Basic Trope: The writer attempts to appeal to a younger demographic through an out-of-date or awkward interpretation of youth culture. This usually takes the form of outdated/awkward slang.
- Straight: X-treme Charlie is a superhero that wears a backwards baseball cap, rides a skateboard, and speaks in "hip" nineties slang.
- Exaggerated:
- Every single word that comes from X-treme Charlie's mouth is some sort of slang.
- The slang is so outdated that no one even understands what it means.
- Downplayed: Teenage characters are inclined to yell, "COOOOOL!" when they see something that's cool.
- Justified:
- X-treme Charlie works at a restaurant or club with a nineties theme, so the slang becomes an odd form of jargon to him.
- X-treme Charlie grew up in a home with no satellite TV, only cable that ran nothing but old nineties shows.
- X-treme Charlie is very nostalgic, or just fan of old slang. He doesn't care if he sounds outdated.
- X-treme Charlie lives in the nineties, so the slang fits for the time period of the work's setting.
- X-treme Charlie is much older than he looks and is somewhat out-of-touch with current youth.
- X-treme Charlie is a time traveler or Fish out of Temporal Water from the past.
- Inverted:
- X-treme Charlie, despite his name, speaks in Spock Speak or Little Professor Dialogue and enjoys sophisticated entertainment.
- X-treme Charlie is (or at least claims to be) interested in Shakespeare's works. He often tries to speak Flowery Elizabethan English, but gets it very wrong.
- X-treme Charlie acts like someone's grandfather, offering people tea and shouting "Get off my lawn!" to his enemies.
- X-treme Charlie is a time traveler, and speaks using slang from the future.
- Subverted:
- X-treme Charlie reveals that the whole slang-slinging sk8ter boy thing was an act put on just to mess with the grownups.
- X-treme Charlie turns out to be an English professor who only tries to look "cool" to appeal to teenagers.
- X-treme Charlie speaks in "hip" nineties slangs, because this setting is, obviously, The '90s.
- Double Subverted:
- ...while his real favorite thing is playing rad bitchin' video games.
- Then, he also acts like James Dean and has '50s Hair beneath his cap.
- Parodied:
- X-treme Charlie's slang is treated as an entirely different language that requires translation, a la Airplane!. Bonus points if it translates to something intelligent.
- X-treme Charlie's slang includes overly ridiculous words like "Cyber" and "Reaganomics".
- Zig Zagged: X-treme Charlie is supposed to be cool, and how successful this is Depending on the Writer.
- Averted:
- X-treme Charlie is portrayed as an accurate interpretation of a modern-day teenager.
- Charlie doesn't attempt to be "hip" in the first place.
- The setting of the work is Purely Aesthetic Era or Deliberate Values Dissonance, so there's no portrayal of any oddly outdated culture.
- Enforced: "We have to find some way to relate to our demographic and we don't have time to extensively research their lifestyle. Hm... let's throw in some slang from the nineties and call it a day."
- Lampshaded: "'Totally radical?' Who uses 'totally radical' nowadays?"
- Invoked: X-treme Charlie deliberately uses his dated "coolness" to induce groans and mess with people.
- Exploited: Denise is a spy infiltrating Evil Mart's corporate headquarters. She pulls some strings to get X-Treme Charlie hired as the company's mascot, knowing his aggressive lack of coolness would alienate potential customers and ruin the business.
- Defied: X-treme Charlie researches present-day youth culture to avoid coming off as dated.
- Discussed: "Do you think we should maybe tell X-treme Charlie that the slang he uses hasn't been used since 1993?" "Nah — it'd be funnier to see how long it takes for him to discover he's not cutting edge anymore for himself."
- Conversed: "Do these writers seriously think anyone talks like that these days, much less kids?"
- Deconstructed:
- The two generations can't understand each other, since the kids have built up their own incomprehensible-to-outsiders culture that they don't want adults being a part of, and the adults find their culture strange and disturbing.
- X-treme Charlie's mannerisms reflect an excessive nostalgia for the nineties, one that causes psychological problems for him. He is so convinced that everything was better back then that he struggles to function in the present-day world.
- Many X-treme Charlie's worldviews and things don't age well, leading to What the Hell, Hero? reactions from the younger generation, and X-treme Charlie receives an All of the Other Reindeer treatment from them.
- Reconstructed: X-treme Charlie accepts the flaws of the nineties, comes to terms with the changes that occurred between the nineties and today, and adapts to these changes. But he also finds a healthy balance of nostalgia. He still sports his dated aesthetic with pride, but as part of his own unique identity in the present rather than as an escape from the present.
- Plotted A Good Waste: X-Treme Charlie is a superhero who rides a skateboard, speaks in '90s slang, and wears a backwards baseball cap. It turns out to be an indication that he's secretly a time traveler, and doesn't know what's currently cool.
- Played for Laughs: There is an elaborate, intentionally ridiculous slang that X-treme Charlie uses.
- Played for Drama: X-treme Charlie is a Manchild who desperately tries to sound cool in order to deny that he is aging.
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