Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / True Capitalist

Go To

  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Some of the trolls believe/perpetuate the idea that Ghost is simply a character played by a Man of a Thousand Voices from Manhattan (The call-in number from 2008 to 2012 was a Manhattan area code, and the one time Ghost was confronted with this, he simply told the caller off and angrily claimed that it didn't need an explanation) who likes the attention and/or secretly gets paid depending on how many listeners he has, and his outbursts and abrasive attitude keeps people coming back for more. Of course, bringing up any of this to Ghost triggers the usual response. This isn't helped by the fact that Ghost does seem to have a natural talent with impressions at times, which is best heard when he mocks sensitive/effeminate guys (In one rant to a caller claiming if used a certain tone of voice and attitude the caller could attract any woman, he uses an extremely well-acted sensitive guy voice, with almost no signs of his southern twang slipping through).
      • However, all call-in numbers on BlogTalkRadio originate from New York City area codes, so that might take it out of the question. This is further Jossed when the call-in numbers switched a handful of times in 2016, 2017 and again in 2018.
      • This was further backed up by Ghost's claims in a Paltalk chat session claiming the voice he uses online is not his real voice.
    • Even a cursory glance at any time Engineer speaks reveals that it's just Ghost covering his mouth, moving further away from the mic, and putting on a stupid voice, but the fans play along and never bring it up during the show.
    • Not to mention he clearly pretended to be his grandmother once in a similar style, in an attempt to get back at a particularly lame prank call (basically, when he couldn't get anyone on the phone, he made up a story for the voice message, claiming that the pranker had called his grandmother and insulted her so badly that she broke down mentally).
  • Award Snub: An interesting case. For about a month or two, the fans tried to get Ghost to win the Shorty Award in the Radio category. He ended up getting the most votes. Nobody took the award from him, the Shorty Awards didn't even show the Radio category. Fans were not happy.
    • In the Ghostie award shows, Ghost tends to choose the winner regardless of the votes. You can expect the voters to have different opinions on the matter. His choice for 2017's TCR Troll of the Year (Ajit Pai) is a particularly touchy subject. People think the African Booty Scratcher should've won, but at least he earned the honorable mention.
  • Awesome Music: Due to the massive remix culture, there's been quite a few worthy songs.
  • Base-Breaking Character: A few trolls have been either good or fail, depending on who you ask. "Ash-hole" in particular got this reaction before the 2016 Return.
    • Tina the Transtesticle in particular. Was she one of the top tier trolls, or an annoying try-hard? She was Put on a Bus after she was banned from the show in early 2012, and hasn't come back since.
    • Twilie Atkins, while she is considered a good troll by most of the brony community, she is hated by a large majority of the non-brony listeners because majority of her splices are brony related. Even Ghost came to view her as both annoying and a potential sexual predator after she worked with MaskedPony on some splices for the show. As the fanbase's number of bronies continues to decline, the negative sentiment only grows.
      • Now she's in the Inner Circle as an ex-troll, which itself is controversial because she didn't pay for her own slot.
    • Bronies in general get this reaction too at times. It doesn't help that they're hit or miss when trolling Ghost.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Ghost has auctioned a cow who he claimed was a caller's mother in middle of a broadcast, and a few days later proclaimed himself the king of mexicans. So much for Serious Business.
    • Whenever he plays "fruitbowl music," the song is played, and no mention of it is heard from again.
    • "That Freakin' Panda" that apparently shows up in Ghost's vision whenever he tries to meditate. Upon seeing it he goes absolutely BALLISTIC with copious amounts of cans.wav ensuing shortly after, but he has never explained or addressed it outside of the failed meditation rituals.
  • Broken Base: How monetized the show and its community has become ever since "The Ghost Show" era began. Ghost started to accept donations in return for text-to-speech messages and audio clips to be played automatically on-stream, along with video link donations that Ghost would watch for the viewers. This quickly became controversial, and drove a divide between traditional trolls and newer viewers who were willing to throw their money aroundnote . The former find the increased monetization irritating, as not only does it flood the stream with loud music clips (before Ghost discontinued them) and text-to-speech messages (which, while considered funny, would play frequently and interrupt whatever Ghost was saying, often sidetracking him from an entertaining rant or interesting topic), but it would also result in a massive backlog of video donations, the sheer volume eating up runtime and turning the stream into "Ghost reacts" most of the time. In fact, they would pile up to the point of not only leaving no time for Radio Graffiti, but also causing the stream to drag on for 8+ hours, which was not agreeable to viewers on weekday evenings and was often overwhelming. Newer viewers who troll through donations often accuse the opposition of being poor and lazy, along with being stuck in the past, seeing the video reactions as a worthy successor of the old formula. Alongside this, some see Radio Graffiti as obsolete and way less funny than it used to be, as most of the Remix/Splice and Voice Trolling/Persona talent has long since moved onnote  while the video donations continue to bring in laughs and good reactions. Not helping is Ghost's monetization of his community, requiring a $300 purchase to enter his Inner Circle, where one can easily be evicted if another user pays Ghost enough thanks to the frequent community drama (though this often tends to happen to community scrappies and not typically average users, though the risk is always there.).
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Between Ghost and the trolls... a lot. Arguably the whole point of the show is this, as the things that people do to poor Ghost are hideously offensive and way out of line...if Ghost wasn't such a rude, unpleasant, and bigoted jerkass that he really does deserve every bit of what's coming to him.
    • Johnnie Walker, Second Harvest...gross. Johnnie Walker, Third Harvest, really gross. Johnnie Walker, 567th Harvest...And then it goes even further with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Harvest...
    • The twitter names: Shakin' Like India, What's Shakin' Mexico, Semen Connoisseur, Radiation for Japan, The Whoremaster, Hot Deals in Texas, No Jobs for Apple, the Poopticklers, Colon Tenderizer, Mitt's Barber Shop, Sandusky Shower Attendant, Toddler Speed Bump, Diarrhea Bubble Bath, Fart Fetish Fiona ("You need help! You need therapy! And I don't even believe in therapy!")... it goes on and on.
      • The revival twitter names contain even more of this, like Texas Liquid Assets, Liquid Markets, Poseidon vs Sixth Street, No Towels for Texas, Texas Drowning in Debt...it goes on and on.
    • Poor Templeton. And poor Ghost's granny. Getting roasted and fed to Ghost for dinner is one of the nicer things that's happened to them in the audio edits...
    • Many of the splices.
    I hate to keep beating on my grandma here, but...
  • Crossover Ship:
    • Ghost x Applejack.
    • Well, they're both ponies, they've both got southern accents going on (although Applejack is more of a Missouri accent, but her entire look gives off the Texas/Farmgirl idea), they are both involved in capitalism (Applejack's family is heavily involved in the apple industry), etc.
    • This suggests otherwise.
    • Ghost x Pippa Pipkin would end up becoming a popular trolling tatic.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The Engineer is becoming this, since he "betrayed" Ghost a few times. He's also gotten a lot more shout-outs than Ghost himself.
    • Horny the Clown.
    • The Ghetto Capitalist. Heyyyyyy, Ghost baby!
    • The "Internet Buttstalker", a Camp Gay that makes extremely suggestive comments to Ghost, has quite a sizable fanbase.
    • The Tub Guy/614, another Camp Gay caller that calls in and makes a lot of suggestive comments with a gentlemanly voice. Oh my!
    • The African Booty Scratcher. His deep voice and accent always infuriate Ghost, and was the honorable mention for Best Troll 2017.
    • The Ban All Bronies Cult is quite popular, considering that they only appeared in one or two shows.
    • Johnnie Walker, second/third/fourth harvest...
    • Ghost's Granny. Or rather, J-Man's interpretation of her. She grew popular with the trolls in Summer 2019 for upsetting Ghost every single time she called in, and it helps that she brought back the African Booty Scratcher.
  • First Installment Wins: First Avatar Wins: Ghost's first avatar is much more recognised than his new one that debuted in early December 2011, or even the one that debuted in September 2016, and especially compared to the one that debuted in October 2017. Arguably, over time, due to Ghost's avatar changes, the one from December 2011 has become just as iconic as his original avatar.
    • A literal First Installment Wins here: Whenever a whole group of Twitter names form a "group" of sorts, the PoopTickler series of names will always come up first. Then came knock-offs: ranging from the Gimp squad, the Slime girls/boys and a one episode wonder, a series of names with Constipation in it.
  • Fountain of Memes: The show is endlessly quotable, with "hambone" and "melting pot of friendship" being some of the most popular memes spawned from it. #EngineerIsTheTalent became a minor meme in late 2011 as well.
  • Friendly Fandoms: With the bronies. The True Capitalist fandom we know and love today was originally started by bronies, and it wasn't until DarkRazorZ's immensely popular "Trolling Ghost" video that non-bronies (who now comprise a majority of the fandom today) found it. Bronies and sick fruity-ass milky-licker no-life-having sick fruitbowls are still, for the most part, on quite good terms.
    • After the revival, however, the majority of the fanbase today look down upon bronies and they are usually banned whenever they appear in ogcapitalistarmy chatroom. This has escalated as time goes on, with accusations of splice sabotage and rogue trolls.
  • Funny Moments: OH. SO. MUCH!
  • Growing the Beard: Seems to have occurred around the time the show's name was changed from True Conservative Radio to True Capitalist Radio.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Ghost's nickname for pedophiles ("Woody Allen butt loving paedophiles") is quite a bit less funny after Dylan Farrow claimed that Woody Allen molested her as a young girl.
    • On May 6, 2017, one caller threatened to shoot down a furry convention, which was made all the more disturbing when, later that month, a deranged individual planned on killing police officers and one of the celebrities attending Phoenix Comic-Con.
    • It's uncomfortable to listen to older episodes with Ghost drinking as of March 2017, when he temporarily stopped due to health concerns.
    • On January 11, 2012's 4-Year Anniversary chatroom shout outs segment, there was a chatroom name "Don't Make It 5 Years." His show ended up not making it five years.
    • From the broadcast itself: "FOUR YEARS, I've been on this internet, FOUR YEARS! And there's going to be many many more years, for Christ's sake, 'cause you wanna know something? I CAN'T DIE! I CAN'T DIE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" Exactly 4 months and 4 days later...
    • Averted, since Ghost has been back for nearly 8 years now.
    • In 2017 and 2018, Ghost often made an Alex Jones imitation poking fun of his Super Male Vitality vitamin supplements that gives you 'the big ass boners'. Ghost was quite horrified later on after he heard that Alex Jones was accused of sexual harassment in workplace.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • On December 6, 2011, there was a Twitter account that retweeted the broadcast as NavySanhusky and Ghost reacted with disgust. On January 11, 2012, Ghost started calling NavyHuskie NavySanhuskie.
    • Ghost pointed out on his Twitter on 6/16/12 how Sweden is passing a law to force council members to urinate sitting down. Now remember when that Radio Graffiti caller played "I Sit Down When I Pee"?
    "We got songs promoting men sitting down to take a piss, fer Christ's sake!"
    • Remember how Ghost usually affectionately refers to a certain day of the week as "Taco Tuesday". Now remember how big of a Berserk Button My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is for the man. Put 'em together!
    • During Twitter Shoutouts on 10/3/16, someone had the name "Inner Circle of Autism" which caused Ghost to cans.wav over people making fun on his "friends." Come late January of 2017, Ghost introduces the Short Bus for "tards" within the Inner Circle.
    • One of J-Man's highlight videos predicted that Ghost would be dead from drinking 'til his liver gave up. A few days later on July 4th, 2017, Ghost didn't do his planned broadcast because he was "too wasted". That may double as Harsher in Hindsight as it helped prolong the hiatus.
    • On July 17, 2016's episode of True Capitalist Radio, he claims YouTube users are "self-absorbed." Guess which website he started hosting "The Ghost Show" on two years later?
  • Ho Yay: Deliberately invoked by trolls to enrage Ghost twice:
    Ghost and Alex Jones, sitting in a tree
    K-I-S-S-I-N-G
    —>First comes fearmongering
    Then comes gay marriage
    Then comes my fruity-ass fruitbowl gay son- *cans.wav*
  • Jerkass Woobie: Some people have genuinely felt sorry for him, specially after his Christmas anecdotes on how he doesn't receive any presents. He also sounded genuinely sick several times. Also, despite how hypocritical he might be in this regard often times, he often sounds genuinely hurt when people attack his family, most notably his grandmother, whom he describes as practically a saint.
    • Celtic Brony set himself up to look like one of these so no one would be prepared when he revealed himself to just be a plain Jerkass.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: As far as the internet is concerned, the only parts of the show worth paying attention to are "Radio Grafitti," where trolls can call and upset Ghost, and troll donations during every other part of the show.
  • LGBT Fanbase: For reasons that nobody really comprehends, the show has attracted a large proportion of transgender listeners. this is often Lampshaded by Ghost in the show and he holds the belief that many of them come listen to the show because they are attracted to the "Manly Dominance" he keeps throwing around in the show. Ghost on the other hand has become much more tolerant of transgender people after getting a chance to personally talk with some of these fans (though this backpedaled somewhat after some community drama).
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • The "Melting Pot of Friendship"
    • When Ghost raged at somebody's Twitter name being Poop Tickler, it sparked an entire "family" of Poop Ticklers.
      • People have also tried to do other memes in a similar style; like Group Poop, Gimps, and Slime Girl. While they were good for a laugh, they didn't catch on quite as well.
    • cans.wavExplanation 
    • SUCK MAH DIIIIICK!
    • MORE BEER!
    • Hi, I'm John Conquest.
    • Type CAP to ban Deci. Explanation 
    • YAAAAY, SPAGHETTIII, YAAAAY!
    • I'VE GOT YOUR BITCH!
    • Snake Ass. Explanation 
  • Misaimed Fandom: His show is serious business! But wait ... why are even the My Little Pony fans listening?!
    • The hambone fad kicked off when Ghost said to call the people in hover-rounds hambones. Of course, it launched into people calling Ghost a hambone and it created the hambone remixes. It quickly wore out its welcome.
    • Ghost clearly said the only reason why he sings songs is so the fanbase can identify the songs. Instead, people remixed his voice into the songs that he sang.
    • After TCR became famous for being so awful, Ghost developed a group of actual fans, who are usually found fruiting up his twitter feed with racism and misogyny- at this point, the main reason for listening to TCR is to mock it, so legitimate listeners are seen as a Misaimed Fandom of sorts. And, of course, there are those who both agree with some of what Ghost has to say and troll him anyway.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Many viewed Celticbrony's actions towards the end of the show as this, such as him doxing Ghetto Capitalist for no reason and succumbing to Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
    • Teutonic Plague's comments toward slitting a dog's throat if it ever bit him was also viewed as this by many of the fans and trolls. It was so bad it actually resulted in a successful petition to kick him off of the show.
    • Some people consider Elfoxoloco emailing BlogTalkRadio trying to take Ghost off the air and taking down Ghost's gumroad page as him going too far.
    • One troll crossed this line without even revealing his identity, when he threatened to shoot down a furry convention. What made this especially despicable was that this was when mass shootings started to become increasingly prevalent in the United States.
  • Narm:
    • One caller's description of his date with a high-functioning autistic woman ended up being so overwrought and goofy sounding that it was impossible for Ghost or the audience to take it seriously. The point Ghost lost it at was him casually mentioning how he was grinding in her face.
    • Ghost trying to describe the severity of the "end of the internet" that will come with the UN's regulation in 2016. He tries to depict the event as gravely serious, but undermines it by depicting "Prince of Darkness" George Soros in a cartoonishly villainous voice.
  • Narm Charm: Yes, his rages are sometimes over the top to the point where it couldn't be taken seriously. Part of the reason why his show remained so popular until the first run of the show ended on May 2012 was because of this.
  • Never Live It Down: Ghost has expressed a desire to break free of the fandom of trolls in favor of purely capitalists. It is unlikely, however, that the internet will ever allow him to break free of the image.
    • His allegations of racism were right up there for most of 2011. People used to call in and constantly called him racist, constantly triggering him to trigger his Berserk Button.
    • Someone made an audio splice of Ghost denouncing his son was "a fruity bastard" that was played on the show a couple times (the first time triggered a huge cans.wav storm) and that's what Ghost's son was best known as.
    • Trolls have made sure that Ghost will never have the chance to live down the time he called Donald Trump a 'megalomaniac blowhard we don't need in the White House' during the 2012 Presidential Elections by repeatedly playing and splicing this bit in the show.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Ghost's demonic voice as detailed above? Some may find it funny, especially since splicers often lower Ghost's voice some semi-tones and play creepy organ music to make him sound "like some satanic freak!"
  • Older Than They Think: Most people aren't aware that Ghost has been trolled since 2008, with the gap between 2012-2016 that's 4 years of trolling.
  • Old Guard Versus New Blood: The summer of 2011 tends to be recognized as the overlap between the two groups. The 'old guard' consists of Ghetto Capitalist, Tub Guy, the Internet Buttstalker (who was one of the first-ever trolls), and the like; the 'new blood' is much less universally liked, with only callers such as the Anti Brony Cult, Nikolai, and Tri$ha spawning running gags and being listener favorites.
    • With the revival in 2016, it seems the new guard of 2011-2012 is now the Old Guard, with the New Guard being "ARealBlackGuy", "Pivot Idiot", "American Truck Simulator" and the like, with occasional calls/cameos by Tub Guy and the Internet Buttstalker.
    • Since Ghost added a text-to-speech feature in the Ghost Show, it's become RG vs. TTS. The TTS's are criticized by older fans for being too intrusive to the show's format and sometimes put the show at a snail's pace.
  • Once Original, Now Common:
    • The Internet Buttstalker was the first troll and the Trope Maker for many popular methods of making Ghost rage. These methods have been used so often now (and have been given so many variations) that the Buttstalker, if he started calling in 2018 (the final year of the show), would appear to be a boring Follow the Leader fail troll. Spermy the Cat qualifies as well.
    • Ghost lampshaded this when someone played "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" on his show, and he asked if the caller was some 42-year-old man who still thought that was risque.
    • The June 17, 2011 episode (which pretty much exposed TCR to the wider world and was often held up as a prime example of trolling) gets this reaction today: hindsight has pretty much painted the episode as being chock-full of failtrolls and badly dated memes (to say nothing of hearing "Fuck You Texas" for the umpteenth time). In contrast to the more elaborate personalities and generally higher amounts of effort put into riling Ghost up, both pre-June and post-October of that year, the summer of 2011 can essentially be seen as one long Bizarro Episode. The fact that certain trolls such as The Internet Buttstalker essentially got shafted by the flood of new callers only adds to current opinion.
  • Padding: After raging hard over a remix or splice, he often goes into a long fit of self-pity: "I'm jaded for Christ's sake, I mean, I'M DEPRESSED!"
    • Also, the discussion of the markets at the beginning of the show is only interesting if you're a serious caller; it's padding for everybody else.
    • Him bringing up the woodshed has gotten old, and seems to take more time every time it comes up. It doesn't help that he said it was a bad idea after hearing a splice of it before almost immediately bringing it up again.
    • On November 30, 2016, after about five minutes of Radio Graffiti, Ghost spent the rest of the broadcast (about twenty minutes) talking about people making fun of Pizzagate, right after thisissparta789789 played an intro splice.
    • The Uncle Bernie and George Soros impressions are getting a little played out at this point.
    • He once went into "Mr Optimism" mode for about 20 minutes, taking away half of the alloted time for Radio Graffiti.
    • Common practice since Mid-February 2017. Ghost has stretched out the main part of the show with Cryptocurrency markets and has all but removed Radio Graffiti.
    • Radio Graffiti is back in the Ghost Show. The new problem is whenever Ghost has to smoke the devil's lettuce, he sometimes drifts off into another topic. Especially if it's just before Radio Graffiti.
    • It's known that Ghost will utter the same shpiel (if provoked) about how his granny "was a pious woman", or that "Donald Trump is the modern day George Washington" and that Ghost would follow him to Hell.
  • Periphery Demographic: Although not the kind Ghost wants.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While MaskedPony was never liked by listeners - for either his brown-nosing of Ghost or disgusting diaper fetish - trolls were able to exploit the latter to get a rise of Ghost.
    • After the 2016 return, KaraszKun has gotten this label after he's managed to troll Ghost several times.
  • The Scrappy:
    • The caller from Area Code 417. He called to "troll" Ghost and often fails (such as playing "Fuck You Texas" and being obnoxious; i.e. "Happy Baller Friday from San Francisco, butt boy."). He almost had his number announced on air when he was trolling Ghost with racial slurs. Nearly everyone hates this caller. He was Put on a Bus and has mercifully remained absent during the 2016 revival.
    • For a lot of the long time listeners, Asho (appropriately titled Ash-hole by Ghost) was this before 2016.
    • The surgeradio.org guy. Ghost gave him the worst troll award for a good reason.
    • Goofy_Bone. He can't rap to save his life, and his gimmick consists of cursing every other word.
    • Area code 204, the "where's Kira" caller. He (or she's) painfully unfunny and annoying.
    • Kids that call in the show usually get this reaction from both the fans and the Trolls.
    • KaraszKun used to be this because of his Creator's Pet status and how boring the show gets during Ghost's "Ask KaraszKun" segment, however he was ultimately Rescued from the Scrappy Heap after he was surpassed by much worse brown nosers in the show and joined in to troll Ghost a few times.
    • Teutonic Plague, G and MaskedPony all managed to earn the hatred of the trolls with their brown nosing in 2016.
    • The Cleveland Show caller. Someone continues to call in playing the intro theme to The Cleveland Show, and once called up making a pedophilia joke towards Ghost, causing him to end the show early in Tranquil Fury. Needless to say, he was quickly doxed and revealed to be in a sexual predator database shortly after that show.
    • The meat manager caller during the March 3, 2017 broadcast, who rambled on for a solid seven minutes about his enthusiasm for meat, its place in the markets, and the show in general. What's worse is that he called in during an otherwise fascinating discussion about the problems of the modern video game industry. Despite having only called in a couple times, the trolls have considered him worse than the likes of Goofy_Bone or Raiden Snake.
    • Raidensnake. A frequent serious caller from the UK, he was mostly ignored by trolls in favor of trolling G or Teutonic Plague. However since December 2016, he has been a frequent target, with the trolls trying to prove he's a furry/anime fan and a "Fake Brit".
    • Trumping Capitalist became this to the Inner Circle after his Pizzagate investigation went down in flames and he got outed as a compulsive liar.
    • The Spaghetti Kid is a Fan Nickname for a caller who Ghost says "Yay, Spaghetti!" to. He is disliked for having an annoying voice and getting counter-trolled by Ghost multiple times.
    • The Ghost Show has the group of trolls sending shock videos to Ghost, the most common being a video of a snake going up a man's butt. Other trolls despise this group as it causes Ghost to quit early and frankly they don't want to see gross videos like that.
    • DanTheOracle may be the most hated person on The Ghost Show, being a unabashed, non-ironic Neo-Nazi who uses the show as a propaganda beacon. He spends lots of money contributing a ton of videos to Ghost, and wasting everyone's time, even during Radio Graffiti. Then he antagonizes Radio Graffiti callers, calling them "poor losers" and comparing them to starving people in India. Even Ghost doesn't like him, but still plays his videos because he gets paid to.
    • West Coast Capitalist has surpassed DanTheOracle as the most hated member on The Ghost Show, to the point that he caused a lot of trouble for everyone involved with the community, including the Inner Circle. Most of the community's disdain towards him is that he's a no personality character that tries to copy Ghost's personality, to the point of being downright intolerable. Most of his involvement in the show is wasting everyone's time during Radio Graffiti or causing a lot of fights in the Inner Circle.
  • Seasonal Rot: People have found that the 2016 shows and especially the 2017 shows have degraded in quality substantially from 2011 and 2012's shows, due to old memes being re-used, a lack of originality in the trolls, less convincing and amusing reactions from Ghost. There was also a greater focus on the infighting between trolls and Short Bus members, worsening by the month. This seems to be the general consensus for most of the November and December 2017 episodes, where his rants on Asperger's and Autism became more common and longer every time, taking away time from both serious callers and trolls to call in. 2018 is even worse because he moved away from Blog Talk Radio, doesn't have a podcast RSS Feed, streams using Shoutcast, removed Shout-outs and Radio Graffiti, has more, longer, less informed rants, and not breaking up the monotony with commercial breaks.
    • After getting demonetized by BlogTalkRadio, Ghost quit that site to host the show on his own site. Though the audio quality is clearer, his rants became longer and more unhinged, with way more f-bombs and nastiness. After a month of not doing Radio Graffiti, he brought it back, but it was based on whether or not fans donated to his Cryptocurrency Wishing Well. It all came to a crashing halt after June 13th, 2018 when Ghost not only canceled Radio Graffiti, but canceled all Shoutouts and fan interaction, due to a lack of donations and appreciation. Then the show came to a halt in November 2018, which some people saw it as a mercy killing.
    • Ghost came back in 2019, going from True Capitalist Radio to the YouTube-hosted The Ghost Show. What seemed like a new age quickly turned into a giant disaster. Ghost opened the option to donate a few dollars for text-to-speech messages to him. This would lead to shows where half of it was people paying to have TTS messages to troll him, and he would rant and rave and never get to the topic he wanted to talk about. It got worse when he opened up an option to donate $12 (later $15 and now $20) to have him react to a YouTube video. While some fun can be found there, a lot of it feels forced. The older trolls realized that Ghost is just juicing people for money now and the show isn't as fun. Trolls also started jumping off when Ghost would host the streams later and later into the night and thus their work wouldn't be heard. It's gotten a little better now as Ghost sometimes disallows the 20 buckers and does early Radio Graffiti.
  • Squick: JOOOOOOOOHNNNNYYY WAAAAAAAAALKEEERRR, SEEEEEECOND HAAAAAARVEST* 
    • As of May 9, 2012: Johnnie Walker, Third Harvest.
      • And now as of May 11, 2012, Fourth Harvest.
      • And as of May 15, 2012, Fifth Harvest.
      • Ghost returned after a four-year hiatus on March 25 of 2016, only to be greeted by Five Hundred and Sixty-Seventh Harvest.
      • Now we have Bernie Sanders Harvest.
      • And now, Trump Vodka Second Harvest.
    • Those puking sounds are a bit too realistic at times. Not to mention whatever actually causes such a reaction.
    • One of his lesser used threats also qualifies. "I'D STOMP A MUDHOLE IN YOUR ASS, I'D KICK IT DRY, AND THEN TAKE A DIRTY DIARRHEA CRAP RIGHT IN THERE, AND ALL YOU COULD DO IS LOOK AT ME WITH A BROWN SMILE ABOUT IT!!" Ew...
    • One of Ghost's often-used insults is "Their assholes are puckering!"
    • Any shocking or offensive twitter or chat room name.
    Ghost: "We got Diarrhea Soup...Jesus Christ with some of these names!"
    • Some video donations elict this reaction, and some other videos look innocent until they flash "snake ass" or something equally disgusting.
    • Ghost's explanation for missing the first Saturday Night Troll Show of 2020 involves him accidentally peeing in a man's eye.
  • "Stop Having Fun" Guys: Every so often someone feels the need to bring up the likelihood that Ghost is a troll, when in fact most members of the Capitalist Army either already think that and don't care, or just don't want to know whether he's a troll or not to keep the show entertaining.
  • Strawman Has a Point: In his February 26, 2018 appearance, Mr. Fortune Cookie is complaining about Americans criticizing the Chinese government, and rebukes: "China has been going a long time! The communist government is going a long time! And we will continue to go a long time!" In fact, China is one of the oldest existing nations on Earth, and remains one of the most powerful nations to this day. Even with the government's controversial actions regarding human rights and diplomacy, there's no denying that the nation has millennia worth of political experience, and at the very least knows what to do to preserve itself.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: A rare non-Pandering to the Base example: Tub Guy gave one of these to KaraszKun and Goofy Bone on May 3rd, 2012's episode. He suggested that Ghost, KaraszKun and Goofy Bone have a double blowjob.
    • After the Cleveland Show caller pissed off a majority of the community, people from both the Tinychat and TheBronyNetwork chatroom set aside their differences and collaborated in a splice to tell the caller to piss off. After he made a pedophilia joke towards Ghost, causing the show to end early, he was quickly doxed and revealed to be a sexual predator himself.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans (both trolls and actual fans) didn't like Ghost's new avatar change in December 2011.
    • Happened again when he changed his avatar in September 2016.
    • Many fans and trolls feel this way about the new direction the show has gone since May 2018. With the show's move away from Blog Talk Radio, Ghost's voice came through at a much higher quality, however since he could speak freely without being censored or filtered, Ghost has taken to being much more vulgar in his vernacular. Additionally, many trolls were upset with the demise of Radio Graffiti, however upon its inevitable return, some believed the show would return to its once former glory. These hopes were soon dashed however, when Ghost ended Radio Graffiti and Shoutouts indefinitely, which led to a mass exodus of people who mainly listened for those segments alone. It's rather telling that Ghost had this format scrapped after November 2018 to retool his show into The Ghost Show.
  • Wangst: Ghost is given to long spells of intense self-pity where he complains about how he puts so much effort into the show and is completely bewildered as to why people troll him. If Ghost really were as wise and mature as he claims to be, he would realize that his noxious personality, his massive ego, and his extreme anger are the reason people don't take him seriously.
  • Win Back the Crowd: The Ghost Show, which started during New Years Eve to 2019, in which he appeared far more collected and calm. He promised to dial back on political rants and bring back more fun and interactivity to the show. Zig-Zagged, however, as the change in format brought in some fairly divisive elements to the show.
  • The Woobie: Engineer can get like this when Ghost gives him particular amounts of grief.
    • Zigzagged with Celtic Brony, who seemingly evolved from Jerkass to Jerkass Woobie and then finally to Woobie the more he got kicked. Then it turned out he was a Jerkass the whole time, and then went back to being a Woobie again.
    • Don't forget Goofy_Bone. (Though some may consider him more of a Chew Toy) No one likes his music, Tzeki especially treats him like shit, he can never really win. Ghost doesn't even acknowledge him anymore, despite him still occasionally mentioning Ghost on Twitter.

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top