Hype Backlash - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Reimagining" of older or classic works. They're often entertaining in their own right, but no way are they going to meet the hype for most people, particularly the original fans, who will likely end up tearing its credibility limb from limb. Examples:
- Sci-Fi Channel's versions of Battlestar Galactica and
- Dune
- The series Star Trek Enterprise, whose difference from other installments was both its selling point and its Achilles' heel.
  - Some would say the same for its similarity, especially to Voyager.

Close Big Ones

Anime and Manga in general, especially in the wake of the Toonami and Tokyopop booms and the prominence of the fandom as a semi-organized entity.
- Any long anime that achieves mainstream success in English-speaking countries; many of them end up Deader Than Disco.
Neon Genesis Evangelion was hailed as the greatest anime of all time until about 5 years ago, when some of the people who turned to watch it didn't like that the entire cast needed therapy, or thought the ending was nonsensical.
- For that matter, every fandom says that their favourite anime is "the greatest anime of all time".
- True but NGE was given much acclaim by pretty much anyone who watched it the first time. Critics and fans alike loved the show which is a stark contrast from other animes.
Haruhi Suzumiya, to the point where certain Image Boards immediately brand anyone that likes it a bandwagon jumper... even though these communities are themselves bandwagons and pride themselves as such.
- Haruhi Suzumiya the character gets a good deal of this. Hearing how much fans absolutely adore her before watching the show has led more than a few people to be put off by her. It doesn't help that her fandom has a tendency to shove the character down people's throats.
  - It really doesn't help that Haruhi herself always looks so damn smug.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, not helped by the fandom's tendency to USE THE CAPSLOCK KEY!!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!!
Code Geass R2 is a bizarre case; on the ANN website, the thing is hailed as a masterpiece; on other popular forums, such as Animesuki and Toonzone, the reviews are lower. Notable because, within a short space of time, it went from being popular to being a popular target for bloggers mocking its massive plot holes and over-fondness of increasingly bizarre twists. By the end of R2's Japanese run, this was so pervasive that it had become trendy to defend the show from its detractors. The backlash got backlashed.
Soul Eater seems to be heading this direction. Even though it's a solid series, a lot of very stupid fans are vocal about how it's the GREATEST SERIES EVAR and are putting lots of people off of it. It doesn't help that the premise is initially a fairly formulaic shonen anime, leading many newcomers to call it "just another Naruto."
- Shonen fighting anime often fall into this for various reasons, whether it be length, no reasonable explanation for new abilities, or just the overall style of these shows.
- This combined with Fan Dumb appears to be the primary reason why most Naruto haters are initially turned off of it.
FLCL, aka Fooly Cooly: Deeply-symbolic, and you would need to take several graduate-level classes to appreciate all of its artistry. Or grossly-overrated fap fodder, full of dated parodies that weren't particularly funny when they were current. Depends on who you ask.
- Others will just shove you in front of a screen and go "Watch. This. Show." They will only mention the guitars if absolutely necessary.

Close Anime & Manga

Dane Cook after his second comedy CD "Retaliation" shipped platinum. Those who've started listening to him afterward describe him as "an unfunny joke thief who jumps and screams a lot."
Abbott & Costello's "Who's On First" routine. A bit that has transcended comedy and become a pop culture touchstone. Even people who've never heard of A & C will at least recognize "THIRD BASE!". So naturally, when modern audiences see the routine in full, the usual response is "That's it?"
Dave Chappelle's "I'm Rick James, Bitch" sketch became an entrenched meme long before most people saw it. Many of those who saw it after the hype were majorly underwhelmed.
- Also happened with Samuel L Jackson Beer.
The United Kingdom a) is one big Unpleasable Fanbase and b) takes its comedy very seriously. Ricky Gervais is a recent victim, as is David Mitchell for his ubiquity on every panel show the nation has to offer (even if he's the best thing on said panel show, as is often the case).

Close Comedy

Neil Gaiman. There was a style change between earlier books written/co-written by Gaiman and American Gods.
Scott Pilgrim is a very fun, quirky series. Unfortunately, it's being touted as some kind of revolution in the comics industry when it's mostly a well-constructed webcomic in print form. Unique in the world of executive-run comic pages - but the kind of quirky, in-jokey humor that's been available on the web for years.
Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns were two of the major comic books credited with bringing a more adult, mature sensibility to superhero comics in the mid-1980s. However, like many things that have been hyped to Jupiter, new readers may find them off-putting, impenetrable, or dated; and the nature and tone of them both means that some may find them works to be admired for their historical significance more than enjoyed. It doesn't help that the 'mature' sensibility both are credited with creating was arguably closer to 'adolescent', since many subsequent creators who followed in their footsteps missed the point entirely and decided that 'mature' meant books full of pointless sex, graphic violence, and swearing.
A lot of Grant Morrison's work falls into this trope for some people.

Close Comic Books

300. For those who didn't like it, the world is getting quite disenfranchising.
Titanic. It won quite a few Oscars and was popular when it came out; but it is a long film whose narrative core is a love story about Star Crossed Lovers on the Titanic. The love story is so basic and archetypal, and so much the focus, that the film borders on epic Real Person Fic romance with Original Characters. (It is possible that one or both of the leads are Black Hole Sues.) If you like that sort of thing (and many do), it's a beautiful and moving film. If you don't, it's Snark Bait.
Cloverfield. Many of the problems of The Blair Witch Project. The good news is, they knew better than to promote it as real. The bad news was that the Mind Screw was cranked to 11.
The Blair Witch Project - for some, effective psychological horror. But it was deliberately amateurish-looking, and its resolution had some Gainax Ending in it. That it was promoted as real when it was fiction didn't help. Neither did the stories of some fainting in fear and being terrified to leave the cinema after viewing it, for those with stronger constitutions at least.
The Star Wars prequels, especially Episode 1. If Jar Jar was in any other sci-fi movie, he would have been considered mildly annoying. Some hated it, but most fans were very rabid that Star Wars could not go wrong. (The Ewok complaint came long after "Return of the Jedi" came out, due to saturation.) Episode 2 seemed to be generally more reasonable in fan criticism, but critics were less kind. By Episode 3 the general consensus was "let's hope it turns out okay", and probably due to that mindset it is the best received.
- The original Star Wars trilogy can also suffer from this trope; thirty-odd years of intense critical and fan appreciation can make watching the movies a little disillusioning for someone who didn't grow up with them. Or even for someone who did.
Citizen Kane tends to suffer from this these days. Although a fine movie and a worthy and significant achievement in cinema, it suffers from this partly due to a well-known ending (avoid the link if you want to avoid a spoiler, incidentally), partly due to sheer age, partly due to the fact that many of the techniques and stylistic functions it pioneered (some refined from forgotten silent films) have been copied so many times they're a bit old-hat, but mostly because almost every film critic ever loudly insists that it's the greatest movie ever made and say no movie made before or since will ever compare to it. Welles himself wasn't that impressed with the film (he was much prouder with his adaptation of The Trial).
Many of the big Oscar-winning movies of the last few years tend to suffer from this, in fact. This is partly because there are few bigger forms of hype in culture than the Oscars, and movies which sweep the awards tend to provoke increased interest in them as a result of their victory, and are often accompanied by widespread critical acclaim and / or massive amounts of promotion and PR. Given the nature of this trope, many of the people who see these movies are naturally going to leave the theatre or eject the DVD wondering exactly what the big deal was. It doesn't help that, in recent years in particular, a formula used by studios for making movies "designed" to be nominated for Oscars has become increasingly apparent, which means that some audiences watching these movies might find them a bit samey and obvious in their intentions, and Hype Aversion to such films can result.
- American Beauty won in 2000. Widely acclaimed as one of the finest achievements in American cinema at the time of its release, many viewers today find it a slightly pretentious movie with numerous Narmy moments.
- The movie adaptation of Chicago. An entertainingly cynical but slight musical which - even more perplexingly than the above - was apparently the Best Picture of 2002 according to Oscar.
- Crash (2004), a regular trope-o-rama... and not the good kind, either. It was initially hailed by as a meticulously plotted and provocative commentary on racism. It even won "Best Picture" pretty much entirely on that basis. When the film won, people criticized the Academy for not giving the award to Brokeback Mountain, which had almost unanimously swept every other award ceremony. Crash, as many would find out, had predictable plot twists (everyone learns not to be racist!), shoddy writing, characters that were two dimensional.
  - Brokeback Mountain is itself an example. One suspects that a lot of critics only lavished awards on it so that they would appear progressive.
- The Departed. It was a pretty good, well-made, nicely suspenseful little mob movie, which to the bemusement of many won Best Picture of 2006. Given that a lot of reaction from critics and fans was "good, but not quite up there with Martin Scorsese's finest works", many suggested that the real reason the movie won was because the Academy was finally throwing Scorsese a Best Director Oscar that was widely considered long overdue, even if the work itself wasn't nearly as good as the better films for which the Academy had previously snubbed Scorsese for films (that for the most part are today considered much more inferior).
- Slumdog Millionaire had morning television show hosts blowing smoke up its ass for months on end. In the run up to the Academy Awards it was presented as some sort of beloved underdog facing down a juggernaut; apparently by people who hadn't noticed that Button had only gotten mediocre reviews and Slumdog was directed by Danny fucking Boyle!
Anything involving Judd Apatow.
Reefer Madness is actually a rather dull movie to people expecting the over-the-top narmfest that the internet makes it out to be.
The Scream trilogy.
The Dark Knight: After making #1 on the IMDB top 250 Movies list for quite a duration, many unfortunate people went in expecting literally the best movie of all time. Those of us who remember that the IMDB Top 250 list is based on fan popularity (a barrage of "1/10" votes for The Godfather helped that movie to lose the top spot ^*
^{which ended up only helping perpetual #2 The Shawshank Redemption to top the 250 after TDK's expected fall}
) and has pretty much no credibility at all were still pretty peeved.
- Then came the Oscar nominations and two camps appeared: "OMG IT DESERVED BEST PIC NOM AND NOLAN SHOULDA GOT BEST DIRECTAH NOD!" and "OSCAR WORTHY? LOL NO".
- Notably, there were a lot of critics who praised the film for exceeding pre-release hype when it first came out.
Speaking of the IMDB Top film list, The Godfather tends to draw 'It wasn't THAT good' reactions since it's the de facto number 1 on every best film list. If it doesn't happen to come top of the list, then chances are it's only Citizen Kane that's beaten it.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While not quite as major as Phantom Menace's backlash (and a bit of a Love It Or Hate It), negative backlash has been pretty vicious.
Pulp Fiction. When it was released, it played with narrative devices rarely seen in film (or at least, not in use for decades) and embraced pop-culture savvy and a coolness that essentially launched Quentin Tarantino's career and the whole "indie" film movement of the 90s (not to mention Samuel L. Jackson's career, and resurrecting John Travolta's). Unfortunately, it also spawned over a decade of "hip" Tarantino-esque clones so if you were to watch it now, you might be struck at how trite it feels (although it was the originator).
Likewise, Steve McQueen's Bullitt, which was touted as having the greatest car chase sequence ever filmed. And so it was—in the 1960s! The 'Greatest' tag is usually applied by car buffs who like it because it's got a Mustang and a Charger and is 'pure' because it was mostly done for real and had no music. The layperson is likely to find that even a comedy like Wayne's World 2 has a more action-packed and spectacular car chase scene. Even the average episode of Top Gear contains more complex stunts than the ones in Bullitt (especially the Ford Fiesta Vs. Chevy Corvette shopping mall chase!)
Australia had a lot of buildup and looked like it was going to get Baz Luhrmann lots of critical praise and some award show love. When it came out, it was mostly found to be mediocre.
Used in The Fast Show to set up Mr 'I'll Get Me Coat' as he complains to his highbrow friends about an Ingmar Bergman film he watched: "What a waste of time... One, it was in black and white; two, it was subtitled! Nobody got their kit off, nobody got shot... (indignant looks all around)... I'll get me coat!"
Gigli is an interesting case. A lot of its initial reviewers declared it to be a bad, but not terrible movie. Somehow the torrent of mildly to moderately negative reviews, combined with the fact that it starred Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (who were the "It" couple of the moment) transformed it from "bad movie" to "worst movie of all time." This troper (who has never seen the movie) remembers seeing on Ebert And Roeper Roger Ebert taking time out of a different review to point out that it wasn't THAT bad.
The Watchmen film is arguably suffering a modicum of this just from all the comic fans frothing at the mouth over it. People who aren't familiar with the comic see it and come out going "A dark, cynical take on the superhero genre? We've seen that. Not too long ago, in fact." Basically, for the same reason as the comic book, above.
- Also, as a friend of this troper can attest, if you watch expecting an action-filled superhero movie you'll be disappointed.
Juno was initially quite well received, but a year or so on, a lot of people are now taking the view that it's nice, but didn't deserve all the critical praise and certainly not the Best Screenplay Oscar.
Tim Burton. His status as an "emo icon" can be grating. And while he's done many good films, his brain farts can't be overlooked (what he wanted to do with Superman, the flaws in otherwise good Batman movies, his recent penchant for wanting to remake EVERYTHING in his image...really, turning Disney on its head made you a maverick...15 years ago, maybe!). The heavy merchandising some of his films have gained over the years doesn't help — The Nightmare Before Christmas in particular, even though he didn't direct it.
This has already happened to Avatar, even though it isn't even out yet. Largely, this is due to the fact that so much has been made of the film before any images or videos were released which means that after they were it was hard not to feel underwhelmed about the "greatest revolution in filmmaking evah." Still, some of the reactions have been, too put it mildly, oversensitive.
Suspiria. It's not all that scary.
Any of the Twilight series, full stop.

Close Film

The Da Vinci Code. Critics didn't really like the book, but it was a huge bestseller and was mostly hyped for controversial subject matter.
The works of Jane Austen. Especially Northanger Abbey.
- Don't forget Pride & Prejudice.
Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series has been heralded as the next big thing since Harry Potter and also as an unique take on vampirism. Some very vocal people online have attacked it for having Purple Prose, Mary Sues, and utterly ridiculous concepts (Vampires that sparkle? A "heroine" who deliberately puts her life in danger just to hear her love's voice?). No matter how good it may or may not be, with such a massive Hatedom it's on the fast track to being Deader Than Disco.
- The fact that the massively hyped 4th book is often considered poor even by the fans probably didn't help.
- Of course, with the Hype Backlash getting backlashed itself and generating somewhat positive interest in the series, the Hatedom may be doing itself a disservice..
No matter how erudite they are, everyone has probably read (or been forced to read) a classic novel and been totally unable to comprehend why people worship it as a work of transcendent genius. The Great Gatsby is a major sufferer, and The Catcher in the Rye and War And Peace commonly suffer from this. And nobody likes Ethan Frome.
- In the case of Catcher In The Rye, part of the controversy may stem from the fact that it was Mark David Chapman's favourite novel, who claimed to use it as an inspiration for murdering John Lennon; people may go into it expecting it to be a lot more brutal than in fact it is based on that.
- And "Ethan Frome" is probably disliked far more for being incredibly depressing than because it's overpraised.
- Nightwood. Apparently, it was once a piece of radical "queer literature", promoting tolerance and stuff. By today's standards, however, the sheer quantity of all those Depraved Homosexuals, Psycho Lesbians, and Depraved Bisexuals, the Aesop is either broken or intentionally like that.
- As much-beloved and influential The Lord Of The Rings may be, Tolkien still would have benefited from an editor, no matter how much his fans try to defend him.
If your first exposure to Shakespeare came from one of his many, many starry-eyed worshipers, you might have been disappointed at the play you actually saw or read.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Usually talked about reverentially as some kind of Citizen Kane of sci-fi series. It's actually not that well written, full of two-dimensional characters who often seem to have stepped out of bad pulp novels and a lot of its sci-fi ideas (Galactic Empires, interplanetary warfare, epic pan-galactic quests) have become genre cliches. It's not a bad series, of course, it's enjoyable enough but it doesn't really live up to its reputation.

Close Literature

Star Trek. Many people don't despise the shows and/or movies themselves. They despise the folks who say "Good Morning" in Klingon, come to work in a vintage TOS-era uniform, and say that Barack Obama isn't nearly as good a leader as Jean-Luc Picard. So of course, they will avoid even a commercial for one of the shows or movies or books as if it's swine flu.
Curb Your Enthusiasm (may have been for being compared to Seinfeld)
The works of Joss Whedon tend to suffer from this, at least in part due to the tendency of his more devoted fans to be bit too enthusiastic in both their praise of his work and their defense of it whenever some raises even mild criticism:
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer particularly comes in for this. An entertaining and engaging vampire-horror series with a cute heroine, some funny lines and a tendency to go a bit overboard on the Wangst at times? Maybe. The greatest thing ever broadcast over the television airwaves, as its fans routinely declare? Many would beg to differ.
- Firefly also fits prominently under this trope. The amount of hype by the fans would lead you to believe it was the best thing ever. Upon watching... it's okay.
  - As an illustration, on the Crowning Moment Of Funny list alone there's more examples provided from Firefly than any other show, many of which both ran longer by several years and which were actual comedy shows, not dramas with moments of comedy as was Firefly. Similarly, it's Crowning Moment Of Awesome page is one of the lengthier ones, listing several moments each for every character (even the ship gets one). All from a show which, not counting the movie, lasted fourteen episodes in total. That's the kind of hype that's just asking for some backlash.
- Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog also receives a lot of this. Those going in expecting the masterpiece its fans frequently build it up as may discover it to be an entertaining musical drama but not quite as clever, deep or original as it's made out to be.
- Joss Whedon himself can suffer from this, if you've had the misfortune to meet too many rabid fans. The best way to needle these sorts is mention Alien: Resurrection. We hear it makes him cry.
- Dollhouse is a quiet drama-driven series about the nature of identity and self. Coming off of Joss Whedon's three successive action-adventure series, a good deal of people were apparently expecting something similar. The second Fox cancels the show, expect them to be castigated for screwing Joss over, again.
Monty Pythons Flying Circus also suffers, especially in its homeland. As do many of the 'classic' 1970s British comedy shows — Dads Army, Fawlty Towers, etc. It results from a combination of being described by critics since the seventies as being classics, the natural process of becoming slightly dated and over-homaged over the years, and being repeated ad nauseum on television channels over and over since they were first broadcast. It also doesn't help that the most popular sketches and scenes will often turn up in "World Best Comedy Sketches"-type programmes and will also be repeated over and over and over (eg: The Parrot Sketch, "What is your name... Don't tell him Pike!", Basil Fawlty giving his car "A damn good thrashing").
The Young Ones. Not a case of being un-funny, since it was very well written and had some comedy legends in it, but anyone coming to now it expecting something totally anarchic or outrageously profane has to remember that it was made way back in 1982/1984 and also that many of the political references ("Thatcher!") are dated. Plus Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson later created Bottom, a show that was much more outrageous, (especially the uncensored 'Live' stage shows), more tightly scripted with less of the lulls that occasionally occur in Young Ones episodes, and was {probably!} funnier and more quotable.
Mad Men. With most, if not all critics crowing about its magnificence one can build up very high expectations of its quality, particularly given comparisons to The Wire (which no doubt can also suffer this trope for some) with its slow burn pacing and intelligence. Actually sitting down and finding out that it is just competently acted and more dull than slow paced comes as quite a shock, though the negative view probably comes from the intense effect of this trope.
Doctor Who can come in for some of this, but new Doctor Who in particular (the classic series, by the time it ended, had arguably incurred enough criticism and bad press to stave this off somewhat, and few go into the old series not expecting some Large Hams and Special Effect Failures). Some of this disappointment may be due to the show's notoriously Broken and Unpleasable Fanbase, but the tendency of some to describe the new series as being a near flawless masterpiece and pretty much everything that Russell T Davies does as being a work of unqualified genius probably doesn't help matters much.
- The classic series actually subverts/inverts this. The popular belief about it is that, until the 2005 revival, Doctor Who was a silly family/childrens' sci-fi serial with wobbly sets, laughable special effects and bad acting and which only persisted because there weren't enough "proper" (ie American) sci-fi shows to compete with it. In fact, (especially from the Pertwee era onwards) it was often extremely well-written, tackled varied and often quite difficult subjects and could be quite unpleasantly violent. As for the special effects, whilst many were terrible, a lot of them were actually pulled-off very well. And, funnily enough, the walls don't wobble (well, not much...).
Heroes is currently in this state, not helped by its Unpleasable Fanbase.
30 Rock with all those awards it keeps winning. To make matters worse, the show seems to have ended up in a bit of a rut this season, although it's still pretty solid. Honestly!
Lost can suffer from this, especially when people reach the third season which is notorious for it's plodding pace among other things. The show is believed by many to improve improve again with season 4 to at least an acceptable level and to even get back to the sort of things and overall feel that originally made it great with season five. However given how impossible it is to follow for anyone who hasn't religiously watched the whole thing it can be extremely hard for people who "broke up" with it during season 3 to get back into it let alone for anyone completely new to jump in.
A significant number of "Susan Boyle haters" don't hate the woman, but rather the ~~extraordinary~~ ridiculous amount of hype she received.
- Not to mention the more-than-slightly patronizing nature and Unfortunate Implications surrounding the whole "OMG people who don't look like supermodels can be talented!" aspect of the hype.
- What made it even worse was the fact that there were others who were just as talented as her (some possibly more so) that seemed to be pretty much ignored by the media, and the judges went a little over-the-top in their praises.
In the UK, just about any new American drama series suffers from a wave of ludicrous hyperbole before its arrival on these shores meaning that the finished product, when it arrives, often disappoints.
The Fast Show. One of the most popular British sketch shows of the '90s and quoted to death not just at the time but right up until the present day. It's still talked about reverentially and seemingly ranked alongside Monty Python and the like. It's actually not all that good, being basically about seven jokes repeated week in week out some of them in a way that's practically shameless. Interestingly, The Fast Show is arguably directly responsible for a wave of character/catchphrase-based sketch shows following in its wake which, whilst often as popular (Little Britain, anyone) have nothing like the critical respect presumably because the Emperor's nakedness has become rather more obvious.
- Little Britain itself was was praised to the skies when it first started, thus leading to this trope; however, perhaps at least in part to the experience with The Fast Show, it wasn't quite as long before began to criticise it for being overly-repetitive-bordering-on-lazy.
Whatever GSN/Game Show Network was overplaying on its schedule. ESPECIALLY The Newlywed Game. Nowadays, it seems like Family Feud and Match Game are getting some of this.
Incredibly this already seems to be happening with FlashForward, at least in the UK, because of the media constantly hyping the show prior to its release as "the new LOST". This troper adores LOST but Flash Forward has unfortunately not been given a chance to stand on its own feet yet, with many viewers on TV forums tuning out after only three of four episodes because "it can't compete with LOST", rather than enjoying it for what it is.
This troper isn't certain whether this is actually true or not, but could this be one of the reasons Joey tanked? From what this troper recalls, NBC hyped it to the moon and back, to the point where you couldn't read a magazine or even watch an NBC commercial break without hearing the show mentioned. I vaguely recall becoming intensely annoyed by having it shoved in my face, and took a certain pleasure in watching the show crash and burn. Then again, maybe it was just me...
The British version of TheOffice suffered from this. When it was originally broadcast it was praised as a well-acted comedy mockumentary with a good cast (including Ricky Gervais, then relatively-unknown) and which accurately reflected a lot of real-life experiences of office work. However, at some point after the second series it was hyped-up into becoming One Of The Greatest British Sitcoms Of All Time (arguably partly thanks to BBC 2's relentless promotion of and hyperbole about the show) leading to both an active backlash against it (particularly by Gervais-haters) and disappointment for many of those coming to it for the first time.

Close Live Action TV

Triple H suffers from two different kinds of hype backlash. First, as the WWE tries to promote him as an epic level superstar along the lines of Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin, even most of the fans who like him just aren't buying it. On the other hand, the loud and often strident hate for him among the hardcore fans has lead some of them to proclaim that the internet is wrong and stupid and HHH is an excellent wrestler who has earned the right to politically bury all other wrestlers who could potentially outdraw him.
John Cena. Believe it or not, once upon a time just about everyone liked him. These days you'd be hard-pressed to find a male over the age of 15 who will cop to having ever cheered him.
- Typical Smart Marks. Whenever something becomes popular, or the company starts getting behind it, they turn on it, presumably cause it's not "theirs" anymore. Besides Cena, other examples:
  - The Rock, when he turned face, started getting smark detractors for not being a "great worker," though in all fairness the other argument, that he turned into a "catchphrase machine," had more validity.
  - HARDCORE HOLLY, of all people. Back in 1999, the IWC loved his super-heavyweight schtick. As did this troper, who also believes that if he wasn't put back into the midcard after returning from his broken arm, suffered in a match with Kurt Angle (who was the WWF champion at the time, instant title/revenge program there), he might have turned out better.
  - Mr. Kennedy (though his injury-prone status and know-it-all rants during the Benoit scandal may have hurt him)
  - Matt Hardy, though this troper blames the fact that his best persona, the "V1/Mattitude/Matt Facts" one, was cut off at the knees so they could push Albert AGAIN. Having an insane reality show and bitter emo rants on his blog post-Edge/Lita Affair didn't help.
  - Hulk Hogan. Though it's gotten better than it was in the '90s, there's a lot of IWC'ers who'd never admit that they were Hulkamaniacs when they were young. As an extension, there's others who'll swear they never liked the WWF, and "always" loved the NWA, or name-your-hardcore-territory-promotion.

Close Professional Wrestling

Anything with Justin Timberlake.
Very common among music fans. The Arcade Fire is a good example, but any band that releases an EP or plays a show will suffer Hype Backlash from people who liked them before anyone knew about them, man.
Radiohead, especially albums like Kid A and In Rainbows. Not helping them was a rather infamous review of Kid A where the reviewer, favorably, compared the album to a dead baby.
The Shins. Some people say they changed their lives, while others respond with a "meh".
Forty-plus years of being described as the most influential and important rock album ever made, coupled with many of the advances and breakthroughs it made being assimilated into the genre as a whole mean that many people who listen to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band might wonder what the big deal was.
- Ditto "Pet Sounds".
Jimi Hendrix is getting this in black music circles. Primarily because a lot of people (and mainstream media) seem to think every black guitar virtuoso is inspired by him if not completely copying him. Despite the fact there was other black guitarists that coincided and preceded him with comparable skill.
- He gets it in more than just black music circles. More than one person has heard the hype about old Jimi and then been left scratching their head after hearing him.
- Might be because the rock genre was more popular, and he tends to over shadow a lot of other "black rock" guitarists who primarily did hard funk instead of straight up rock.
- Speaking of which, a lot of white rappers and soul singers get this treatment among black music fans. Particularly when the media essentially puts a crown on their head so to speak. Vanilla Ice is probably one of the earliest examples when concerning hip-hop specifically, and New Kids on the Block when it concerns R&B/Pop (although this goes back much further).
A certain amount of backlash was guaranteed when Gary Cherone was tapped to be Van Halen's third front man - by virtue of him not being David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar. But when Cherone was hyped as having "a voice like Sammy Hagar and the stage presence of David Lee Roth"... that was just setting the poor guy up for a fall if he wasn't better than advertised. (He wasn't). The fact that the album, III, sounded like neither the Roth nor Hagar-era VH didn't help.
Describing Elvis Presley as 'The King Of Rock and Roll' is just guaranteeing that a lot of people who listen to his music - especially fifty-or-so years after he recorded it - are going to be disappointed.
- It doesn't help that through much of the '60s, when so many of the musicians he'd inspired on both sides of the Atlantic were bringing rock and roll to a new pinnacle of artistic expression, many of Elvis's own recordings (particularly for the movie soundtracks) were, quite frankly, awful.
Led Zeppelin has been described by more than one music critic as the most overblown band in the history of music.
- Led Zeppelin, nor many of hard rock/heavy metal's other's prototype bands (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Queen) were critic's darlings to begin with. In fact, many of the great classic rock bands were critically mauled in their heydays. Their legacies were more fan-oriented, more of a case of Vindicated By History.
- Amongst the Led Zeppelin fans themselves, there are a good portion who despise "Stairway to Heaven" - considering other songs from the band's catalogue to be far superior.
Joy Division and later New Order, too. Joy Division have been so influential on hundred of imitators it's easy to forget they were very much a cult band who only ever played small venues in their brief existence. Any newcomer listening the albums expecting every track to be borderline Top 20 pop like "Love Will Tear Us Apart" will probably be nonplussed by "She's Lost Control" and "Transmission". In 1987 New Order put out all of their '12 singles (including the hidden gem "Everything's Gone Green" and "True Faith") onto one two-disk set aptly called "Substance" and did the same for Joy Division in 1988 for the single-only Joy Division toons. As such, "Substance" is generally considered to be THE CD that most people are steered towards buying as far as their first New Order CD, since it has all of the band's best and most loved songs. Their actual albums are considered, by many, to be hit or miss and could turn off new fans.
- The British music business used to like making albums without hit singles. Many of the Beatles or Rolling Stones top singles weren't album tracks either.
Elton John. After "Candle in the Wind 1997" came out (and went 11 times platinum), he went straight from being still loved by fans and critics alike to being called extremely overrated by those same people, even for his older, great work. Now, he is often called the male equivalent to Celine Dion — the fact that they alternated concert dates at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for a time didn't help — even though his albums and live performance advertisements set him up as one of the greatest musicians on the earth.
When the record company began promoting Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom using the tagline "Masterpiece?", Costello was extremely irritated because he knew it was then an absolute certainty that this trope would kick in.
Let's face it, The Beatles.

Close Music

This troper can't understand why Alan Rickman is considered attractive, despite many claiming he's too pretty to play Snape or Turpin.
- For at least one female troper, it's the voice.

Close People

Synchros. Probably holding the record for the fastest acceptance of a new idea to the Yu-Gi-Oh card game in the history of the franchise, there is literally no deck among the elite duelists of the world that doesn't have these wonder monsters in them. Dissidents against the new monsters would be quick to point out they're little more than a rehash of the Fusion and Ritual monsters the game has had for years already, or that - due to how easy they're able to be gotten out do the the insane synergy they have with the current "throw out as many high-powered monsters you possibly can at any one time" mindset of said elites - they're virtually broken...if it wasn't for the fact that those same elite would think nothing of slicing their throat with a Ghost Rare Stardust Dragon should you utter a peep of it.
Sen Zar got brutalized hard by this trope, thanks to the creators' ill-advised antics on usenet.

Close Tabletop Games

Almost any video game released more than two generations ago. In the current generation (PS 3/Wii/Xbox 360) this is PS 1 and earlier. The graphics begin getting dated and some interface elements that have become normal hadn't been invented yet, making them not quite as fun as when we were first experiencing them. There are exceptions, of course, but in general video games age much worse than almost any corresponding media (at least so far).
- MMOs in particular tend to really suffer from this. It's a given that on any MMO forum someone will be claiming a previous MMO (that is, one with years of development behind it versus the one that's had far fewer) is better, one claiming that the Next Big Thing has the right idea (even if it's the same ideas), and the process repeating on that Next Big Thing.
Almost all games that are considered "Popular" are subject to being bashed and hated on in pretty much every gaming community. Some games and genres are bigger targets than others, even if Double Standards exist. (such as how RP Gs are always hype-backlashed yet FPS is never hype backlashed if at all.)
Any Final Fantasy, much more so after Final Fantasy VII caused an explosion of interest in the series.
- Not exactly after FFVII, but moreso FFVII itself is probably the best example of this trope.
- For some, this applies more to Square's endless number of sequels, retcons, and other story add-ons, and the sheer obsession of some parts of its fanbase, rather than the original game itself.
- Also available in Roman numeral infighting. It seems you can't like a Final Fantasy game without wishing fiery death upon another one.
Halo was an extraordinarily popular game, a Killer App for the launch of the Xbox. Halo 2 was even more popular, being similar in gameplay while also advancing the storyline. It sold eleventy billion copies... and was rather routinely eviscerated by reviewers and fans because of the presence of a talking vine who rhymed using archaic meter. The reviews were rather funny, actually, in that they all gave the game ridiculously high scores but tended to be surprisingly harsh.
- There's also the fact that, along with the "Its Popular Now It Sucks" sentiments of a lot of gamers, the idea that Halo was popular with the "wrong people"... IE, frat boys liked it, and since TV has told them gamers and frat boys are mortal enemies, Halo is clearly the enemy.
- Poetic plantlife? For the first time, this troper is interested in Halo.
  - Poetic zombie plantlife, that gets way more lines in the last game. This troper isn't sure but thinks it's iambic heptameter.
  - Iambic septameter - referring to the series' arc number.
Ditto for Half-Life 2.
After reaching an unprecedented 99 on Metacritic and dominating media video game coverage for the forseeable future, expect a lot of this directed towards Grand Theft Auto IV.
- Ditto for Metal Gear Solid 4 getting a perfect ten from both Gamespot and IGN.
Super Smash Bros Brawl has seen reviews similar to Halo; while the scores are great, the reviews spend most of the length complaining about everything that isn't as perfect as the initial hype made many believe... despite the fact that, objectively, those things (single-player and online, to be short) are still much better than the previous Melee incarnation (the former featuring additional modes, the latter being completely new).
- Zero Punctuation, as seen below, has mainly repeated those, but in addition complained about unlockable content as well as going somewhat offtopic to complain about fighting games in general. Then again, he also made it clear that he only made the review to shut up the masses that wanted to seen it reviewed (read: picked apart) by him.
- Don't get us started on what Melee fanboys think of Brawl...
- The full effects of this trope on Brawl has been witnessed recently as it lost the Best Wii Game award to indie game World Of Goo at IGN, who stated the backlash as influencing their decision.
This might be part of what is holding Duke Nukem Forever back. Think about it, after over ten years of waiting, the game will inevitably be rather disappointing if it's just a good FPS in a time where FPS are a very common genre.
- It's a nonissue now. The company that was supposed to release it has gone out of business.
  - Someone in their accounting department obviously hadn't learned about Sunk Costs
A unique example of this is Fable; the game itself didn't deliver on the hype, with half of the content promised removed and the other half altered beyond recognition (so much so that the head of the development team had to issue a formal apology for it). Despite that, it's not a bad game, and is actually quite a decent (if rather linear and shallow) hack and slash. However, if anyone says they didn't think the game was stellar to a die-hard fan, they'll likely to be criticized for hating it on the sole premise of the false hype, and not on the final product.
Before Fable, Black And White was hyped to hell by Peter Molyneux, who promised such details as intimately following the exact details of villagers, from birth to wedding to death. The actual result was a mediocre god game with a few unique features, including an advanced-for-its-time AI system, but also with bugs, balance issues, and questionable gameplay decisions that quickly crippled it. It was reviewed fairly well by the primarily magazine-based gaming press of the time; fan response, however, varied from "it's kind of overrated, I guess" to "worst game ever".
This may have something to do with the critical and fan response to Too Human and Haze. They're average at worst... but they were built up fairly heavily by the publishers and developers before release.
Spore seems to be hitting this trope in many quarters. The fact they've been promising and previewing it at games expos for the last few years probably contributed to this. And the whole heavy-handed DRM system debacle didn't help either.
- "A mile wide and an inch deep" is the common thread of the backlash. And it's got its justifications. The players who are preemptively pissed off about the entirely hypothetical avalanche of Sims-esque expansion packs may be a bit ahead of the curve, though.
  - And now, for your viewing pleasure: the Creepy and Cute pack. Is it pants because it's got so little content to necessitate a pack? Or is it pants because the quality of the pack itself is pants? That's up to you.
  - You forgot: "It's pants because it came so soon after the original game". A lot of people feel Creepy'n'Cute was held back to sell separately when it should've just been included in the original game.
- The problem is that so many features that were in the previews didn't make it to the final game, including a "Close Encounters" style musical communication with other species.
- It doesn't help that what was in the trailers and developer walkthroughs was literally all there was in the game, when they were actually suggestive that there might be so much more left unsaid. If you were expecting a lot more of the game than what you saw pre-release, you were in for some serious backlash.
The Force Unleashed, sadly, seems to have fallen victim to this effect. If it hadn't been hyped up to EPIC levels as the Star Wars answer to God Of War, it would probably be thought of as a decent Star Wars game.
The hype surrounding Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is humongous, with Midway cashing in by making it the default old-school MK game to port onto anything. While it's not a bad game, it's notoriously unbalanced to the point of being broken, and a closer inspection of the added characters clearly shows they're unfinished, not at all qualities you'd expect to find in the purported "best MK game ever".
The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess had this problem. The first realistic-looking Zelda since the days of the Nintendo 64, with a decent amount of Pandering To The Base for dangling plot threads and rumors in Ocarina of Time, but between the delays and the fact that it's, you know, Zelda, expectations were set unrealistically high, and a number of fans bashed it shortly after its release for not meeting them.
- For that matter, Ocarina of Time itself is beginning to get some Hype Backlash as its pioneering graphical and immersive qualities have become commonplace.
Daikatana's Hype Backlash infamously led to the fall of acclaimed creator John Romero.
No More Heroes gets this from people who are tired of hearing about how good, "innovative", and subversive it is, when there are occasional slices of gameplay stashed between excessive money grinds and annoyingly excessive amounts of pointless travel.
Take one look at an reviews for ANY popular game with a lot of hype behind it and there will be at least ONE review where one person did not like the game and felt it was overrated.
- Yes, even games almost everyone likes like Team Fortress 2. Heck, Final Fantasy VII back before bashing it and dumping on Sephiroth like he was a false messiah became the fad.
- In general it seems that Halo bashing and Final Fantasy VII bashing is a trend. Do not say you liked either of those games in public - you will instantly be flagged as a mindless Sephiroth/Master Chief fanboy who gave into the hype.
- Heck, even EGM did this with the infamous 4/10 score for Assassin's Creed.
- Interestingly, this troper has never found a single bad review for Half Life 2 by a professional critic, and certainly not one that criticizes the actual game more then the Steam content system. Would actually like to see one if there is (especially if it is a review written on release).
The Conduit was a highly hyped Wii FPS that the developers said had graphics comparable to a 360 game. When it was released, it was brutally savaged by reviewers in a similar fashion to Too Human above.
- And the graphics? Not that special.◊
Amongst the shmup fanbase, the Touhou series is a victim of this.
- That mainly has to do with its influence in having CuteEmUps almost 100% replacing classic "take an F-14 and kill aliens" shooters as representative of the genre. It might be a little harder to explain to your friends, gamer or not, why you'd rather be playing Pink Sweets instead of Shadow Complex.
It was inevitable that this would happen to Scribblenauts, having been hyped up as the ultimate sandbox-platformer game where the only limit is your imagination. The major complaint is the iffy touch-screen controls for Maxwell, although people have complained about other problems such as basic or obvious solutions to puzzles not working very well.
Just about every Sonic The Hedgehog title on the SEGA consoles. From what the rather...vocal community members claim, they're epic spiritual experiences agaisnt which the newer games blaspheme rather than merely somewhat decent, if outdated, remnants of the 1990s.
All the hype leading up to the release of Scribblenauts lead to a LOT of complaints when it came out about the gameplay and levels.

Close Video Games

Haloid: Rampant fanservice is not all it's cracked up to be.
Zero Punctuation: many dislike it for its negativity and tendency to for (often off-topic) Take Thats, but every other goddamn line becoming a page quote makes it very hard not to think about it, which leads to massive frustration.
- Many also feel that considering all the hype and overexposure he gets, he's really not as funny or witty that people make him out to be.
- Even Yahtzee's games seem to fall under this trope. People heaped lavish praise on them when they came out, but played today, the opinion of some is that they're average rip-offs of/"inspired by" other series (5 Days = about a billion "trapped in a house" horror movies, 7 Days = Jason X, Trilby's Notes = Silent Hill mixed with Zelda-esque dimension hopping, and 6 Days just being your usual evil cult story) that all got wrapped up with a Gainax Ending that required you to pay to get the full ending and understand what the hell was going on (now free however, so i guess that makes it a little better).

Close Web Animation

Achewood. From all the hype you'd think it cured cancer or something.
El Goonish Shive tends to get this reaction from people who are so very, very tired of seeing its name come up on this wiki. The fandom's tendency to swoop down on any criticism made of it does not help matters.
This blog plays this role for xkcd.
Penny Arcade, to many, is drastically overhyped, as well as imitated.

Close Web Comics

Batman The Animated Series tends to get hyped up a lot, particularly when compared to any other superhero cartoon (and especially when compared to The Batman).
Practically overnight, Family Guy turned from everybody wanting new episodes to people complaining when those new episodes came to be.
- To be fair it likely has to do with alot of the changes to the show that started to occur during season 4 and became downright undeniable in season 5 onwards. Gross Flanderization of essentially every character, entire episodes being soapboxes for leftist political views, excessive unclever and pointlessly drawn out references to movies everyone and their dog has probably already seen a hundred times, constant references to previous (and far better) episodes of Family Guy, totally running one joke tertiary characters such as Mr Herbert into the ground , what can only be construed as pandering to the tastes of stoned college kids and an overall decrease in subtlety which is really quite shocking considering how overt the show already was. Try watching an episode from the first three seasons sometime back to back with an episode from season 5 onwards, the difference is night and day.
  - Agreed. The show traded in characterization and plot for more flashback humor which became decreasingly funny as the series progressed. The fans didn't realize they had been given nothing more than a hollow imitation of what they wanted because they were so excited to have Family Guy back. However around the 6th season people began to catch on that this wasn't good anymore and by season 7 almost all of the original fans were taking to the internet to complain.
  - Season 8 has started however, and the first episode has been praised indefinitely, and seems to have given fans hope the series is returning to its original roots. Even the review at IGN has said this.
  - Ah, Road To The Multiverse yes? 10 minutes of poop and fart jokes interlaced with thin plot and several Meg is ugly jokes? The show is worse than ever.
Beast Wars was a very, very good animated series, especially for the time — but the attitude of some of its fans grates on much of the TF fandom. Beast Machines suffered in terms of popularity by being such a radical departure from BW's style, angering many of its strongest fans.
Yes, Avatar The Last Airbender is an insanely good show. But the common fan attitude that it's the best work of fiction ever puts the show on a high pedestal it probably doesn't quite deserve that can make it into a disappointing experience for newcomers. It doesn't help that a lot of fans can feel overly defensive of the show and it's popularity, making them act like utter jerks for no good reason towards people who don't like it.
The Simpsons can trigger this reaction from a lot of people, for numerous reasons. It's long-running, and been stressed as a classic for so long that people who come to it fresh after hearing all the praise heaped on it can wonder exactly what the big deal is. It's often praised for being radical and counter-cultural, which may result in people who watching it deciding that it's not quite as rebellious as it's made out to be (particular in light of the fact that it's a marketing and merchandising juggernaut as well). It's influenced a number of other animated shows, several of which have also become quite popular, meaning that those who come to it having experienced it's followers might not see that they did it first. Its more recent episodes have been criticised for being quite sub-par, particularly when compared with earlier classics. And, perhaps most damning, it's been repeated, rerun and quoted so frequently that it's possible to utterly sick to death of even the classic moments without having even experienced them initially.

Close Western Animation

Sailor Nothing, as admitted on its IJBM page on this very wiki.
Hands up everyone who even considers reading Whateley Universe?
Twitter.
- Along with My Space, and to a lesser extent, Facebook. But Twitter is the worst of the bunch.
TV Tropes itself. The ruining your life thing? Not as fun as it seems, especially when people loudly break down media into a series of tropes, thereby sucking all the fun out of it for everyone in the vicinity.
- To put it in recognizable context: This Troper was watching District 9 in the theater, and was thinking of exactly which tropes to add/comment on on the District 9 page. Dammit, TV Tropes!
  - This Troper advises that, to avoid this phenomena, assume that somebody else will have already written the page and filled it with the tropes. Just shut off your brain and enjoy the movie.

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