Times where someone attempts to undercut, undermine and ruin the success of another in Western Animation.
- The Boondocks: Rufus Crabmiser, a member of Colonel Stinkmeaner's "Hateocracy" crew, is a violent and misanthropic sociopath who uses the "crab bucket" argument as a justification for why humans are such miserable dicks to eachother. It's doubtful if he actually believes it though, since the Hateocracy openly admits to indulging in violence for the sake of it; even their revenge against Robert for Stinkmeaner's death was just an excuse. If they had never heard of it, they'd be off trying to kill someone else.
- Gravity Falls: It's implied that "Grunkle" Stan Pines dislikes people who are smarter than him. He treats Dipper, the more book smart of the twins more harshly, and in "Little Gift Shop of Horror", tells a story of Waddles the pig becoming super-intelligent then giving it up to stay Mabel's pet. It's implied this was the result of resentment born between him and his twin brother Ford. They were as close as Dipper and Mabel were, but Ford's intelligence made him much more valued by the adults in their life and the comparisons caused no end of grief for Stan. This spilled over when Ford's own resentment of always being with his twin damaged their relationship for decades, especially when their first reunion soured because of Ford's insensitivity to his brother's feelings and later his pride leading to them fighting, the portal activating and Stan working 30 years to get him back. When said brother is kidnapped by an evil wizard intending to eat his brains, Stan considers letting the wizard take a few bites if it means the two of them becoming mental equals. Even in the climax, Ford still cannot help but correct Stan which causes a fight and forces the twins to find a new way to stop Bill. Stan and Ford do acknowledge their own foolishness and when Bill is gone for good, the two go out to explore the world.
- Inverted by Bobby in King of the Hill. In the episode, "Peggy’s Magic Sex Feet", Peggy is ashamed of her large feet, despite the fact that there are people who are quite fond of them (in their own way). Bobby gives her a What the Hell, Hero? response, Pointing out that he's not ashamed of his own flaws in spite of what people say about him and that she shouldn't be ashamed of hers.Bobby Hill : Mom, I'm fat. But big deal. I don't feel bad about it. You never made me feel bad about it, and just because there are some people in the world who want me to feel bad about it, doesn't mean I have to. So Bobby's fat. Eh. He's also funny, nice, he's got a lot of friends, a girlfriend, and if you don't mind, I think I'll go outside and squirt her with water. What are you gonna do?
- Koala Man: In "Bin Day", Kevin thinks the reason why the media is against his superhero persona, Koala Man, is because of tall poppy syndrome and explains what it is to Liam. After the Tall Poppy is defeated and the townspeople plan to finish him off, Koala Man tries to get the people to spare him because he's just trying to clean up the town and is trying to get on in the world, but the townspeople ignore him because they accuse him of trying to be better than them.
- The central conflict of the first season of The Legend of Korra revolves around the fact that some people are born with the ability to "bend" the elements around them, while most people are not, with the Equalists trying to bring everyone down to their level. Naturally, their leader is a bender and a very good one too. His intent is otherwise all too real.
- In Mixels, this is the reason the Nixels hate Mixels. Mixels are creative and have the ability to Mix. Nixels are uncreative and can't mix. So, they'd rather a bland world of uncreativity and no power that fits their personalities.
- The rather chilling My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic season 5 premiere deals with a village where all of the ponies have had their special talent drained to enforce equality and prevent this, led by the unicorn Starlight Glimmer. All ponies, that is, except the founder of the village, who secretly kept her magic and uses it to drain the others of theirs, making her the Tall Poppy in this situation.
- It later turns out that in the Season 5 finale her entire villainous motivation is also this. Her motivation is that when her best friend got his cutie mark for being very good at magic, she lost him (his parents put him into Celestia's school) and figured that the only way she could prevent that from happening would be to make sure that no one has a cutie mark so that no one would have to go through the same situation she did.
- The season 6 premiere adds a layer of irony to the whole mess with The Reveal that Starlight's childhood best friend, Sunburst, actually dropped out of Celestia's School of Gifted Unicorns, namely since he was an Inept Mage. Well, more specifically, he's not that skilled at casting magic (his little stint in their childhood being a fluke caused by a burst of emotion). One of the reasons he never contacted her again was because he was too ashamed to tell her the truth. Starlight is utterly shocked by this, refusing to believe he is anything but an accomplished magician. Starlight is correct to a degree; Sunburst does excel in the study of magic in the theoretical sense. As in his knowledge and understanding on the history and theoretical mechninations of magic exceed that of even Twilight Sparkle. In fact, his knowledge on obscure spell lore and magic lets him save the Crsytal Empire and he becomes the Court Mage. Meanwhile, Starlight's own magical capabilities are also equal to Twilight's despite being self-taught. We later discover that she applies her emotional force to it, making up for her lack of knowhow.
- In a wonderful sign of her Character Development in overcoming her issues, she becomes the guidance counselor of the School of Friendship founded by the Mane Six and helps out various young students. She even graduates to headmare later on.
- The Recess episode featuring the Perfect Kid. He's best at everything without even trying, and so falls from the most popular kid in school to a social outcast in less than a week because everyone resents him as a result. He's used to it though since it happens every time he moves to a new school and besides he's still got that job for the President (cue Harrier jet landing to pick him up for said job).
- Discussed quite a few times in Rick and Morty as a central theme of the show is that Rick Sanchez's intelligence has alienated him from other people and made them not want anything to do with him, but also deconstructed in that it's actually Rick's bullying and condescending attitude that has alienated others with him using his intelligence as an excuse. Rick wants to connect with other people, mainly his family, and yet can't reconcile his basic human instincts of connection with others with his vast intelligence and awareness of the interchangeability of people over in infinite multiverse of parallel universes. The apparent pointlessness of anything anyone does has caused him to view his attachments to others as one of his flaws.
- In the episode "Auto Erotic Assimilation" Rick responds to Unity saying it wants to apologize to Morty and Summer for dismissing their concerns about Rick and Unity hanging out together after the two of them left the planet Unity was inhabiting in disgust. Rick tells Unity not to waste its time on Morty and Summer, comparing them to the species Unity takes over the minds of, saying that "they put you at the center of their lives because you're powerful, and because THEY put you there, they want you to be less powerful."
- In "The ABC's of Beth" he explains that, because Beth Smith's intelligent like him, the whole universe is against her, while it's increasingly clear that it's her warped inability to relate to other people that causes her problems and is why, in spite of all of Rick's best efforts, she will always go running back to Jerry in spite of their incredibly broken marriage because he's pretty much the one person on the planet she is able to identify with.Rick: You’re smart. When you know nothing matters, the universe is yours. And I’ve never met a universe that was into it. The universe is basically an animal. It grazes on the ordinary. It creates infinite idiots just to eat them, not unlike your friend Timmy. You know, smart people get a chance to climb on top, take reality for a ride, but it’ll never stop trying to throw you. And, eventually, it will. There’s no other way off.
- Barthromaw the dragon brings it up in "Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty" as he believes, like himself, Rick's lessers will hunt him down and he will either be owned or slain. Again, by the end of the episode it's show it's actually the dragon's clingy sexual deviance that allows him to be easily "owned" by others as, by the end, he's outright begging Rick or Morty to stay with him.
- Summer Smith accuses Jerry Smith of the inverse of this in "Childrick of Mort", giving Jerry a "The Reason You Suck" Speech by accusing him of only wanting to take everyone camping because it's the one place that Jerry thinks he can excel over everyone else. Or more accurately, allow him to bring himself up by bringing everyone around him down.Summer: Oh, you think this s'more makes you special? What? Because someone said, "good job," to you once when you were ten? That's actually really sad, Dad. Let's be real. You've been high-roading us non-stop, forcing us to do nothing in the middle of fucking nowhere because it's the only way you're gonna level the playing field, isn't it? Because if you move the bar so low, you might actually seem like you're worth a fuck!
- Which comes back to bite them once the two are stranded alone in the wilderness with no survival skills, not even the bare essentials Jerry knew from camping, and after stumbling across a crashed space ship, they try to apply their own skills to driving it, only for that to backfire as well. While Summer wasn't entirerly wrong about Jerry, her opinion of herself and Morty were ridiculously inflated as well; they weren't better than Jerry, they were just two whiny, self-important teenagers who resented not being allowed to indulge in their addictions.
- The Simpsons:
- Homer Simpson's hatred of Ned Flanders stems from not being able to stand how satisfied he is with his life, whether or not he's succeeding. The rare moments Homer will empathize with him are usually when Ned experiences something even he can't stand.
- In "Simpsons Bible Stories", after the family realize that they had just Slept Through the Apocalypse, they see the Flanderses ascend to heaven. Lisa then begins to ascend to heaven, but Homer pulls her back down and says "Where do you think you're going, missy?" The family then descends into hell together.
- "Four Great Women and a Manicure" has Marge tell a story — a parody of The Fountainhead set in a preschool — that suggests the educational system does this.
- In "I'm with Cupid", Apu's many elaborate shows of affection towards Manjula cause Springfield's married women to feel neglected by their cheapskate husbands, so they give them the cold shoulder in response. While most of the men realize that they should put more effort into showing their wives they love them, Homer instead redirects their anger at Apu, convincing them that he is the problem, not them, and organizes them into a mob determined to sabotage Apu's next spectacle.
- This works two ways for Lisa Simpson. She is usually depicted as having no friends and is often met with annoyance by Springfield because she's smarter than most of the people there. On the flip side, she turns into a Green-Eyed Monster whenever she meets someone as smart as her and is implied to resent Martin for being the only student at Springfield Elementary in the same intellectual ballpark as her.
