A list of tropes based on how the viewer/reader/player sees things from a critical perspective.
Tropes:
- Accentuate the Negative: The review focuses only on the negative aspects of the work and barely says anything of the work's merits if at all.
- Bad Review Threat: Threatening to give someone's business an overly negative review.
- Better by a Different Name: Saying that a work is either a shoddy ripoff of a pre-existing work or a suckier version of a more recent work.
- Bias Steamroller: Critics let personal biases affect their reviews.
- Broke the Rating Scale: A critic establishes that they find what they're currently reviewing exceptionally poor in quality by giving a rating that exceeds how low the scores they give usually go.
- Can't Take Criticism: A character hates being criticized to the point that even receiving the smallest bit of criticism will enrage them.
- Caustic Critic: The critic who has a tendency to give negative reviews.
- Comedy Ghetto: Comedies aren't considered by critics to be works worthy of merit.
- Compassionate Critic: The critic criticizes a person's work solely because they want the person to do better.
- Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: People complain about a work that they haven't even seen, which doesn't usually reflect well on professional critics.
- Complaining About Things You Haven't Paid For: Instances where someone gets something free of charge, but finds dissatisfaction in it just like if they've been ripped off.
- Constructive Criticism: Criticizing a work because you want the creators to improve it by learning from their mistakes.
- Critical Dissonance: Audiences and professional critics differ heavily in their take on a work.
- Critic Breakdown: A critic comes across a work so traumatizing or aggravating that they freak out with rage or sink into depressed exhaustion.
- Critic-Proof: A work does well in spite of being savaged by critics.
- Damned by Faint Praise: A work is politely insulted by only praising a minor aspect.
- Dear Negative Reader: The creator responds to criticism by insulting the audience.
- Deliberate Flaw Retcon: The creator tries to deflect criticism by claiming that the work's flaws were on purpose.
- Parody Retcon: The creator tries to excuse the work's flaws by claiming that it's not intended to be serious.
- Don't Like? Don't Read!: The creator responds to negative reviews with the rationalization that the reviewers shouldn't be watching works that they dislike.
- Four-Point Scale
- Harsh Talent Show Judge: A highly critical talent show judge.
- He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: A critic receives backlash for giving a negative review of a well-liked work.
- Hire the Critic: A creator hires someone who panned their work to participate in the production of their next project.
- Honest Advisor
- Idiosyncratic Ratings Scale: A critic has a unique, creative way of rating what's being reviewed.
- It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: It's argued that a work doesn't need to win awards to be considered good.
- Let's See YOU Do Better!
- Mid-Review Sketch Show
- Not Screened for Critics: Critics aren't allowed to review a work until after it has been released, which doesn't usually indicate any confidence on the creators' part that the work is good.
- Quality by Popular Vote
- Quote Mine
- Review: Evaluating a fictional work in a public manner.
- Review Blog
- Review Ironic Echo
- Reviewer Stock Phrases
- Reviewer Standard Comparisons
- Reviews Are the Gospel: People judge a work's quality by someone's review of the work rather than by their own viewpoints.
- Sacred Cow: A work is so popular and well-regarded that saying anything negative about it is a good way to make everyone pissed off at you.
- Sexiness Score: Ranking, rating or scoring a character's attractiveness and sexual desirability.
- Straw Critic: Critics are stereotyped as being perfectionists and impossible to please.
- Take That, Critics!: The creator responds to criticism by insulting their critics.
- Video Review Show
- Would Rather Suffer
