Ambiguous Name: Tough Room

The trope keeps getting used across the wiki as something like Lame Pun Reaction, basically someone lampshading that no one laughed at their joke. However, the trope is "funny characters are unpopular (or at least not as popular as they would be in real life)."

Honestly, I question its tropeworthiness myself. The description is a bit weird ("While in real life genuinely funny and charming people are social darlings, in TV land they're more seen as annoying losers. The prime examples would have to be Chandler Bing and Xander Harris, who — in their early seasons, at least — were funnier than just about anyone in real life, yet got nothing back but eye-rolling and sighs. You wonder why they hang out with these people." sounds like it was written by someone who considers themselves hilarious but not getting the love and attention they deserve.

I guess we ought to see how the wicks are used. Dunno about tropeworthiness as the things you mention aren't really arguments against it.

The issue is that it's a stock phrase, and the trope doesn't really jive too well with how the stock phrase is used.

Went through the bottom 15/52

• Tropes Season Five: Used both as "person makes unfunny jokes" and "character lampshades that no one laughed at a joke." Both misuse.
• The Rite of Spring: Refers to an out of universe instance of a riot, wild misuse.
• The Office (UK): No context, but probably right.
• The Magic School Bus: No context, but given he also has Lame Pun Reaction, I'd say it's more likely "bad joke lampshading."
• The Magic School Bus: Same example.
• The LeBrons: Just an instance where someone says "tough room."
• The Dinner Game: No one's laughing at the character's jokes, but they're not actually funny. Not sure if that's misuse or not.
• The Digimon Epics The Gathering Of Heroes: Correct.
• Talking to Themself: Use of the stock phrase in a comedy act.
• Super Mario Galaxy 2: Use of the stock phrase in a Lame Pun Reaction.
• Stock Shticks: Well, it references its use as a Stock Schtick, not the trope.
• Spy High: No context, but goign about the page it seems to fit.
• Tough Room: Lampshading a single failed joke.
• Series/Seinfeld: Correct, much to my surprise
• Rune Factory 3: Correct

7 incorrect 3 correct. 2 probably right. 2 probably wrong. 1 I don't know if it's misuse.

OK, that seems like reason for a rename at least.

Well, the name (or Tough Crowd, or variations) is used by comedians about an audience who doesn't laugh. Whether or not the jokes are funny doesn't really matter, as long as they're supposed to be funny. If that makes sense.

From what I gather from the trope, it's supposed to be about when the jokes are supposed to be funny to the audience (whether or not that's actually true), but no one laughs in the show. So it's really a bit of a tighter definition of the trope than what the phrase is used as.