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alt title(s): Train Wreck Syndrome And yet I cannot not watch it. May God have mercy on us all.
There's Hype Aversion, when numerous people's rabid touting of the latest masterpiece deter you from rushing out and buying it. And then there's the reverse phenomenon, when numerous people's rabid panning of the latest uber-stinker, complete with detailed lists on why you should never, ever, ever buy this piece of dung actually fill you with the masochistic urge to rush out and buy it just to see if it's that bad.
It's like hearing about the train wreck of the century: Your better sensibilities are repulsed at the thought of it, and yet part of you wants to see that wreck in all its magnificent destruction. You want to see just how gloriously terrible it must be for all the high-profile people to be expressing their horror over it.
Don't feel ashamed about it; it's the natural foil to our obsession with the best of the best. Just as we want to know how high in brilliance art can rise, we also want to know how low it can sink in sheer awfulness. Plus the fact that reviews spewing bile over the many ways something stinks tend to be far more entertaining to read than reviews extolling the virtues of the latest Oscar Bait.
Distinct from No Such Thing As Bad Publicity in that the criticism is concerning the quality of the work - rather than the content. Compare and contrast Just Here For Godzilla and Watch It For The Meme. Can make the film in question become a Guilty Pleasure for some and, if enough people disagree with the majority, a Cult Classic.
Ironically, if the descriptions of any of the examples below makes you want to check the example out, that is Bile Fascination at work.
Examples:
Anime
Comic Books
- All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder. Opinions are divided on Frank Miller's take of "the goddamn Batman". The reviews of it are unfailingly hilarious, and there is also a minority opinion of it being a genuine parody.
- We love you, Jack Chick!
Fan Fic
Film
- This is the main reason film buffs seem to have for watching films like Battlefield Earth and Batman And Robin.
- By the end of the Battlefield Earth Rifftrax, even the riffers are losing their minds.
- Many people watch Plan 9 From Outer Space after they hear about its So Bad Its Good reputation. They are rarely disappointed. It's even become the centerpiece of the yearly B Movie festival B-Fest, complete with Audience Participation routine (when the hubcap flying saucers appear, throw your paper plates!).
- Thereby proving the alien antagonist's claim that all those of Earth are idiots!
- Online film critic James Berardinelli considers the direct-to-video Zombie! Vs. Mardi Gras the worst film ever. He was chagrined when he learned that his "worst film of all time
 " citation for it was being used to lure customers to buy it.
- Roughly half the films from Mystery Science Theater 3000 qualify - the others are camp classics.
- The Conqueror with John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Infamous for being both bad and deadly (it was filmed downwind from nuclear tests), and very much non-PC... also, John Wayne playing Genghis Khan. Complete with droopy Fu Manchu-style moustache.
- Frank Miller's The Spirit appears to be qualifying.
- Other than the chance to see Jessie Spano naked, this appears to be the only reason anyone has seen Showgirls.
- Uwe Boll practically makes a living creating works that garner Bile Fascination.
- The hype generated by the sheer awfulness of Troll 2 was enough to generate a dedicated full-scale Troll 2 convention.
- Yes, it's Manos! The Hands of Fate!
- Salo Or The 120 Days Of Sodom
- To be fair, this is a critically acclaimed movie based on the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom contrasting the sadism and irreverence of humanity, and is an important film for any student to watch... albeit it is quite disgusting and said film student must have an iron stomach. Think a movie-length 2girls1cup. And don't forget the Brain Bleach.
- Titanic The Legend Goes On, the animated musical fairy tale also applies here. Now that more people are finding out this film actually exists (and thanks to the Nostalgia Critic), more people will probably be seeing it just to see how bad it is.
- Dragon Ball Evolution
- Tequila Body Shots. A bad Joey Lawrence flick set during the Day of the Dead in Mexico. This Troper only watched it because his favorite actress is in it, and by the end was shaking his head wondering how she got roped into doing it. (Helpfully, she explains this in this non-Rifftrax Alternate DVD Commentary of the movie.)
- Birth Rite features attack of the hungry toilet, and is sexploitation at its finest.
- Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life has been widely acknowledged as laughter inducing. It's a story of a boy whose life is ruined by looking at underwear ads online. Or Red Bull overdosing. Features straw feminists.
- The Something Awful review shows a still of the actress playing the concerned mother running around topless in another film.
- The Bratz movie.
- Life as a House is cliché, preachy, and bland as an assembly line house.
- A member of Something Awful attempted this for Shoot Em Up by listing some of the film's Refuge In Audacity moments as being too ridiculous and warning everyone to not see it. The Goons, being Genre Savvy, weren't fooled.
- Leprechaun 4: In Space
Literature
- The infamous Gor series.
- A majority of the (already small) sales of The Legend Of Rah And The Muggles were from curiosity over the Frivolous Lawsuit the author launched against Harry Potter, but soon benefited from this trope once word got out how awful the book was.
- This is the only reason the two sequels to Touched By Venom (a.k.a. "The Venom Cock book") ever saw the light of day. They were much better than Venom, but that's like saying a punch to the gut is much better than a punch to the face.
- Fred "Slacktivist" Clark has been painstakingly tearing apart the Left Behind novels, documenting their bad writing, terrible plotting, and worse theology. After five years of this, he's finished deconstructing the first book.
- This trope is the entire reason why The Eye Of Argon hasn't slipped into obscurity.
- The Eye Of Argon may well be the literary king of this trope. What other novella has become so infamous through its sheer lack of quality?
- One of the activity panels at Anthro Con involved the story being passed around while the people attending took turns doing dramatic readings.
- Twilight has the unique ability to combine Hype Aversion and Bile Fascination. Many people avoid even touching the books, because the Hatedom has hyped its awfulness, so they don't want to inadvertently fall victim to Bile Fascination by accidentally getting into it.
- The Eragon books, formally known as the Inheritance Cycle, have built up a significant trainwreck following after the initial, Flame War-laden Hype Backlash.
- The Film Of The Book Eragon was far worse. No sooner was it out than countless blog entries on how terrible the movie is and how god forbid the readers should waste time on it.
- This is the only reason anyone who knows what they're doing has read The Fifth Sorceress.
- Amazingly enough, one of the sidebar ads on this site uses this as a selling point. The Cat's (remainder of the title illegible, and I am NOT clicking that link) is "maybe the worst fantasy novel ever. Even the author makes fun of it. $2.50."
- In-universe example: In Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, Greg and his dad cannot help but read the gag comic Li'l Cutie each day to see how bad it is.
Live Action TV
- Living Lohan and similar shows attract a little of this.
- Most of the people who have read about what Stargate:Universe is going to be about are in this mode.
Music
- Techno/disco remixes of old songs. Seriously, you wouldn't think something like Walking in Memphis or Can You Feel the Love Tonight would lend themselves to the disco style, but here we are.
Newspaper Comics
- Many, many people (many of whom gather in one central spot) feel this way about the last five years or so of the once-brilliant comic strip For Better Or For Worse, especially after Elizabeth hooked up with Anthony. Basically it's the train-wreck analogy applied to the talent, insight and general humanity of a cartoonist.
Video Games
- This is precisely why Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing sold more than about 5 units.
- Much more: GameSpot reported that it outsold half the "Best Game of 2004 No One Played" nominees. Criteria to enter the category: less than 20,000 copies.
- An Australian magazine, PC Power Play, reviewed an exceptionally bad game. In the review they include the publisher details, which for this game had been misspelled. They received a lot of email pointing this out and asking where they could get this game, despite the extremely low score and scathing review.
- A British magazine, N Gamer, listed Doki Doki Majo Shinpan (a notorious Japan-only Lolicon vehicle made by SNK) as their most played DS game, simply because they'd spent so much time showing everyone how bad and wrong it was. In fact, the game has enjoyed massive exports because of this trope.
- Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Zero Wing are a mixed case of this and Watch It For The Meme. Any gamer worth his/her salt has watched these memes or even actually played them, whether by image macros, Newgrounds or Youtube Poop.
- Though Zero Wing is actually a pretty good game.
- Daikatana
- Limbo Of The Lost
- Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 - This is the entire reason Pokecapn's crew did their famous Let's Play of it.
Tabletop Games
- After Darren MacLennan and Jason Sartin reviewed the RPG FATAL, declaring it the worst game of all time, in no uncertain terms, numerous people became interested in seeing "if it really was that bad", which led to RPG.net declaring it the "Game That Must Not Be Named".
- Wraeththu attracts attention for similar reasons. Specifically the whole "sea-anemone-penis" thing.
Web Comics
- Sonichu. Pretty much its entire "fanbase" reads it just because it is so bad.
- Hell, ANYTHING having to do with Christian Weston Chandler, be it the strip itself, his angry/pathetic Youtube videos, the real-life stories about him, the infamous "Bob Walks In" clip, the fact that there's an entire wiki dedicated to making fun of him...He has a real "talent" for making you almost feel sorry for him, then doing something that throws that right out the window.
- Including, but not limited to, sexual harassment, cybering with a 13 year old boy (albeit unkowningly), refusing to associate with other autistics, sexism (both ways), racism, antisemitism, disrespecting and mooching off of his parents for 27 years, blaming every single thing that goes wrong with his life on his autism, insulting a mentally retarded young girl who was probably the only actual fan on Sonichu on the entire Internet, using 9/11 as an opportunity to mock a troll... yeah you get the idea. You want to know more now, don't you?
Western Animation
- This is just about the only reason to watch animations by Dingo Pictures.
The Internet
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