History Series / AmericanVandal

HotForTeacher: Coach Rafferty is crushed on by a few students.

* AnswerCut: Dylan has a job working for Postmates (where he delivers random items people order, like food or diapers). Sometimes, though, he eats customers' food (e.g. enough fries not to be noticeable). As Dylan says he didn't draw all the dicks, one of the defenses he has is that he's too dumb to delete the security footage that was wiped. Peter then brings up to the audience that Dylan has a Website/YouTube channel and does have basic knowledge of uploading videos. He poses about Dylan "Is he really dumb as he lets on?" Cut to:
-->'''Customer Dylan is delivering food to:''' Did you eat the fries?\\
''*{{beat}}*''\\
'''Dylan:''' Yeah.\\
'''Peter (talking to the audience again):''' Personally, I think he is.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Ming Zhang, a foreign exchange student notorious in the school for just being a NiceGuy in general. When discussing the alibis for the members of the news team (who had access to the security footage), Ming is ruled out as a suspect simply because "Dude, it's Ming."
* ActuallyPrettyFunny:
** In season 1, Dylan thinks the prank itself is funny, he's just pissed that he was blamed for it.
** In season 2, the Turd Burglar tricks Peter in digging around in a pile of poop with chopsticks. Sam cracks a bit of a smile as he obviously finds it a bit funny.

* AllForNothing:
** [[spoiler:The finale of Season 1 paints the entire series as this. From the first episode, whether or not Dylan was innocent and blamed just because of his reputation was the question. After trial and tribulation, and weeks upon weeks of investigating, it then turns out that yes, he was innocent. So he no longer has to pay the price for a crime he didn't commit. However, on top of not getting into his dream college and losing his cheating girlfriend, Dylan comes to the sad realization that practically everyone he knows, adult and student alike, think he's a troublemaker who will never amount to anything. So he spray-paints a dick on Ms. Shapiro's driveway ''for real'' and has to serve prison time. And just on top of that, the true vandal is never confirmed, just implied.]]
** It turns out that in Season 2, the [[spoiler: Turd Burglar blackmailed people with their own salacious photos/video in order to compel them to do his crimes. When Peter lets him know the jig is up before calling the police, the Burglar releases everything he has online.]]
* AlphaBitch: Subverted with Sara. Early interviews paint a picture of her as this, but she's later revealed to be a fairly normal girl who doesn't care about popularity (e.g. her hooking with [[spoiler:Pat Micklewaite]] of all people).
* AmbiguousDisorder: Kevin's awkward mannerisms, smug persona, and elaborately anal-retentive methods of "properly" enjoying tea can all be indicators that he is on the autism spectrum somewhere. It’s actually brought up in-universe by a classmate who claims that Kevin isn’t autistic. This is further supported toward the end of the season, where Kevin confesses to have constructed his quirky persona in order to cope with being ostracized. Since his peers saw him as "weird" [[ThenLetMeBeEvil he decided to go all in on being weird in order to convince himself that he was okay with it]].
* AmbiguousSituation
** Is Peter's final theory, that [[spoiler:Christa and her boyfriend Van]] spray-painted the dicks, accurate? It all adds up, and [[spoiler:Christa's]] tense final interview heavily implies it. But, as Peter notes, he's been down this road before, with seemingly rock-solid, all-but-proven theories ultimately disproved. His suspicions are never confirmed.
** It's never confirmed one way or another just how much of a BitchInSheepsClothing Ms. Shapiro really is. She may or may not have coerced a student to accuse another student she disliked of cheating. She may or may not have been playing good cop to the vice principal's bad cop to coax someone into giving information about the vandal. [[spoiler:She ''does'' lie about her car tire being slashed when she actually ran over a nail, but Peter himself offers the theory that she truly does think Dylan is guilty (having had him as a horrible student for years) and that she lies because she thinks she's doing good by ridding the school of a troublemaker.]]
** [[spoiler:Assuming that it ''was'' Christa that was the vandal: after a player pummels her at football tryouts, Coach Rafferty apparently said something bad enough to completely push her over the edge and drive her, a straight-A Honor student, to draw the dicks. What ''exactly'' he said is never revealed. All that's known is that it was bad enough for her to make a report.]]

** The entire series is one about the duty of responsibility and mindfulness of consequences when making documentaries, especially true crime documentaries. After the documentary goes viral in-universe, fans bombard the Jansen family with demands to release the "Keifer Sutherland tape" to the point of harassment and likely harassed the students and faculty they believed were the real culprit as well. Peter ends up being alienated by several of his peers for destroying several students reputations and even gets one of the teachers fired when he recklessly adds deeper secrets and private conversations to the documentary were very loosely and circumstantially tied to the events of the crime at best. Sam on the other hand allows his blatant dislike of one of the students to actively attack his character and accuse him of various wrongdoings including the actual crime at one point. While they get better in the second season their general inexperience still leads to [[spoiler:them warning the true criminal that they figured out their identity, leading to him releasing every bit of extremely comprimising dirt he managed to gather over the year to the public]].

* AnswerCut: Dylan has a job where he delivers random items people order (like food or diapers) to them. Sometimes, though, he eats customers' food (e.g. enough fries not to be noticeable). As Dylan says he didn't draw all the dicks, one of the defenses he has is that he's too dumb to delete the security footage that was wiped. Peter then brings up to the audience that Dylan has a Website/YouTube channel and does have basic knowledge of uploading videos. He poses about Dylan "Is he really dumb as he lets on?" Cut to:

* BigBad: The Dick Drawer in Season 1. The Turd Burglar in Season 2.
* BittersweetEnding:
** Season 1: [[spoiler:Dylan is exonerated of drawing the dicks on the teachers' cars, but he loses his girlfriend for the last time, has no college prospects, and he resigns himself to being the idiot that everyone sees him as. It culminates in him drawing a dick on Shapiro's driveway for real, and thus getting arrested. It is also never confirmed who really drew the dicks, but if it really is Christa, she receives no punishment for it. Also, Peter's documentary alienates him from some of the students whose secrets have been exposed as a result. On the upside, Sam and Gabi are on better terms.]]
** Season 2: [[spoiler: Though Grayson is outed as the mastermind behind the Turd Burglar, Kevin is still guilty of the Brownout incident, as he was catfished by Grayson into doing it. His sentence is not commuted as a result, but his friendship with Tanner is mended, and he and Chloe are close again. [=DeMarcus=]' reputation has been severely dented and he's probably lost quite a few college offers, but the ordeal inspires him to take control of his life from Lou and his father, even starting a free basketball clinic for kids in his neighborhood, and he still gets a full ride to college in the end (in fact getting one to Villanova who had the number 1 ranked basketball team in the country that year). Though a teacher was fired and Mrs. Wexler resigned over circumstances surrounding the Turd Burglar, any additional consequences of Grayson leaking everyone's private photos, videos and conversations, outside of Grayson's sentencing, have yet to be seen, but it's insinuated that Drew Pankratz's life has been scarred forever. Also, Perry still suffers no consequences for bullying and sexually harassing Paige, and there's no indication that the over-privileged attitude towards student athletes that let Perry get away it and helped corrupt [[BigBad Grayson]] has been changed or even recognized.]]

-->Dylan: "I'm... I don't know man. I'm just Dylan. That's a stupid question."

* CaptainObvious: After Jenna explains that [[spoiler:a girl named Brooke Wheeler blackmailed her into doing the Shit Launcher prank and gave her all the Turd Burglar paraphernalia to do it, Peter asks, "So Brooke Wheeler is the Turd Burglar?" Jenna just stares at him in disbelief for a moment before saying, "Did... YEAH!"]]

** [[spoiler:Kevin tells Peter to call off the investigation because he was in fact the Turd Burglar the whole time; Peter and Sam write it off as another coerced confession. While it wasn't the whole truth, Kevin was in fact trying to admit his very real guilt.]]
* ChekhovsParty:
** Nana's party in Season 1. [[spoiler: Initially simply where Alex claimed (falsely) to have had eleven beers, it was actually where the spray paints had come from that drew the dicks, narrowing it down to someone who had been in attendance there]].
** In Season 2, the skip day party that got broken up and got several people arrested. [[spoiler: Tanner testified against Kevin because of thinking Kevin broke it up. He didn't, Lou did, trying to sabotage [=DeMarcus=]]].
* ChekhovsSkill: Averted. [[spoiler: Christa's alibi was that she was getting her CPR and First Aid certificate. However, when Ming passes out at the post-prom party, she panics and asks if anyone knows CPR.]]
* ChildhoodFriendRomance:
** One-sided example in Season 1. Sam and Gabi grew up together and have become very close friends, but Sam has an obvious crush on her.
** In Season 2, it's implied but never stated openly that Kevin has a crush on Chloe.
* ConsummateLiar: Alex Trimboli is constantly lying in order to get popular -- claiming to get a handjob from Sara Pearson, saying he was the drunkest person at Nana's Party, and giving info about the dick drawing in order to bring back off-campus lunches for seniors. [[spoiler: In the final episode of Season 1, it's revealed that he may have actually seen the real vandal and just assumed it was Dylan because the two looked similar.]]]]
* ContrivedCoincidence: In Season 2, Peter and Sam inadvertently receive a text from the Turd Burglar at the exact same minute that their two chief suspects are on security camera footage that they later acquire, "exonerating" both of them.

* ConvictionByContradiction: [[spoiler:Not 'conviction', but strong evidence, as Christa claims to have gotten CPR training during the time of the vandalism. However, she freaks out when Ming passes out from intoxication at a party and asks if anyone knows CPR. This strongly implies that her alibi is fake, and therefore had the opportunity to commit the crime, even if her leg cast meant she needed an accomplice.]]

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: in Season 1, Alex Trimboli says that the dick drawer was wearing a hoodie. If the vandal had simply ''worn the hood up'' for extra protection, while the scandal and issues with lunch would have played out the same way, Dylan's ordeal (and probably the documentary) wouldn't have happened.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Season 2's "Brownout". One gets the feeling from how it's handled that the main reason it wasn't called the "School Shitting" is that it would belabor the metaphor.
* DoubleEntendre:
** All of the episode titles in Season 1 contain some reference to sex or penises.
** Season 2 repeats the trope by having all of the episode titles reference poop.
* DrivingQuestion:
** Season 1: Who drew the dicks?
** Season 2: Who is the Turd Burglar?

** After Peter realizes that the spray paint can came from Nana's Party, Sam is the one who notices the splatter. [[spoiler: This leads to strong evidence that Shapiro wasn't the target - and that either Vice Principal Keene, Mr Maeda or Coach Rafferty ''was''. Investigating students with a motive against Coach Rafferty not only leads to the reveal of Mackenzie's cheating - which allows the video footage of Dylan's alibi to be revealed - but begins Peter and Sam's re-investigation of Christa.]]

** As he and Peter review social media footage of The Brownout he believes Kevin's contorted facial expression means he was forcing himself to poop to appear to be a victim. [[spoiler: He's right.]]
** He realizes that the calendar in the staff room of St. Bernadine's [[spoiler: is exactly the same calendar as the one shown in one of the Turd Burglar's social media posts.]]
* EverybodyDidIt: Played with in Season 2. [[spoiler:While all the main suspects did do one of the pranks (Kevin, Jenna, [=DeMarcus=], all are acting at the behest of a BigBad, Grayson, and all except Kevin are unwilling participants.]])
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: "Hot Janitor", a conventionally attractive custodian at St. Bernadine. His real name isn't even revealed when Peter & Sam interview him.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin:
** Dylan's crew, the Wayback Boys, go way back.
** Same with "Hot Janitor" in Season 2. He's a janitor who is hot.
* ExactWords: [[spoiler: Christa Carlyle]] ends her interview in the final episode of Season 1 by denying that she drew the dicks. [[spoiler: According to Peter’s theory, she really didn’t draw them: her boyfriend Van drew the dicks while Christa erased the footage.]]
* FanPreferredCouple: In-universe, Sam and Gabi have a lot of fans among Sam and Peter's viewers.
* FeigningIntelligence: Throughout Season 2, people note that Kevin isn't that intelligent; He just says thing he thinks smart people say. There are a number of times where we see him ''trying'' to be smarter than he is. He recalls describing a pop song "an ocular disaster" when he was in 6th grade, which Chloe notes she had to look up and discover that he was using the word wrong. In another scene, he says that [=DeMarcus=]' poem "makes Creator/DrSeuss look like..." but can't come up with the name of a "more serious" poet.

** In season 2, a shot of Peter's laptop reveals chat logs of recent conversations with not only Sam, but Gabi Granger, Dylan Maxwell, and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Alex Trimboli]].

** Whoever the cameraman is in Season 2 is never seen or discussed, unlike the first season. He might be the same kid, and he's never mentioned because he's never considered as a suspect this time.
* HiddenDepths:
** Sara Pearson, whose characterization up until that point is mostly just that she's very attractive and has a [[ReallyGetsAround hookup list]], actually [[spoiler: knows CPR, something that all-round honor student Christa Carlyle doesn't manage.]]
** "Hot Janitor", apart from his looks being so appealing as to attract the attention of even the nuns at St. Bernadine, is an accomplished botanist that grows all of his own food.

* HotForTeacher: Coach Rafferty is crushed on by a few students. In Season 2, one of the janitors is only known as "Hot Janitor".

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every episode title is a DoubleEntendre for the medium of the crime: penises and sex in Season 1; feces in Season 2.

* InstantHumiliationJustAddYouTube:
** A rare example in the first season where humiliation isn't the key attraction of the viral video, but many people are deeply embarrassed by it. Sara is humiliated to have her sexual history exposed to the world, and Mr. Kraz is immediately regretful of the things he said on camera.
** The "Brownout" in Season 2 runs on this, with the motive being (correctly) guessed as the chance to humiliate the student body by seeing them shit themselves.

* InMediasRes:
** The in-universe documentary ''American Vandal'' starts well after the actual vandalism incident, to the point where Dylan has already had the hearing with the school board, been expelled and escorted off the school property. Early episodes are also edited and released before the end of the season, so that assumptions and opinions made in early episodes don't always pan out by the end.
** Season 2 also begins after Kevin has been convicted and expelled, living under house arrest with an ankle monitor. This season, however, is released only after the mystery has been solved.

* JerkAssHasAPoint:
** The Hanover High teachers' hard-line behavior about the vandalism is {{Justified}}. Not only is there considerable humiliation for all the teachers -- how long did they have to drive around in those cars until their mechanic had a free slot, or the insurance company paid up for a loan car? The property damage was estimated to be ''one hundred thousand dollars'', for 27 cars. That averages out to about $3700 per car. Given that teacher's salaries are notoriously low, car paint colors can be tricky and expensive to match, and that insurance companies are notorious for dragging their feet about paying out or even denying claims on flimsy excuses (like 'vandalism is not covered by your policy'), the teachers might very well have lost up to a month's salary paying to get their cars fixed.
** A minor case in Season 2. Myles ends up admitting that Kevin's ridiculously fussy and involved method of drinking tea does make it taste better.
* KarmaHoudini:
** [[spoiler:Christa and Van Delorey, if they drew the dicks.]]
** Played straight, however, with Perry Coleman on Season 2. Before the events of the season, he stole school property and then [[ItMakesSenseInContext used it to bully and humiliate another student for months]]. Due to his status as top athlete in his class, he faced no consequences, and is now in UCLA on a basketball scholarship. This blatant immunity that athletes enjoy at St. Bernadine is what throws some suspicion on [=DeMarcus=].

* KickTheDog:
** In Season 1: [[spoiler:Given, he "terrorized" her and her classroom for years beforehand, but Ms. Shapiro does this to Dylan after his innocence is proven. She ''does'' apologize for falsely accusing him... then adds that, even so, she still thinks Dylan is a lost cause and everything else she said about him was true.]]
** In Season 2: [[spoiler:after all are caught for the pranks, Grayson leaks all their texts and pictures anyway, just ForTheEvulz]].
* KidDetective: Peter and Sam.
* LaxativePrank: In season 2, someone spikes the lemonade one day and causes a literal shitstorm throughout St. Bernadine's, which is dubbed "The Brownout".
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** The opening credits have the names of characters in the series listed as producers, as if this were an actual true-crime drama.
** The show goes viral around the fifth episode of Season 1, and Peter devotes a segment to discussing theories that members of the audience have about the case.

** For Season 2, there is a question about [[spoiler: if Kevin made himself shit his pants during the Brownout. Just when you think it might be ignored, Peter asks him directly. And the answer was yes, he did.]] We're also not given details about [[spoiler: Jenna Hawthorne]]'s fate after being convicted.
* LeftItIn: In Season 1, Peter's sole devotion to telling the truth means he leaves in plenty of damning clips of people, including those close to him, even after they ''beg'' him to cut it out. Peter's InUniverse decision to release episodes before having completed the investigation and documentary means Peter and Sam unknowingly leave in red herrings and events that aren't relevant to the eventual truth of the matter but still have an impact on the rest of their documentary.

* LiteralMetaphor: The Turd Burgler's crimes are [[spoiler:all driven by his desire to prove his former classmates are 'full of shit'.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: [[spoiler:Season Two’s BigBad Grayson Wentz stole an innocent woman's private photos and videos, and used them to catfish vulnerable students and a faculty member of the school that he was expelled from. After collecting their own private media, he blackmailed them into committing his poop pranks. He was so good at faking being an attractive girl that Kevin ''willingly'' committed the first incident after Grayson's first target refused.]]
* ManipulativeEditing: In-universe in Season 1 and 2, differently:
** Peter acknowledges that he and Sam may be accused of this in Season 1, which results in him accidentally-on-purpose indulging in this trope to make Sam look like a StalkerWithACrush towards Gabi. Sam is ''furious''.
** The true mastermind of Season 2, [[spoiler:Grayson]], does this out of necessity to [[spoiler:catfish his victims.]]

** [[spoiler: It's probably not a coincidence that Christa's last name, '''Carlyle''', has both the word ''car'' in it[[labelnote:note]] the dicks were drawn on the faculty's vehicles [[/labelnote]], but also a word that sounds like ''lie.''[[labelnote:note]] something that Christa is definitely guilty of doing, regardless of whether she really planned the dick drawings [[/labelnote]] ]]

* MoodWhiplash: In Season 1, Peter makes segments about each person with access to the deleted security footage, their motives for framing Dylan, and their alibis. In an attempt to be impartial he has Sam make a segment about Peter as a suspect. Sam's segment is satirical and suggests Peter is obsessed with cocks and movies, so staged the vandalism so he could make a movie about cocks.

* NiceGuy:
** Ming Zhang, an exchange student who's part of the Morning Show Nine, who seems to be one of the kindest students in school. When building a case against him, Sam dismisses it with three words:
--> "Dude. It's Ming."
** [=DeMarcus=] is a subversion. He's shown being very friendly with everyone, and it's stated that everyone loves him. However, the actual things he says are often quite condescending and often insulting. He's also very rude to his teachers, believing that he's "untouchable" as the school's star athlete. Late in the season, he reveals that he feels that his friendly interactions with the student body are mostly fake.

** In Season 2, Peter and Sam [[spoiler:find out the identity of the Turd Burglar (Grayson Wentz) and how he pulled off ''one'' of his crimes: he catfished Jenna Hawthorne until he got risque pictures of her, and then blackmailed her into doing the crime. After finding out who the Turd Burglar is, Peter texts him with his real name instead of ''immediately going to the police'', as Sam and Chloe suggest. Unbeknownst to them, the Burglar had blackmailed more victims to commit his other crimes, and he decided to dump everything he had on his victims before the police came. Had the police been called before Grayson knew he was going down, they could have secured the blackmail material without it leaking.]] No one calls Peter out for this, nor does he even seem to realize he's done anything wrong.
* NWordPrivileges: [=DeMarcus=] admits to changing the way he speaks around his white friends, especially about using the N-word, lest they think they have N-word privileges also.
* OnceMoreWithClarity: Peter and Sam sometimes re-consult old footage to find stuff as they get new pieces of information. The footage is often shown as it was the first time, but with focus on something Peter and Sam, and by extension the audience, missed the first time.

-->'''Peter:''' I'm making a documentary about Dylan's case. Kind of like Serial?\\

* PutOnABus: It's more accurate to say that Peter and Sam get on a bus and go to Bellevue, Washington, in Season 2, leaving the rest of the cast behind. They don't even reveal the identity of their cameraman like they did in Season 1.
* ReactionShot:
** In the penultimate episode of Season 1, we see [[spoiler: Dylan react when Peter shows him the video Mackenzie sent, but we don't see the video itself. The finale starts with the video, revealing that Mackenzie was cheating on Dylan and he almost caught her.]]
** In Season 2, Kevin's smug persona drops for a moment when he realizes that his ex-friends Chloe and Tanner were hooking up.
* RealStitchesForFakeSnitches: Lou assumes Gonzo is Peter's source and gives him a sound beating, prompting Gonzo to come to Peter and start spilling the beans for real.

-->'''Mackenzie:''' It's so easy for you to sit there behind that stupid camera and make accusations about people you don't even know. And look I am sorry if we ignored you before, but if this is what you're really like then I guess there's a reason everyone thought you were such a loser. And now everyone's secrets are out, throughout the entire school all because - what? You - you what? You had to make the best movie? You know what, when this is all over, so are you, okay? Because you are nobody and you're just mad about it.

* RightForTheWrongReasons:
** [[spoiler: Ms. Shapiro doesn't waste a second after her apologizing to Dylan for accusing him of drawing the dicks to point out that she may have chosen the wrong crime but her main assessment of him as a hooligan still stands.]]
** Season 2, [[spoiler: Tanner accuses Kevin of committing the Brownout. He turns out to be right, but not for the right reason: Kevin wasn't trying to break up Tanner and Chloe by calling the police -- an act committed by Lou, for a different reason -- but he was cajoled into getting revenge on someone else by going through with the prank.]]
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge:
** Peter believes that this could be [[spoiler: Mackenzie's]] motivation for drawing the dicks. [[spoiler: Coach Rafferty dated her mom, ruining her parents' chance of getting back together. She in turn files a complaint against him, which is dismissed. So she trashes his office, which he cleans up before anyone finds out. So she draws the dicks]]. Turns out to be RightForTheWrongReasons. [[spoiler: Mackenzie may still be responsible for the office-trashing, given the "stick your dick somewhere else" message on his whiteboard, but Christa is likely responsible for the complaint and the dick-drawing as a continued vendetta against him for humiliating her during football tryouts. There's also a fan theory that the complaint was because Coach Rafferty sexually harassed (or worse) a student, potentially Sara Pearson, and the trashing/"stick your dick somewhere else" were a reaction to the school sweeping it under the rug, which would get Mackenzie off the hook for that as well.]]
** The Turd Burglar admits via social messaging that the motive is to expose that everyone at St. Berdardine is "full of shit."
* SadClown:
** In Season 1, Dylan [[spoiler:after he's exonerated and finds out what the average opinion of him is.]]
** In Season 2, Kevin, although most people don't find him that funny, if at all. He explains that being bullied and left out made him act this way, so he could be "in on the joke".
** Also in Season 2, [=DeMarcus=], although unlike Kevin, he's extremely popular with his funny stunts. However, he feels that no-one ''genuinely'' likes him and all are just interested in him because of his popularity.

* SeriousBusiness: Part of the series appeal is that it takes everything completely seriously -- the dicks, the poop, whether Alex got a handjob from Sara, off-campus lunches, the use of periods after emojis or the number of Ys in the word "hey" -- anything and everything is treated as an important factor in the case.

* SmurfettePrinciple:
** Brianna aka "Ganj" is the only girl in the Wayback Boys.
** Season 2: [[spoiler: Chloe is the only girl in The Horsehead Collective.]]

* StacysMom: Sam does a whole side segment on the attractive moms of students at Hanover High. One of them is Peter's mom, which Peter is...not pleased by.
* StealthPun: Season Two includes minor character '''Car'''la '''Dick'''ey in a clever nod to Season One’s main plot.
* SternTeacher: Mrs. Shapiro toes the line between this and SadistTeacher, and it's really dependent on who's testimonies you believe. She ''may'' have pressured a girl into accusing another student of cheating because Shapiro didn't like him. She also ''might'' have told Keene to get rid of off-campus lunches so that when she brought them back she would be seen as the good guy. But she is also very fast to brush Dylan off because of his actions [[spoiler: and lies to help him get expelled ''and'' only gave a half hearted apology to him after his exoneration]], and she begins acting just as cold to Peter and Sam as the documentary goes on.

* TakeThat: Kevin refers to “Party in the USA” as “the bubonic plague of sound”.
* TeenDrama: Under the comedic true crime documentary styling, it's a teen drama about the kids at Hanover High.
** Season 2 is far less of a teen drama, instead it is far more realistic in how it handles the inter-personal drama of the kids involved at the fancy Catholic school.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: Kevin's band in season 2, The Horsehead Collective. They'd probably be a big hit on the avant-garde scene.

* ToiletHumor:
** Most of Dylan and the Wayback Boys' videos.
** The Turd Burglar runs on this, making poop-related pranks and using poop-related puns on social media. This causes confusion when "the dump" turns out to have nothing to do with poop.

* WhamLine:
** [[spoiler: Christa Carlyle asking if anyone knows CPR when Ming Zhang passes out at a party, which means that her alibi of getting CPR training was likely fake, and leads Peter and Sam to conclude that Christa and Van Delorey were the ones behind the dick drawings.]]
** In the final episode of Season 2. When [[spoiler: Peter and Sam are interviewing Drew Pankratz after discovering he was a catfishing victim by the Turd Burglar. Peter asks him how the Turd Burglar's catfishing persona got him to do the Brownout. Drew's response? "I didn't do the Brownout."]]

* WildTeenParty:
** Season 1 has the party at Rachel Balducci's house, known colloquially as Nana's Party, which occurred the weekend before the dicks. Everyone was there except for Peter and Sam, and everyone and every''thing'' got trashed. It's also the site of several important events: Brandon's promposal to Gabi, Dylan and Mackenzie's break-up, and Alex supposedly drinking eleven beers.
** There are two in Season 2
*** First, there is the Skip Day; while it's downplayed story-wise, the party still contains the "Great American Challenge", in which participants race to complete very stupid teenage stuff, like finishing a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle after drinking ''a handle of vodka''.
*** Then there's the class charity trip to Costa Rica, where after a few hours of helping the poor, they go back to a high end hotel with booze and sex. Even the teachers know it's a massive holiday and there's a lottery for the four chaperone slots on the trip.
* WorldsSmallestViolin: [=DeMarcus=]' trademark taunt during games is to pretend to play the violin for his haters.

----

** Season 2: [[spoiler: Though Grayson is outed as the mastermind behind the Turd Burglar, Kevin is still guilty of the Brownout incident, as he was catfished by Grayson into doing it. His sentence is not commuted as a result, but his friendship with Tanner is mended, and he and Chloe are close again. [=DeMarcus=]' reputation has been severely dented and he's probably lost quite a few college offers, but the ordeal inspires him to take control of his life from Lou and his father, even starting a free basketball clinic for kids in his neighborhood, and he still gets a full ride to college in the end. Though a teacher was fired and Mrs. Wexler resigned over circumstances surrounding the Turd Burglar, any additional consequences of Grayson leaking everyone's private photos, videos and conversations, outside of Grayson's sentencing, have yet to be seen, but it's insinuated that Drew Pankratz's life has been scarred forever. Also, Perry still suffers no consequences for bullying and sexually harassing Paige, and there's no indication that the over-privileged attitude towards student athletes that let Perry get away it and helped corrupt [[BigBad Grayson]] has been changed or even recognized.]]

** The entire series has one about the duty of responsibility and caution when making documentaries, especially true crime documentaries. After the documentary goes viral in-universe, fans bombard the Jansen family with demands to release the "Keifer Sutherland tape" to the point of harassment and likely harassed the students and faculty they believed were the real culprit as well. Peter ends up being alienated by several of his peers for destroying several students reputations and even gets one of the teachers fired when he recklessly adds deeper secrets and private conversations to the documentary were very loosely and circumstantially tied to the events of the crime at best. Sam on the other hand allows his blatant dislike of one of the students to actively attack his character and accuse him of various wrongdoings including the actual crime at one point.

** The entire series has one about the duty of responsibility and caution when making documentaries, especially true crime documentaries. After the documentary goes viral in-universe, fans bombard the Marsden family with demands to release the "Keifer Sutherland tape" to the point of harassment and likely harassed the students and faculty they believed were the real culprit as well. Peter ends up being alienated by several of his peers for destroying several students reputations and even gets one of the teachers fired when he recklessly adds deeper secrets and private conversations to the documentary were very loosely and circumstantially tied to the events of the crime at best. Sam on the other hand allows his blatant dislike of one of the students to actively attack his character and accuse him of various wrongdoings including the actual crime at one point.

* BookDumb: Dylan admits that he is this, even explicitly saying he isn't "book smart".

** The entire series has one about the duty of responsibility and caution when making documentaries, especially true crime documentaries. After the documentary goes viral in-universe, fans bombard the Marsden family with demands to release the "Keifer Sutherland tape" to the point of harassment and likely harassed the students and faculty they believed were the real culprit as well. Peter also becomes alienated and possibly destroys several students reputations and even gets one of the teachers fired when he ends up revealing several students deeper secrets and private conversations to the world which were very loosely and circumstantially tied to the events of the crime at best.

** Nana's party in Season 1. [[spoiler: Initially simply where Alex claimed (falsely) to have hooked up with Sara, it was actually where the spray paints had come from that drew the dicks, narrowing it down to someone who had been in attendance there]].

** Nana's party in Season 1. Initially simply where Alex claimed (falsely) to have hooked up with Sara, it was actually where the spray paints had come from that drew the dicks, narrowing it down to someone who had been in attendance there.
** In Season 2, the skip day party that got broken up and got several people arrested. Tanner testified against Kevin because of thinking Kevin broke it up. He didn't, Lou did, trying to sabotage [=DeMarcus=].

* RewatchBonus: Watch the Season 1 episode "A Limp Alibi" when Peter asks [[spoiler: Mackenzie if there's any proof that puts Dylan at her house during the time in question. It's very quick, but she [[YourCheatingHeart looks straight at the computer screen]], swallows nervously, and makes her face absolutely blank before [[BlatantLies answering negatively]].]]

* YourCheatingHeart:
** [[spoiler:Dylan's girlfriend Mackenzie has a relationship with another gamer on Twitch.]]
** [[spoiler:Gabi's boyfriend Brandon cheated on her with multiple people.]]
** In Season 2, [[spoiler: Kevin treats the fact that neither Chloe or Tanner told him about their relationship as a form of emotional cheating, as they had been in their band together. It cements his feeling of being ostracized.]]

* ConsummateLiar: Alex Trimboli is constantly lying in order to get popular -- claiming to get a handjob from Sara Pearson, saying he was the drunkest person at Nana's Party, and giving info about the dick drawing in order to bring back off-campus lunches for seniors. [[spoiler: In the final episode of Season 1, it's revealed that he actually may not have been lying about seeing Dylan spray paint the dicks; [[CassandraTruth Alex may have been genuinely mistaken about ''who'' was doing the spraying.]]]]

* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: Dylan's case had circumstantial evidence, at best, (without Alex Trimboli's testimony)but several teachers and other students saw him as a failure from the word "go" and barely gave him a chance to defend himself. To be fair, Dylan admits that as a student he's apathetic at best, and constantly disrupting class for stupid jokes that aren't even funny... just like the dick drawing is seen to be.

*** Kraz is fired for, among other things, stating that one of his underage students is hot on-camera and accusing Rafferty of selling roofies.

* RestrainedRevenge: When Dylan confronts Alex for [[spoiler: lying about seeing him drawing the dicks (which contributed to the expulsion), he gets very light revenge on him by throwing his pizza slice on the floor and shaking his soda can. It's implied in the scene that Alex knows he could have gone much further with said revenge, so it's still intimidating.]]

* {{Bookends}}: Season 1 begins and ends with footage of Peter asking Dylan who he is, and Dylan responding that it's a stupid question.

* LaxativePrank: In season 2, someone spikes the lemonade one day and causes a literal shitstorm throughout the school, which is dubbed "The Brownout".

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: in Season 1, Alex Trimboli says that the dick drawer was wearing a hoodie. If the vandal had simply ''worn the hood up'' for extra protection, while the scandal and issues with lunch would have played out the same way, Dylan's ordeal (and probably the documentary) wouldn't have happened.

** Sara Pearson, whose characterization up until that point is mostly just that she's [[HelloNurse very attractive]] and has a [[ReallyGetsAround hookup list]], actually [[spoiler: knows CPR, something that all-round honor student Christa Carlyle doesn't manage.]]

** In Season 2, [[spoiler: Kevin treats the fact that neither Chloe or Tanner told him about their relationship as a form of emotional cheating, as they had been in their band together. It cements his feeling of being ostracized.]]

''American Vandal'' is a 2017 Creator/{{Netflix}} original {{Mockumentary}} series set in Oceanside, CA.

On Tuesday, March 15, somebody snuck into Hanover High School and spray painted penises on the 27 cars of the school's faculty. Senior class clown Dylan Maxwell is accused of the crime and subsequently expelled. However, documentary filmmaker Peter Maldonado believes there is more to the story. Together with his best friend Sam Ecklund, he creates the documentary series ''American Vandal'' to investigate the case and prove Dylan's innocence. But along the way, they discover many more secrets about the school than they expected.

A second season was released on September 14th, 2018, this time Peter and Sam head to another school in Washington to hunt down and capture the Turd Burglar, a person who contaminated the school's drinks to cause everyone to have a massive diarrhea attack and is threatening to strike again.

* EveryoneDidIt: Played with in Season 2. [[spoiler:While all the main suspects did do one of the pranks (Kevin, Jenna, [=DeMarcus=], all are acting at the behest of a BigBad, Grayson, and all except Kevin are unwilling participants.]])

* InstantHumiliationJustAddYouTube: A rare example in the first season where humiliation isn't the key attraction of the viral video, but many people are deeply embarrassed by it. Sara is humiliated to have her sexual history exposed to the world, and Mr. Kraz is immediately regretful of the things he said on camera.

* JerkAssHasAPoint: The Hanover High teachers' hard-line behavior about the vandalism is {{Justified}}. Not only is there considerable humiliation for all the teachers -- how long did they have to drive around in those cars until their mechanic had a free slot, or the insurance company paid up for a loan car? The property damage was estimated to be ''one hundred thousand dollars'', for 27 cars. That averages out to about $3700 per car. Given that teacher's salaries are notoriously low, car paint colors can be tricky and expensive to match, and that insurance companies are notorious for dragging their feet about paying out or even denying claims on flimsy excuses (like 'vandalism is not covered by your policy'), the teachers might very well have lost up to a month's salary paying to get their cars fixed.

* KickTheDog: [[spoiler:Given, he "terrorized" her and her classroom for years beforehand, but Ms. Shapiro does this to Dylan after his innocence is proven. She ''does'' apologize for falsely accusing him... then adds that, even so, she still thinks Dylan is a lost cause and everything else she said about him was true.]]

* SadClown: [[spoiler: Dylan after he's exonerated and finds out what the average opinion of him is.]]

* BerserkButton: Mackenzie's parents' divorce hit her really hard, so anything having to do with them will set her off.

** On the other hand, [[spoiler:Grayson went to a hell of a lot of effort for this scheme.[[note]]He approached over 30 people in his initial overtures, and kept up his 'Brooke' persona with five different people, who needed very different things from her, for ''months''.[[/note]] Does anyone seriously think he wouldn't have backed up his blackmail material to the cloud? Or that he wouldn't have released the info ForTheEvulz as soon as he got out on bail?]]

*** [[spoiler:an edited video wouldn't be as convincing as the archived twitch stream, since the timestamp and geotagging could be doctored. Twitch wouldn't change their timestamp and geotag to help Dylan, but the school board could easily argue Mackenzie would.]]

** In support of the spoiler part: [[RewatchBonus When you re-watch the student interviews and general footage of students and teachers]], [[spoiler: there is ''no one'' with the same height, build, and skin tone as Dylan... except, as Sam points out, Van Delorey. Everyone is a different ethnicity, has distinctly different hair, or is taller, shorter, fatter or thinner than Dylan. Given that Van's not a student, and Alex only knows him from Camp Miniwaka (which would have been at least six months ago), there's no reason for him recognize Van without a full face close-up or think that Van would even be at the school.]]