'' start off not so much as losers but as utterly normal high schoolers. Mashiro's uncle, [[PosthumousCharacter who is dead when the story starts]], fits this trope a lot more.
* The main lead of ''Manga/{{Takamagahara}}'' is so bad at creating manga that it makes people who read it physically ill.
* One of the main characters (Harima) of ''Manga/SchoolRumble'' is an amateur manga artist whose work was once featured in a weekly magazine a la ''Shonen Jump''. His manga is... ''satisfactory'', but people prefer his classmate Karasuma's comic which is also published in said magazine.
* Creator/IzumiTsubaki is an established shoujo manga artist and in ''Manga/MonthlyGirlsNozakiKun'' she takes light-hearted jabs at her own profession. Nozaki making all his male characters [[OnlySixFaces look alike]] pokes fun at her own tendency to reuse the same character designs in her manga, with Nozaki's character design itself being one that shows up prominently in ''Manga/OresamaTeacher'' and ''Magic Touch''.
* In ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'', the gorilla author is portrayed as a total loser, and the non-anthropomorphic gorillas working at ''Jump'' are shown to be overworked and throwing every cliche they can think of at the series they're writing.
* ''[[Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa Kirby Of The Stars]]'' the anime has an episode dedicated to how animations are made; the whole cast then tries to make an anime episode, and it ends up being based on the show's usual episodes, only with Dedede in Kirby's role and lots of bad drawing and lines.
* While ''Manga/ComicGirls'' is a {{seinen}} series, its author Kaori Hanzawa previously wrote for the {{Shojo}} demographic. The cast of ''Comic Girls'' has Koyume, a {{shojo}} manga artist, which pokes fun at some of Hanzawa's own idiosyncracies as a shōjo author. For example, their common inability to draw men and having to resort to passing {{bifauxnen}} for a PrettyBoy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* Jon Arbuckle, ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'s owner. Over time, the loser aspect completely overshadowed the fact that he even had a job. In fact, the only times Jon was mentioned as being a cartoonist were in [[http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1978/ga780619.gif the first strip]], [[http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1984/ga841203.gif these]] [[http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1984/ga841204.gif two]] strips that began the Christmas 1984 {{Story Arc}}, and [[http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/2010/ga100502.gif this]] 2010 {{Sunday Strip}}.
* Stephen Pastis, the cartoonist responsible for ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'', frequently [[AuthorAvatar inserts himself into the strip]] as a 40-year-old smoking loser cartoonist who [[{{ButtMonkey}} often gets abused by the other characters]], especially Rat. See [[http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2010/11/21 this strip]] for an example.
** Usually this is after a bad pun it took a whole Sunday strip to set up. One had Rat not liking a poster of Mia Hamm or a two-tone green Texas A&M flag. Why? "Because I Do Not Like Green Aggs and Hamm!" he screams in exasperation.
** He also does some Creator ''Former'' Career Self-Deprecation, as he started the cartoon after he quit his job as a lawyer. Yes, there are {{evil lawyer joke}}s.
* Darby Connley was portrayed as an '''extreme''' one of these in [[http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6782/168/1600/getfuzzy21831960060417.gif these]][[http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6782/168/1600/getfuzzy2006106560419.gif three]] [[http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6782/168/1600/getfuzzy2006043053222.gif strips]] of his own ''ComicStrip/{{Get Fuzzy}}''.
* A great many FrancoBelgianComics portray comic authors and artists as wretched slaves toiling away to produce art under the iron rule of a heartless, evil editor obsessed with productivity.
* In one Belgian ''Clifton'' comic, the bad guys capture a second boy along with their [[RichKids rich kid]] mark. The boss hopes for a second ransom, until he learns that the boy's father makes comic books.
* Creator/AlanMoore's run on ''ComicBook/{{Supreme}}'' includes the character of Billy Friday, not just a comic book writer but specifically an egotistical English writer of American superhero comics with a penchant for DarkerAndEdgier revamps of old characters. For some, however, Billy Friday is more of a parody of Creator/GrantMorrison than a self-parody.
* {{ComicStrip/Popeye}} recreates [[NoahsStoryArc Noah's Ark]] in one comic storyline. With a somewhat confused grasp of biology, he decides to embark "Two pigs, two cows, two plumbers, two milkmen..." and so on. He end the list with "... and ''one'' cartoonist, because I don't want them to reproduce".
* Inverted in ''{{ComicStrip/Foxtrot}}'', which frequently has characters holding newspapers with headlines like "Cartoonist Dates Supermodel", "Cartoonist Addresses U.N.", "Cartoonist Awarded Nobel Prize", etc.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/AllegroNonTroppo'', all of the animation is supposedly being made by one lowly cartoonist shackled to his desk.
* ''Film/AllIsTrue'' is a film about Creator/WilliamShakespeare's retirement, directed by and starring [[Creator/KennethBranagh Sir Kenneth Branagh]]. Dropping by to reminisce, Shakespeare's old patron the Earl of Southampton (played by [[Creator/IanMcKellen Sir Ian McKellen]]) complains to Shakespeare that they'll give ''anyone'' a knighthood these days.
* ''Film/DowntonAbbeyANewEra'': When Mary agrees to let a film crew use Downton in order to use the money to fix the roof, there is much talk mourning how the great estate is in such dire straights that they have to let actors in (The ''Downton Abbey'' series itself filmed in and around the real-life Highclere Castle). Many of the British upper crust characters, all played by highly-regarded British actors, find acting shameful, with the worst offender being [[Creator/MaggieSmith Dame Maggie Smith's]] [[DeadpanSnarker Violet Crawley]], whose actress has the longest and most-lauded acting career of the cast.
* ''Film/ThePlayer'': A Hollywood movie poking fun at Hollywood, even with collaboration of A-list actors!
* ''Film/{{Deadpool|2016}}'' remarks to Colossus that the gigantic X-Mansion seems really empty... as if the film could only afford two X-men. He also comments that he's confused who's supposed to be playing Professor X, and twice makes jokes about his appearance in ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Creator/AgathaChristie: In RealLife Christie had no illusions about her career, calling herself a "sausage machine" churning out a book or more a year. In her books she created an AuthorAvatar, Ariadne Oliver, an obvious Christie stand-in who made fun of herself and her career.
** In ''Literature/DeathInTheClouds'' it wasn't Ariadne Oliver, but a one-off character, but the trope was the same. The mystery author complains about how hard it is to write good mystery stories and how he struggles to avoid cliches like TheWatson and how he pumps out the same old stuff because his audience demands it.
** In ''Literature/MrsMcGintysDead'' Ariadne admits that she screwed up a plot point about a poison dart blowpipe, making the blowpipe only a foot long when they actually need to be four feet long. Agatha Christie actually did this in ''Death in the Clouds''.
** Ariadne really goes to town in ''Literature/CardsOnTheTable''. She outright calls her many successful novels "tripe" and frequently makes jabs about herself and her writing habits. She admits to recycling plots and sometimes resorting to NeverOneMurder to stretch out a story that isn't making it to book length. She admits to using {{Inspector Lestrade}}s ("idiotic police inspectors") to make her detective look good.
** In ''Literature/ThePaleHorse'', Ariadne complains about how hard it's getting to come up with new plot twists after writing fifty-odd novels.
** In ''Literature/ThirdGirl'' Ariadne says that she doesn't like her FunnyForeigner detective, who is a Finn, and admits that she knows nothing about Finland and is always making mistakes that readers call her out about. This of course was the same with Christie and her FunnyForeigner Belgian detective, Literature/HerculePoirot.
* [[Creator/KurtVonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]] repeatedly uses the character Kilgore Trout, a failed sci-fi writer, in his novels as an AuthorAvatar of the self-deprecating variety, though Vonnegut has admitted that Trout is also influenced by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon.
* Literature/RepairmanJack: The character P. Frank Winslow, who is an AuthorAvatar to the author, named F. Paul Wilson. He, as well as authors in general, is described as "needy". His whole character is basically here for this purpose.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov loved this trope; the "George and Azazel" stories almost always start with George dismissing his writer friend's career. (And said writer is Asimov himself.)
* One of the protagonists in horror writer Brian [=McNaughton=]'s ''The Throne of Bones'' is an eccentric horror writer who pokes fun at his own profession.
* One of the main characters in ''Literature/TheMarkAndTheVoid'' is a failed literary author and sketchy conman with the same name as the author of the book.
* The main character of "Final Reward" by Creator/TerryPratchett is a fantasy novelist whose girlfriend claims, with some justification, that he writes fantasy because he can't handle the real world.
* Creator/JasperFforde writes an AuthorAvatar into ''Literature/TheGreatTrollWar'' that the heroes turn to for help because they need someone to come up with wild, off-the-wall ideas to figure out just what the evil wizard's true goals are:
-->'We need someone who can think bigger and more boldly than us. Someone who has fanciful notions and weird screwball ideas that fly in the face of logic and reasoning.'\\
'What about — I don't know — a fantasy author?' suggested Tiger. 'They're pretty unhinged and come up with all kinds of weird and crazy stuff. Maybe they can help.'
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* An extreme example on ''Series/ThirtyRock'': Jack directly parodies Creator/AlecBaldwin's career. An approximate quotation:
-->"And it doesn't matter if you do movies about important things like sick puppies and the Holocaust... the moment you go on TV, nobody will ever take you seriously again."
** There's also Liz Lemon, who is basically Creator/TinaFey but with a crappy love life and no respect from her peers. The other writers in the show are depicted as frat boys with the maturity of 12-year-olds.
* On ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', Chuck Shirley, pen name "Carver Edlund" after writer/producers Jeremy Carver and Ben Edlund, is a loser prophet and a writer. Then again, the last episode of the fifth season implies that he could actually be God, so...
* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' did this a bit, belittling both Jerry's stand-up act and writing for a sitcom.
** ''Series/CurbYourEnthusiasm'' does the same for Creator/LarryDavid's career, with the added bonus that Larry says that his character is very similar to his real life, just that he is slightly less awkward in social situations.
*** In overlap, Creator/JasonAlexander said he could not get a good handle on his ''Seinfeld'' character, George, until he realized that Creator/LarryDavid had been subconsciously mocking himself.
* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' Jean-Luc Picard (that is, Patrick Stewart) has commented a few times that he isn't much of an actor.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Podcast]]
* ''Podcast/NerdistPodcast'': The antagonist of the ''Franchise/{{Futurama}}'' special "Radiorama" is a soundwave-like creature named Klaxxon, voiced by podcast host Creator/ChrisHardwick, the result of fifty-eight billion excessive podcasts ("most of which featured Chris Hardwick") being tossed away in the 21st century, who threatens all of Earth by playing all its podcasts at once, even though the force of the sound waves would destroy the world. Earth is more scared about having to listen to podcasts than the destruction.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* When Guybrush meets the talent agent Palido Domingo in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'':
-->'''Domingo:''' I make my living off the hard work and talent of others.
-->'''Guybrush:''' [[AnachronismStew You're project leader on a computer game?]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Gary, the main character from ''Webcomic/MenageA3'', is portrayed like this. However, this isn't his main job, but a side talent. His actual job gets minimal importance, while his drawing is ''supposed'' to be a loser attribute. It just so happens that several potential love interests find it an endearing or useful talent.
* Zach Wiener of ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'' likes to portray himself as this, eg. [[https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1916#comic "That's Uncle Weiner. He became a cartoonist. So now he's dead to us."]]
* Kaitlyn Hu of newspaper-style ''WebComic/{{Precocious}}'', wants to be a cartoonist. Everyone else tells her it's a [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2012/03/30 terrible idea.]]
-->'''Wen:''' So I thought you were supposed to be smart.
-->'''Kaitlyn:''' Cartoonists are smart. [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/copperroad/2012/01/16 They're just not rational.]]
* In [[http://www.ladiesinwaitingcomic.co.uk/comic/3316a/ this]] ''Webcomic/LadiesInWaiting'' strip, Zoë tries to think of a future career that requires no effort. She comes up with "a cartoonist".
* In ''Webcomic/TheWhiteboard'' when [[AuthorAvatar Doc]] opens a time portal back to the time of the first strip he shouts at his past self, "Webcomics are not a viable career choice!"
* In an [[http://www.unconventional-comic.com/2016/03/bunch-of-hacks/ UnConventional]] strip where Bork Con is having budget problems Veronica suggests they save money by only inviting webcomic artists if all their other guests say no. "They're a bunch of hacks."
* [[http://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2010 This]] ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics'' strip consists of jokes at the expense of webcartoonists.
* ''Webcomic/SabrinaOnline'' and its predecessor ''ComicStrip/SabrinaAtSeeCAD'' both use AuthorAvatar Eric Squirrel to make these jokes regularly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Egoraptor portrays himself as a SmallNameBigEgo in the ''WebAnimation/AwesomeSeries''. In ''WebAnimation/GirlchanInParadise'', his AuthorAvatar is ''extremely lazy''[[note]]his stage background is a single line representing the horizon[[/note]], he is defeated as easily as most other members of the QuirkyMinibossSquad, and he gets the worst beating of any character in the series.
* Being the MetaGuy that he is, WebVideo/{{Phelous}} regularly cracks jokes about being a hack reviewer prone to overusing running gags and pointless cameos. He even reviewed [[WebVideo/MortalKomedy his own web series]] once.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* ''WebVideo/DrGlaucomflecken'' portrays doctors in general as neurotic, maladjusted, prone to petty feuding and bullying, and utterly ignorant about everything outside their narrow fields of specialization. Ophthalmology is portrayed as the worst of the bunch, who has forgotten everything about what he calls "body medicine", refuses to do anything after 4 PM and dumps most of his work onto his scribe. The series creator, Dr. Will Flanary, is a practicing ophthalmologist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "A Glitch is a Glitch" (done entirely in 3D CGI by guest animator David O'Reilly), Finn gets tired of trying to do animation on a computer, and complains, "I don't have the patience for this animation junk. Whoever does this must have no life whatsoever." Then he [[AuthorPowers inexplicably punches himself in the face]]. This joke became even more HilariousInHindsight when O'Reilly quit the animation industry out of his own frustrations with the profession.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddParents'', Timmy decides to become a film director in order to impress Trixie, and succeeds ([[SoBadItsGood albeit accidentally]]) at winning a Dimmy Award for Best Comedy. Trixie continues to ignore him, however, explaining that "comedy is the lowest form of entertainment--next to animation".
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In the "Clay Day" segment of "Little Gift Shop of Horrors", Mabel has a fear of StopMotion movie monsters, and Stan tries to explain to her that they're just the work of an animator, whom he calls an "anti-social shut-in". (Bear in mind that Stan is voiced by the show's creator, an animator himself.) When they do meet the Creator/RayHarryhausen-like animator, they discover that [[spoiler:he used black magic to make his creatures come to life, and has become enslaved by his creations. He's offended by the ''very idea'' that he was ever actually an animator, proclaiming that anyone who puts in that kind of effort is a masochist. The CreditsGag cryptogram confirms that this is true of all forms of animation.]]
* Andy from ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' is another example. There was even an episode dedicated to the fact that Andy was broke, couldn't get any of his cartoons published, couldn't even get anyone to ''understand'' his cartoons, and was working a dead-end job that barely even put food on the table.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', the creator of ''JustForFun/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'' is betrayed and turned into a ''bum'', though a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, eventually. The guy who does the ripping off, Roger Myers Jr., although extremely successful, is shown to be amoral, cruel to his employees (insulting them and [[GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity sacking them on a whim]]) and utterly uninterested in the quality of the series as long as ratings and profits are high. The writers are all from Ivy League universities, which gives them attitudes of superiority but are often idle about their work. Other famous "artists" are near-universally egotists or hacks, such as [[HatesTheJobLovesTheLimelight Krusty]].
** In the episode "Homer To The Max": Homer says that networks love animation because they don't have to pay the actors squat. Ned Flanders then comes in with a different voice actor and comments that they could be replaced at any time and no one could tell the difference.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'':
** When the kids are on a bus during Career Day, Milo looks through the jobs listed.
-->'''Milo:''' Some of these don't even sound like real jobs! Animator? I think it's a typo!
** One of the later episodes once again has [[Music/WeirdAlYankovic Milo]] saying, "Wow... I am not a very good actor."
[[/folder]]
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