Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

it's a good reminder that the key to the trope is "overshadowed". If someone's entire job/brand centres around being controversial, it's not exactly overshadowing them.

Hey guys, I'm working on the Wick Check and eventual TRS thread for OBC, and I had a question I wanted to ask people who do more cleanup here - is OBC supposed to be the trope for "Cancelled?" I'm seeing a lot of potholes to OBC when talking about any career ending (or at least impacting) scandal, and I also see a lot of examples talking more about behind-the-scenes creators than anything to do with the actual work itself. Is this misuse of the trope?

Eh... maybe? I think a truly "cancelled" creator is more Fallen Creator. This is just really the concept for a creator (or work) being more memorable for a controversy than the actual stuff they did / actual contents of the story. The controversy doesn't need to be serious or even true; it just has to affect how people think.

I think Role-Ending Misdemeanor is what "cancelled" should mean (since it's about actual consequences), but colloquially I guess it fits OBC better. I think it should be clear in the example that the controversy overshadowed the work as opposed to a controversy just existing.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 23rd 2024 at 3:15:53 PM

I can agree with this. There's way too much overlap between the two at the moment.

Could the Stormcloaks from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim be seen as a case where a entire faction ends up with the Overshadowed By Controversy treatment where they are mostly known for xenophobia than anything else. Not to go too much into late 2010s real world politics but with stuff like the refugee crisis, combined with the far right populist parties using anti-refugee rhetoric, the faction comes off as far more unsympathetic than they are and they tend to be mostly known for their xenophobia nowadays.

It might be one thing if they were villains, or this was a Ceaser's Legion situation where they are objectively in the wrong but they have boatloads of Misaimed Fandom or Draco in Leather Pants painting them as morally grey but the Stormcloaks are legitimately presented as a legit morally rounded option.

Isn't OBC meant for works and creators?

This sound like something for the Character Perception Evolution thread. It sounds similar to the description for the Imperium of Man.

Ok I think CPE might fit.

Edited by xie323 on Apr 24th 2024 at 8:25:11 AM

I think the Stormcloaks (and Ulfric in particular) are already listed under Base-Breaking Character with the ages-old "Is Ulfric Stormcloak George Washington or Robert E. Lee?" debate stated eloquently, if I recall.

Edited by ReginaldOgron5 on Apr 24th 2024 at 3:01:08 AM

The Stormcloaks were meant to be one half of a conflict that the game presented in a very even-handed manner as two sides motivated by a mix of ideology, traditional loyalty, power and simple prejudice. The playerbase is divided because that was the intention. They may have inched a bit towards one faction in the meantime, but I don't see how it could be a momentous shift work noting. Most of players, from what I can see, regard the war as background noise.

Assuming this hasn't been discussed before, but would Twitter qualify as OBC. Even before Elon Musk's infamous buyout of the platform in 2023, the site has been the subject of ridicule and mockery since the early 2020s for being the codifiers for the term "cancel culture". As someone who used to be on the platform daily, and sincerely regrets it, is there any reason besides the obvious why this shouldn't be added given it's infamy.

How much obscurity is a historical figure allowed to have for this trope before they are too obscure for it?

I have a historical figure whose reputation screams OBC given how they are viewed historically and there are some patterns with legit historical OBC(his controversial behavior overshadows everything else he did), but the amount of people that know about him is kinda niche and tied to one circle: specifically the political hard left and far left in America.

(It's Earl Browder btw)

Edited by xie323 on Apr 26th 2024 at 6:10:28 AM

I don't think politicians count as they're usually controversial to begin with.

We do have a couple of presidents and political figures through that do qualify for "one specific actions" overshadowing everything else like Nixon with Watergate, Tony Blair with Iraq. And there's not too much of a rule other than "don't throw every politician that is hated for everything they do here, it has to be one specific incident being seen to determine how most people view them overshadowing everything else"

And with Browder its' not really because of the more inherently controversial behavior of being a Communist, but more of a specific action that overshadowed how he is viewed on the political left. The issue with Browder is more due to if he is well known enough to warrent this trope.

Edited by xie323 on Apr 26th 2024 at 6:19:21 AM

I think it fails the “controversy” standards: the site is controversial in itself, not overshadowed by one.

And it’s not like there weren’t huge problems with Twitter before he bought it. He just amplified many of them and created new problems, like trying to make “blue checkmarks” a paid service.

I don't think the "cancel culture" thing is unique to Twitter (it's also associated with Tumblr and TikTok) and too many people still use Twitter for it to be truly OBC. I do think it could become OBC in the near future at the rate it's losing validity and support from non-Musk fanboys, but I don't think it's there yet as long as businesses still use Twitter for promotion.

Agreed, I don't think Twitter is overshadowed at the time of writing: it's more controversial, but still widely used by people everywhere on the political spectrum. It may be heading there, but that's for us to decide then.

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Apr 27th 2024 at 5:52:57 AM

Considering that YouTube and Tumblr are still listed as OBC despite both sites still having a huge amount of users, I think we need to distinct which website isn't overshadowed but still controversial and which site is Overshadowed by Controversy.

... I didn't know that, and I'm dubious about those examples, too.

Tumblr I can maybe see, since people were pretty loud about it banning NSFW material. But YouTube? I'm fairly sure most people will think of it as "oh, that video site where I spend 90% of my free time" before any scandals.

Youtube certainly isn’t OBC. It’s received its fair share of criticisms, but the example currently on OvershadowedByControversy.Website (which has several more questionable examples) seems to perceive the drama it’s discussing as far more mainstream than it actually is.

It would be great to move OvershadowedByControversy.Website to OvershadowedByControversy.Websites to be more consistent with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.Websites, as well as the fact that subpages generally have the medium be in the plural rather than in the singular (with the exception of collective nouns and "website" is not a collective noun).

After all, we moved all Newspaper Comics subpages to Comic Strips.

Should I go ahead, since it's a subpage rename?

Edited by Nen_desharu on Apr 27th 2024 at 6:01:59 AM

That makes sense. It could even just be page-moved.

I think Tumblr may be OBC by its porn ban due to the mass exodus and the fact people treat it on other websites like it died back then despite it still having an active userbase, but I don't think Youtube can be boiled down to being overshadowed by a single controversy when there's basically a new issue with the site every other month.

I'm also questioning The Mary Sue controversy here as that site is still active and posts new articles, it doesn't seem overshadowed to me. Youtube is not overshadowed, most of the casual audience does not really care about any controversy and will still continue to watch videos regardless. I also see Kiwi Farms listed but that feels like an "intentionally controversial" site, it's not really overshadowed by anything.