Basic Trope: Bashing something you haven't fairly tried first-hand.
- Straight: There's a sci-fi Show Within a Show called Bob's Space Gambit. Alice, who is a Moral Guardian, complains that it's too "violent" when she hears that some kids were watching it. It's not that violent, but she doesn't know because she never even watched the show.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice hates the show with every fiber of her being, but she's only heard of it in passing.
- Everyone who hasn't watched Bob's Space Gambit hates it for some reason, and all the fans had once experienced I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham about it.
- Alice is bashing something that hasn't even come out yet.
- Downplayed:
- Alice hates the show after watching just one scene.
- Alice hates the show after watching the trailer.
- Alice hasn't watched Bob's Space Gambit, but she has read enough about it to get her most of her facts right.
- Alice hasn't watched Bob's Space Gambit. When asked if she likes the show, she says that she hasn't watched it because she read a summary of the series and thought it sounded awful.
- Justified:
- Alice doesn't like the show based on what other people said about it.
- Bob's Space Gambit is infamous for its racism/sexism/homophobia.
- Alice is complaining about an aspect of the show that doesn't require watching it to experience — such as an annoying ad campaign, idiotic fans, how everyone won't stop praising it blindly, or she finds the subject matter or even the premise itself distasteful.
- Alice only complains about Bob's Space Gambit to impress other Moral Guardians.
- Alice just enjoys complaining.
- Bob's Space Gambit has taken the timeslot of Martha's Mansion of Mysteries, the show Alice is invested in.
- Inverted:
- Praising Shows You Don't Watch.
- Alice bashes every work of fiction she has ever watched, played, or heard, and nothing else. In fact, she actually makes it a point to redo every work of fiction she has ever consumed to give it her review: A completely ruthless and unfair bashing.
- Subverted:
- It turns out Alice has actually watched the show.
- Alice was bashing the 1959 show Bob's Space Gambit, not the 2012 show Bob's Space Gambit.
- Double Subverted:
- Only one scene.
- Alice never saw either and doesn't even know they are different shows.
- Parodied:
- A group of haters talk about why the show they didn't watch is so terrible.
- Alice falls asleep before watching Bob's Space Gambit and mistakes her dreams for the actual movie.
- Averted:
- Nobody hates the show unless they watched it.
- Nobody hates the show.
- Zig-Zagged: The episode is about Diane trying to find out if Alice has actually seen the Show Within a Show she keeps bashing.
- Lampshaded: "What's the point of bashing something if you don't know what you're bashing?"
- Enforced: "Hmph, Moral Guardians are complaining about our show again. Let's insult them in the new season!"
- Invoked: Charles tries to scare Alice away from watching the show by badmouthing it.
- Exploited: Charles tells Alice ridiculous false information about the depravity of Bob's Space Gambit for his own amusement, knowing she will believe every word.
- Defied: Alice refuses to say anything about shows she hasn't watched.
- Discussed/Conversed (depending on who's saying it): "Stupid haters, hating stuff they didn't watch."
- Implied: Alice complains about Bob's Space Gambit, but she sounds pretty clueless about some of its finer-yet-memorable key aspects. Whether is due to lack of attention on her part, or because she hasn't personally watched it, isn't made clear.
- Deconstructed: Alice is turned into a laughingstock when it becomes obvious that she's ranting about Bob's Space Gambit without even bothering to look up basic facts about it.
- Reconstructed: Other Moral Guardians learn from Alice's mistakes and make sure that if they're going to complain about a show they haven't seen, they'll gather information about it from reliable sources.
- Played for Laughs: Alice hating on the show and Charles and Diane saying "But you've never even seen it!" becomes a Running Gag.
- Played for Drama: Bob's Space Gambit, its creators and its fans are unfairly maligned because people like Alice keep insisting that the show is extremely violent even though it isn't.
- Played for Horror: Alice murders fans of Bob's Space Gambit.
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