So Bad It's Horrible - Television Tropes & Idioms

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"This doesn't even qualify as shit! This is like the equivalent of shit taking a shit!"

— James Rolfe on Superman 64.

"I said a bad movie— not an abortion."

— Lois Griffin

An ordinarily awful work can be So Bad It's Good, becoming popular and genuinely liked because of its unintentional comedy value. Others are far worse. They not only wrap around the awfulness scale to good, they keep on continuing all the way back down into awful again. These don't attract proper fandoms and aren't enjoyed, as such, but draw some attention out of a perverse sense of fascination. Prolonged exposure can cause wooziness and weakening of the grasp on reality.

Works so bad they're horrible are found in nearly all media, but the basic "I can't watch, but I can't look away" properties are constant enough for them to be united under one name. For all intents and purposes, such strokes of ungenius are unique: the way they fit together (or fall apart) is beyond reproducibility.

The distinction between these, good bad works and ordinary bad works is a bit fuzzy and partially a matter of taste. If it's impossible to imagine a parody of it, it very likely counts.

If these works have any redeeming quality, it lies solely in their reviews; these works allow a reviewer to exercise writing skills to the fullest. Another way of knowing that it's So Bad It's Horrible is when the reviews are uniformly more entertaining than the work in question. Occasionally, you'll see one (or miraculously, two) slices of Ham And Cheese to enjoy.

Sturgeons Law states that a large chunk of anything in a given medium will tend toward this quality. The challenge is separating those from the ones that aren't. If you plan to seek out these works anyway, be sure to wear a helmet, or you might kill yourself from banging your head against the wall repeatedly. As an alternative, you can always choose to ignore its existence, saving you the trouble of seeking it out in the first place. But not from criticizing it, apparently.

Most Old Shame falls under here, and even if it doesn't, the author usually thinks it does.

Just remember, that while these works may seem to insult the very media they appear in, they serve an essential purpose: after all, without the "0", a perfect "10" would have little meaning.

As the common misconception of Sturgeons Law dictates, simply bad material is all too common. However, plenty of things can be bad without fitting this trope. Regardless, the "really bad" stuff has been broken down by medium. Please remember to add only outstanding examples of suckitude to each of the individual categories. Dislike by you and some people you know does not a So Bad It's Horrible make. This is not Complaining About Shows You Don't Like. Popular series are almost by their very nature excluded from this trope, see Hype Backlash instead. Also, do not start edit wars. If somebody challenges a claim, do not try to pull the "it's only you" crap. Civility is not something Darth Wiki allows a pass on. But hey, it's not like you're going to heed this warning, right? Good thing people clean up the mess.

Contrast So Cool It's Awesome, So Okay It's Average. If everything an artist produces is So Bad It's Horrible, then they're Giftedly Bad.

Important Note: Merely being offensive in its subject matter is not enough to justify a work as So Bad It's Horrible. Hard as it is to imagine at times, there is a market for all types of deviancy (no matter how small a niche it is). It has to fail to appeal even to that niche to qualify as this.