Basic Trope: Hitting puberty, the family's eldest son starts acting stupid, lazy, and gullible.
- Straight: Bob saunters around, has the posture and gait of your typical stoner, is often sluggish and usually talks in a broken voice, and has an Annoying Laugh.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob answers to anything with a stupid grin (braces optional) followed by an equally stupid "I dunno, dude," talks like a Surfer Dude, and is gullible and lazy beyond help.
- Bob changed from being the Teacher's Pet, to being this upon entering Junior High.
- Downplayed: Bob isn't exactly smart, but he is of average intelligence.
- Justified:
- Bob is Brilliant, but Lazy.
- Bob has testosterone bouts but also growing pains, which is typical for a boy his age, which makes him successively impulsive and sluggish.
- Alice and Charles made mistakes in raising Bob, mistakes they won't make note with Denis.
- Inverted:
- Bob was a Mouthy Kid back in the days, he's now the Smartass Teenage Son and an unrepentant Insufferable Genius who is actually just as annoying as his stupid cousin who is the same age.
- Bob is a Teen Genius.
- Bob is also wiser than other teens.
- Gender Inverted:
- Alice is the Dumbass Teenage Daughter in her family.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter
- Subverted: Bob is faking being the dumb one.
- Double Subverted: Oh, wait. He isn't pretending.
- Parodied: Bob goes into his snail-like shell whenever someone asks him to do something.
- Zig Zagged:
- One minute Bob is the dumb one then the next minute he acts smart.
- Bob isn't stupid, per se, but has incredibly poor judgment, impulse control, and common sense.
- Enforced:
- Stereotypes make up the character.
- The author use to be like this during his teenage years, and once he grows up and has recovered from it, he creates this character to reflect himself, either to evoke An Aesop about parenting or teach teenage boys about the bad effects of uselessness and laziness.
- Lampshaded: "Bob, do you try to be that dumb, or do you need someone to slap it off of you?"
- Invoked: Bob suffers from Tall Poppy Syndrome because being a nerd is considered an uncool thing while being dumb is more admirable, so he stops studying hard and starts skipping class to involved with school delinquents.
- Exploited: People manipulate Bob into doing things.
- Defied: Bob is forewarned of the throes of adolescence and, upon observing the other boys his age, tries to be anything but that.
- Discussed: "Roger, your son is going to turn 14 next year. Prepare for the teenage stupidity right now..."
- Conversed: "I don't remember people being as dumb as him."
- Deconstructed:
- When Bob's stupid actions put everyone in danger, they all abandon him.
- Bob's parents and teachers become frustrated at Bob's stupidity and carelessness.
- Bob is seen years later as an adult and is basically the same person he was as a teenager. His life is one long string of horrible choices that he fails to take responsibility for, he is an alcoholic and involved with harder drugs, can't keep a job for more than a few months before he gets fired for doing something childish and stupid, he has fathered multiple kids out of wedlock whose lives he is completely absent from (not that he has much to contribute anyways), he semi-regularly gets into trouble with the law for dumb shit, and he is still being supported by his parents almost completely because he simply cannot seem to not fuck up his life at every opportunity, perhaps he is also a Basement-Dweller too.
- Reconstructed:
- He decides to not act stupid and try to fix the problem.
- Or, he pulls up his grades and even gets into the honor roll.
- Bob tries hard to improve himself and make better life decisions.
- Played For Laughs: Bob literally doesn't know anything.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob becomes Too Dumb to Live and sends everyone he meets to his death.
- Bob has difficulty in school due to his dyslexia or other kinds of learning disorders. As his grades fall, Bob begins to feel stupid and eventually starts acting stupid as well.
Back to Dumbass Teenage Son. Yeah, dude!! Huh, huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh....
