Let's say that Alice has a close-knit group of friends. Her friend group is entirely composed of men, save for Alice herself. She's female and everyone else in her group won't let her forget it. They lightheartedly tease her for it, making jokes and the like, and although they mean no harm, Alice eventually gets fed up with it. She leaves the group and eventually finds a different group of friends—a group solely composed of females.
Many times, when a certain character in a group possesses a trait that sets them apart from the group's norm, be it age, hair color, race, religion, or political view, it won't go unnoticed. It usually becomes a source of humor, of drama, or of plot/character development. When said character begins to feel oppressed, ridiculed, or just out of place for this, however, he will usually go out and find a group of similar individuals in order to counteract this feeling.
Most of the time, because Status Quo Is God, everything will go back to normal by the end of the episode, the character either realizing that he doesn't belong in the new group, the group turning out to be completely evil, or the whole subject getting dropped and never brought up again. Still, sometimes the switch can last several episodes, or rarely, become completely permanent, depending on the reason for the split and the attitude of both the original group and the new group.
Similar tropes are I Just Want to Have Friends, You Are Not Alone, and I Just Want to Be Normal.
Examples:
- The Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer exists due to this trope — broken and mis-made toys seeking acceptance in the only place they could find it.
- Pierce Hawthorne in Community gets tired of being mocked by his younger friends for being older than them, so he joins a group called the Hipsters, named because they've all had hip replacements.
- On Arrested Development, GOB believes that magicians aren't taken seriously and founds the 'Alliance of Magicians', which kicks out anyone who reveals a magician's secret. Ironically, GOB then gets kicked out of his own group when one of his magic tricks is revealed on the news.
- Invoked by George in Dead Like Me:
One desperate attempt after another to find something in common with someone else and then cling. "Hey, you have ten fingers, I have ten fingers, let's be friends. We'll make rules and slogans. Then if we find someone with nine fingers, we can beat the crap out of them."
- In Kevin & Kell, when Fiona's ears grew in, she joined a Fennec Pride group, much to the annoyance of her father, who was hoping she'd hate having long ears as much as he did and pay for them both to have them cropped. When Fennec Pride criticised her for dating a non-fennec, however, she decided she could be proud of who she was without needing to define herself by it.
- In Regular Show, Mordecai loses a bet and has to dye his hair blonde. He's relentlessly teased by Rigby, so he joins a group of only blondes.
- Peter from Family Guy starts the NAAFP (National Association for the Advancement of Fat People), as he believes the world is disrespectful to the obese.
- South Park:
- Cartman mocks Ginger Kids, saying they're evil. To teach him a lesson, while he's asleep the other guys dye his hair and give him painted-on freckles, making him a ginger. Cartman then organizes the Ginger Separatist Movement to promote gingerness, and eventually tries to get them to kill all non-gingers.
- Kyle allows himself to be "made over" by his newly metrosexualized friends in "South Park is Gay". It doesn't last very long.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Squidsville", Squidward Tentacles finally gives up on trying to put up with Spongebob and Patrick and moves to Tentacle Acres, a town completely populated by clarinet-playing, interpretive-dancing, bicycle-riding, canned-bread-buying, cynical, sarcastic squids, all just like Squidward. He quickly grows tired of the tedium.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were all ridiculed for not having cutie marks. They form the Cutie Mark Crusaders, bonding over this trait.
