Basic Trope: Someone wastes time on social media when they're in a dangerous situation that requires rapid action.
- Straight: Sally and Rachel are hiking when Sally is bitten by a venomous snake. She react to this by taking a selfie and posting it to Tropeit with the caption "Just got bitten by a snake. #hiking #snakebite #envenomation #hurtslikehell #shouldvestayedhomeandplayedvideogames."
- Exaggerated:
- Sally makes a dozen posts documenting her painful death on Tropeit instead of seeking medical attention. After she dies, Rachel starts taking selfies with Sally's dead body and captioning them with stuff like "Looks like Sally just died. #sad #snakessuck #deadfriendselfie."
- After Sally dies, Rachel takes a selfie with the snake that killed her. This predictably leads to Rachel getting bitten, and she also gets herself killed by prioritizing Tropeit posts over medical attention.
- Sally gets so caught up in irrelevant Tropeit posts that she forgets she's dying.
- The End of the World as We Know It happens and the first thing everyone does is to take selfies and vlogs about it.
- Nuclear war happens, and Sally, instead of seeking refuge in the nearest fallout shelter, goes outside and takes a selfie of herself posing in front of the blast radius of a mushroom cloud.
- Sally takes a selfie while Rachel and random people behind her are being devoured by zombies.
- Downplayed: Sally calls for help first. After the phone call ends, she ignores their instructions to move as little as possible—but it's just to send a short tweet, "Just got bitten by a snake."
- Justified:
- Sally and Rachel are too dumb to realize Sally's life is in danger.
- They are too distracted by Tropeit to be urgent.
- In her Tropeit posts, Sally portrays herself as a blowhard who always makes attention-grabbing posts. "I just got bitten by a snake" undoubtedly fits the bill. Additionally, it turns out that she just fakes a huge ego on Tropeit to cover up her extreme insecurity, which causes her so much misery that she doesn't really care if she dies.
- Sally is a wannabe travel blogger who uses Tropeit to promote her blog. Desperate for followers and the exposure which will bring them, she desperately attempts to post every experience.
- Social media is engineered to be addictive. The endorphin rush is clouding Sally's judgement.
- Inverted: The police tell social media users to tweet them info about an ongoing investigation, and leave the dangerous work to the police. Sally has some useful info, but instead decides to deal with the perpetrator on her own.
- Subverted:
- Sally picks up her smartphone and goes online... to find out what to do.
- Sally posts on 911's chat app as it allows her to send a picture of the snake instead of having to give them a vague description.
- Double Subverted: She promptly ignores the instructions in favour of posting 25 tweets about her condition.
- Parodied: Sally posts a selfie with the caption "I'm literally risking my life for this dumb post, so this had better give me a ton of likes!"
- Zig Zagged: Meryl comes across a series of Tropeit posts allegedly written by a teenage girl named Sally who had been bitten by a snake, and spent her last minutes documenting her fate on Tropeit instead of seeking medical attention. However, it's left ambiguous whether Sally ever had any chance of receiving medical attention in time at all. In fact, it's not even clear whether the story is true, or merely a hoax spread by people who believe that New Media Are Evil.
- Averted: Sally immediately has Rachel call for help.
- Enforced: Moral Guardians force the writers to write in something that condemns phone-addicted teenagers.
- Lampshaded: Meryl comments on Sally's Tropeit post with, "Why are you on Tropeit?! You need immediate medical attention!"
- Invoked: Rachel tells Sally that her Tropeit followers will eat it up if she posts about her snakebite.
- Exploited: A thief decides to steal Sally's ring—after all, she'd rather tweet about it than go to the police.
- Defied:
- Rachel tells Sally that this is no time for taking selfies, and tells her to avoid moving while she calls for help.
- Rachel and Sally wait until they're out of danger before posting about it.
- Rachel smashes the phone the very second that Sally tries to take a selfie with it (Sally pointing out that she could have called the police after the selfie but Rachel just screwed them over and Rachel doing a Face Palm once her brain finally catches up to this fact optional].
- Discussed: Rachel asks, "Is this really a good time for tweeting?"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: A hiker discovers a teenager who died holding a smartphone and a selfie stick.
- Deconstructed: Sally dies or is permanently injured as a result of the delayed medical attention.
- Reconstructed: Sally posts on social media instead of seeking medical attention, and the audience is led to expect her to die as a result of her Skewed Priorities. Luckily, her friend Meryl sees the message as soon as Sally posts it. Thanks to Tropeit's handy geolocation mechanic, she's able to call emergency services on Sally's behalf. Even better: Sally managed to snag a picture of the snake (which was also posted on Tropeit), which helps the doctors find the correct treatment. While she still ends up worse off than she would've been if she'd called 911 right away, at least she escaped with her life.
- Played For Laughs:
- It's a Running Gag that Sally always manages to get herself killed by using social media at inappropriate times.
- During an important battle, both Sally and the Big Bad take a break to post selfies on Tropeit.
- Sally is bitten by a snake. The following dialogue ensues:Rachel: Quick! Find your phone!
Sally: Okay! [frantically looks through her bag, grabs the phone, and presses buttons like mad in a vain attempt to turn it on] Why did the phone have to be dead now?! This'll probably cost me thousands of likes!
- Played For Drama: Sally insists on posting selfies instead of calling 911. Rachel tries to use her own phone, but it's revealed to be dead. Then Rachel desperately tries to convince Sally to call 911, and Sally reveals that she's sick of life anyway...
- Played For Horror:
- The Serial Killer in a Slasher Movie is able to kill several teenagers because they're too busy tweeting to notice the threat.
- Cornered by a Serial Killer, Sally takes and uploads a selfie with her killer in the background, providing a vital clue to the investigators.
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