History Main / FriendshipBribe

* ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'': In "[[Recap/TheBrittasEmpireS7E2ReviewingTheSituation Reviewing the Situation]]", Helen is learning about the importance of giving and receiving at one of her counseling courses, so she takes it to mean that gifting various stuff from an auction to the members of staff will earn their friendship. Whilst it seems to initially work, Brittas doesn't appreciate her gift, causing her to state her annoyance that evening and wonder whether the others were being polite. Brittas gently reminds her that "you can't buy friendship", even bringing up a previous incident when he tried to make friends with others by giving them sweets, but failed.

* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'': Montana Max uses the "Rent-A-Friend" service in two shorts, "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E20YouAskedForIt Sleight of Hare]]" and "[[Recap/TinyToonAdventuresS1E29RainyDaze Rent-A-Friend]]". In the latter case, he abused several of them to the point where [[BabysittersNightmare the service couldn't find anyone who wanted to spend time with him]] (except Buster, who in typical rabbit-style took the opportunity to payback Monty for all it's worth).

** Kowase regularly gives some of the money he makes {{blackmail}}ing people and [[CandidsForSale selling panty shots online]] to Okaya in order to stay in his good graces; Okaya later admits this is the only reason he bothers to consider Kowase a friend. A notable exception occurs when Kowase accidentally [[BerserkButton mentions Kiritaka's name in front of Okaya]]: when Kowase tries to give Okaya some pocket money to mend his mistake, Okaya doesn't even bother to take it and leaves the place without a word, leaving Kowase furious that [[NeverMyFault Kiritaka has embarrassed him from beyond the grave]].

** Kowase regularly gives some of the money he makes {{blackmail}}ing people and selling {{Panty Shot}}s online to Okaya in order to stay in his good graces; Okaya later admits this is the only reason he bothers to consider Kowase a friend. A notable exception occurs when Kowase accidentally [[BerserkButton mentions Kiritaka's name in front of Okaya]]: when Kowase tries to give Okaya some pocket money to mend his mistake, Okaya doesn't even bother to take it and leaves the place without a word, leaving Kowase furious that [[NeverMyFault Kiritaka has embarrassed him from beyond the grave]].

This trope is when a character, usually a rich one, ends up buying/bribing people into being their friends so they can have people to hang out with without going through the effort of being a good person. The character doesn't ''have'' to be rich, though; if they're desperate enough for friends or recognition, anyone might pull this trope with anything (free food, free rides in their car, etc). Sometimes the "friends" will be paid by a third party, usually the parents.

* ''Film/RichieRich'': The group of kids Richie unsuccessfully tried to befriend earlier show up at his mansion for a play date. At the end of the day, however, it is revealed Richie's butler Cadburry bribed them to come play with Richie. Subverted when the kids decline the money because at this point they actually had fun and genuinely came to like Richie as a friend (and even [[WhatTheHellHero call out]] the one member of their group who reminded Cadburry about the bribe).

* ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'': In "Reviewing the Situation", Helen is learning about the importance of giving and receiving at one of her counseling courses, so she takes it to mean that gifting various stuff from an auction to the members of staff will earn their friendship. Whilst it seems to initially work, Brittas doesn't appreciate her gift, causing her to state her annoyance that evening and wonder whether the others were being polite. Brittas gently reminds her that "you can't buy friendship", even bringing up a previous incident when he tried to make friends with others by giving them sweets, but failed.

** In "My Life as a Vlog," the Simpsons gain fame as popular [[=YouTubers=]] until their disgruntled former cameraman Milhouse airs out a bunch of his [[OnceMoreWithClarity unedited footage]]. Among other revelations, we find out that Bart's three costars on his prank channel were a handful of the [[MassiveNumberedSiblings many children]] of local hick Cletus Spuckler, who were being paid not only to appear as his friends in the videos but to hang out with him off-camera, as they didn't care for him much.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode "Pay Pal", [[Characters/TheSimpsonsMargeSimpson Marge Simpson]] becomes upset at discovering that [[Characters/TheSimpsonsLisaSimpson Lisa Simpson]], because she is a SoapboxSadie, has annoyed all of the other kids in Springfield into leaving her alone. Lisa does not care about being a loner and being seen as a freak, but Marge does, and so she bribes a girl to be Lisa's friend. Bart blows the ruse open by suspecting why any kid would like the things Lisa does.

* ''Film/AvataroSentaiDonbrothersVsZenkaiger'': Despite the new lease on life Jiro seemed to have gained following his [[spoiler:SplitPersonalityMerge at the end-stretch of the show]], he's become a worse person by the time of the movie. Taro interviews each member of the team and learns that [[spoiler:Jiro is an [[SketchySuccessor iffy leader]] whose ControlFreak tendencies and inability to handle criticism got Sonoi exiled from the group and tore the rest of the team apart.]] Furthermore, everyone's new cushy jobs and life-advancements came directly from him (more accurately the money he inherited from a former Hitotsu-Ki host off-screen), perks he's all too happy to try blackmailing them with when [[spoiler:they all decide they want Taro to lead again]]. They're actually fine with losing these things if it means a sense of normalcy again.
* In the live action ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'', [=LeFeu=] can be seen [[FunnyBackgroundEvent in the background of the song "Gaston"]] paying the bar's other patrons to sing along, hinting that Gaston isn't as well-liked as he thinks.

* ''Series/SonOfACritch'': A variation. Fox, who comes from a long line of school bullies, steals snacks off of Mark and Richie (her "nerd tax") as a pretense to hang around them without her brothers thinking that she's getting soft. For their part, Mark and Richie always makes sure that there is an extra bag of chips for her to steal.

* ''Series/YouCantDoThatOnTelevision'': In the Friendship episode, Moose found out that her friends of the rest of the cast had been bribed to be friends with her by her mom, and had to give them money for them to be friends with her for the rest of the show. By the end of the episode they stopped being friends with her because they realized they were paid less than her Mom gave them prorated. At the stinger the checks finally arrived to them and they once again showed friendship to Moose.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': Pacifica Northwest (before her CharacterDevelopment the following season) used this trope to get followers and popularity, along with whatever else she wanted. [[spoiler:She stops doing this towards the middle of the second season, when she learns that her family has been buying the town's favor and that their supposed "great legacy" is a bunch of lies to cover up just how corrupt and awful they really are.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode "Pay Pal", [[Characters/TheSimpsonsMargeSimpson Marge Simpson]] becomes upset at discovering that [[Characters/TheSimpsonsLisaSimpson Lisa Simpson]], because she is a SoapboxSadie, has annoyed all of the other kids in Springfield into leaving her alone. Lisa does not cares about being a loner and being seen as a freak, but Marge does, and so she bribes a girl to be Lisa's friend. Bart blows the ruse open by suspecting why any kid would like the things Lisa does.

[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode "Pay Pal", Marge becomes upset at discovering that Lisa, because she is a SoapboxSadie, has annoyed all of the other kids in Springfield into leaving her alone. Lisa does not cares about being a loner and being seen as a freak, but Marge does, and so she bribes a girl to be Lisa's friend. Bart blows the ruse open by suspecting why any kid would like the things Lisa does.

This trope is when a character, usually a rich one, ends up buying/bribing people into being their friends so they can have people to hang out with without going through the effort of being a good person. It isn't always the rich people, though; if they're desperate enough for friends or recognition, anyone might pull this trope with anything (free food, free rides in their car, etc). Sometimes the "friends" will be paid by a third party, usually the parents.

* J.P. from ''Anime/DigimonFrontier''. He would always have chocolate and other sweets for his friends, but it was eventually revealed that this was an attempt at bribery since no one actually bothered to get to know him beyond his tricks and candy. In one episode, he tries to bribe a school of starter digimon into playing with their ostracized classmate, Tsunomon who they feared for gaining the ability to digivolve into Gabumon. They don't hesitate in stating that wouldn't play with him regardless, causing the insulted Tsunomon to run away and Zoe to instantly call J.P. out.
* ''Anime/WelcomeToDemonSchoolIrumaKun'': When Clara is introduced, she's shown to be "friends" with a group of guys who're only around her for her ability of pulling out snacks and other things with her dimensional pocket ability. In fact, she was fully aware that she was being taken advantage of, but she felt that this was [[ExtremeDoormat the only way]] she could ever get anyone to spend any time with her as most found her CloudCuckoolander personality annoying and hard to deal with, [[FoodAsBribe unless there was a reason]]. She becomes very happy when Iruma tells her that he doesn't need her to give him things just to have him play with her. It's to the point that her greatest fear is seeing the few friends she made, especially Iruma whom she has feelings for, eventually get tired of her and avoid her unless she gives them stuff, just like her life before she met them.

[[folder:Film — Live Action]]
* ''Film/AvataroSentaiDonbrothersVsZenkaiger'': Despite the new lease on life Jiro seemed to have gained following his [[spoiler: SplitPersonalityMerge at the end-stretch of the show]], he's become a worse person by the time of the movie. Taro interviews each member of the team and learns that [[spoiler: Jiro is an [[SketchySuccessor iffy leader]] whose ControlFreak tendencies and inability to handle criticism got Sonoi exiled from the group and tore the rest of the team apart.]] Furthermore, everyone's new cushy jobs and life-advancements came directly from him (more accurately the money he inherited from a former Hitotsu-Ki host off-screen); perks he's all too happy to try blackmailing them with when [[spoiler: they all decide they want Taro to lead again]]. They're actually fine with losing these things if it means a sense of normalcy again.

* ''Film/RichieRich'': The group of kids Richie unsuccessfully tried to befriend earlier show up at his mansion for a play date. At the end of the day however, it is revealed Richie's butler Cadburry bribed them to come play with Richie. Subverted when the kids decline the money because at this point they actually had fun and genuinely came to like Richie as a friend (and even [[WhatTheHellHero call out]] the one member of their group who reminded Cadburry about the bribe).
* ''Film/{{Thoroughbreds}}'': Lily reaches out to Amanda at least in part to help her with SAT revision but insists she just wants to get to know Amanda after years. Amanda isn't fooled; she's been reading her mother's emails and knows that Lily isn't just charging, but negotiated a higher price with her mother. Amanda says she isn't annoyed that Lily is charging, she just doesn't want Lily to lie about it ? and that she could've negotiated a higher price.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': Pacifica Northwest (before her CharacterDevelopment the following season) used this trope to get followers and popularity, along with whatever else she wanted. [[spoiler: She stops doing this towards the middle of the second season, when she learns that her family has been buying the town's favor and that their supposed "great legacy" is a bunch of lies to cover up just how corrupt and awful they really are.]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

[[folder: Theatre]]

* ''Anime/WelcomeToDemonSchoolIrumaKun'': When Clara is introduced, she's shown to be "friends" with a group of guys who're only around her for her ability of pulling out snacks and other things with her dimensional pocket ability. In fact, she was fully aware that she was being taken advantage of, but she felt that this was [[ExtremeDoormat the only way]] she could ever get anyone to spend any time with her as most found her CkoudCuckoolander personality annoying and hard to deal with, [[FoodAsBribe unless there was a reason]]. She becomes very happy when Iruma tells her that he doesn't need her to give him things just to have him play with her. It's to the point that her greatest fear is seeing the few friends she made, especially Iruma whom she has feelings for, eventually get tired of her and avoid her unless she gives them stuff, just like her life before she met them.

[[folder:Film-Live Action]]

* J.P. from ''Anime/DigimonFrontier''. He would always have chocolate and other sweets for his friends, but it was eventually revealed that this was an attempt at bribery since no one actually bothered to get to know him beyond his tricks and candy. In one episode, he tries to bribe a school of starter digimon into playing with their ostracized classmate, Tsunomon who they feared for gaining the ability to digivolve into Gabumon. They don't hesitate in stating that wouldn't play with him regardless, causing the insulted Tsunomon to run away and Zoe to instantly call J.P. out on his action.

* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLabratory'': 3 of his classmates are in a "club" with each having their own Major Glory action figure. The group, who weren't too fond of Dexter to begin with, say that he can't join unless he has a real Major Glory action figure (he showed them a cut-out version). When Dexter makes his own with its own features and shows them, they manipulate him into making them each one as well, "if he was truly their friend".