History WebVideo / InternetHistorian

* IdiotBall: The horror story version of this is liberally reconstructed in ''Sumito in a Horror Movie'' where the titular Sumito is put in the role of a typical male father protagonist of the genre and finds himself going through the motions despite being GenreSavvy due to various valid in-universe justifications. [[SchmuckBait Busted lightbulb in the creepy basement?]] Someone needs to fix it eventually if the space is to be used. Withholding the information of supernatural happenings from his family? He has children and doesn't want to scare them until he has actual proof. Potentially just [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere ditching the house?]] He'd be homeless until he finds a way to sell it. As the video goes on, and more and more no-win situations pile up, Sumito gets increasingly more stressed and desperate, resulting in actions and decisions that an audience member may unfairly misconstrue as him being TooDumbToLive.

** At the critical moment when the ''Costa Concordia'' is attempting to swing around Skull Rock to avoid collision, the IH notes they just ''might'' achieve a near-miss if everything goes well. However, [[PoorCommunicationKills helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin screws up at the worst possible moment due to both panic and language barrier by turning the rudder starboard instead of port]]. In the eight seconds it takes him to realize his mistake and correct, he ends up undoing the swing maneuver and the ship's bow barely clears the rock before they take a direct hit to their stern that guts the ship and causes the massive flooding that disables the engines and causes the blackout. The annotation note that simulations show [[ForWantOfANail if the maneuver had been successful]], they would have missed the rocks by a mere 10 meters, or at least only caused flooding in one compartment, which would have been manageable since the ship was rated to handle flooding in two compartments.

* GratuitousJapanese: To go with all the "Naruto running" and {{Animesque}} tone of it all, the reenactment of the Area 51 raid is "dubbed" in japanese and subtitled. As in, the entire "dub" is a big mess of voice clips taken from various anime that hardly ever match what's supposed to be said beyond tone of voice.

** The Trojan Horse construction in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" is styled to resemble bulding things in the VideoGame/LegoAdaptationGame[=s=].
** "F3ncy: Oddities" features the start and finish of the mummy segment, set to the theme song from the Anime/YuGiOh English dub done by Creator/FourKidsEntertainment.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: As the IH points out in "The Cost of Concordia", having a helmsman (arguably ''the'' most important job on a ship and one where clear communication is absolutely critical) who [[PoorCommunicationKills barely spoke the languages of the rest of the crew]] was just ''asking'' for trouble.

** The belief in the Rapture espoused by Harold Camping in "Going Camping at the End of the World" is not an universal one in UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} with mainstream denominations like Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, several Protestants [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers and]] VideoGame/{{Quake}}rs pointing out that trying to decipher when it happens goes against the scriptures. In fact, some Catholics and Protestant groups mobilized to protest against this campaign. Unfortunately, it had little effect as Camping had denounced mainstream churches as corrupt anyways and he persisted on his folly.

* MisBlamed[[invoked]]: Brought up a lot during "The Engoodening of VideoGame/NoMansSky", with the IH going through all the bad press Hello Games received for [[ObviousBeta the reviled initial version of the game]], then revealing all the circumstances out of their control that actually caused it, from [[ExecutiveMeddling Sony rushing the project for a set release date]] to how journalists (and by extension, audiences) interpreted their early proposals for ''potential'' concepts as actual guaranteed promises for the final product, building up false expectations.

** Guiseppe Tartini's dream in "I am become Fancy: Threatre" is described using [[WaxxingLyrical lines]] from [[Music/TenaciousD Tribute]], rewritten to fit the time period.

---->'''Historian:''' '''You''' knew where this was going to go. '''I''' knew where this was going to go. ''How did [=McDonald's=] not?''

-->''You'' knew where it was gonna go, ''I'' knew where it was gonna go, how did [=McDonald's=] ''not?''

* StupidCrooks: DoubleSubverted by the art thieves in ''The Swedish Job''. Despite being a group of small-time criminals trying to pull off such a large-scale heist, their plan went off without a hitch and they got away with the paintings. It didn't take long before the cops realised they were dealing with no criminal geniuses, however, as they had used their actual phone number to purchase the getaway boat they abandoned downriver from the scene of the crime, and the original owner was more than happy to hand it over for the investigation. Following this lead, the cops apprehended one of the ringleaders, who was carrying a bag filled with ''photographs of the paintings covered in his partner's fingerprints'', then raided their hideout and found a journal with a detailed plan for the heist and ''the names of everyone who was involved''. And on top of ''everything'' else, the criminals had never made any plans to ''dispose'' of the paintings, which - being famous artwork - couldn't simply be fenced as no fence in their right mind would take such material.

* SuddenDownerEnding:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QynNpzqYt0Y Going Camping at the End of the World]] has a surprisingly depressing ending, especially for an Internet Historian video. Dozens of people who bought in to the doomsday prediction had their lives ruined, be it through selling all their valuables, digging themselves into debt, or quitting their jobs/education. The doomsday forecaster Harold Camping leaves Family Radio (the Christian network he broadcast his predictions on) after realizing his mistake, only to die after a fall just under two years later... but not before leaving the network with a severely soiled reputation that caused vital donations to dry up. As a result, the once-respected Christian global media empire was forced to downsize greatly, [[{{Unperson}} and they got rid of archives of Camping's forum to distance themselves from his legacy]]. However, the IH [[{{Bathos}} does try to end the video on a high note]] by displaying pictures of bizarre [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance Renaissance-era]] paintings.

* StupidCrooks: DoubleSubverted by the art thieves in ''The Swedish Job''. Despite being a group of small-time criminals trying to pull off such a large-scale heist, their plan went off without a hitch and they got away with the paintings. It didn't take long before the cops realised they were dealing with no criminal geniuses, however, as they had used their actual phone number to purchase the getaway boat they abandoned downriver from the scene of the crime, and the original owner was more than happy to hand it over for the investigation. Following this lead, the cops apprehended one of the ringleaders, who was carrying a bag filled with ''photographs of the paintings covered in his partner's fingerprints'', then raided their hideout and found a journal with a detailed plan for the heist and ''the names of everyone who was involved''.

* SeriousBusiness: The Historian mocks how out of hand the outrage over ''Fallout 76'''s canvas bag got, pointing out that a lot of the reactions were pretty over the top and ridiculous. However, it's played more straight when the Historian is shown to be just as annoyed by the Nuka Cola Rum controversy as everyone else.

* TigerByTheTail: Compared to later documentaries on Fyre Festival, the Historian gives a little benefit of the doubt to Billy [=McFarland=], suggesting that he wasn't necessarily out to scam people from the start and may have realized that Fyre Festival would crash and burn, but he'd already taken out short-term loans just to fund organizing the event up to that point, and he was caught in a choice between 1) cancelling, refunding the ticket sales and being left with no money to pay those back, and 2) going ahead, hoping to get enough revenue to stay afloat and praying the millions of things they hadn't had time to get right would go right anyway. He chose option 2, but the consequences ended up being worse for him than he was betting on.

*** Twice in the story about Berlioz, he stares at music notes saying he knows what to do and then does something else, the first time [[MurderIsTheBestSolution switching to murder]], the second time smoking more opium [[SubvertedTrope then]] writing a symphony.
*** The {{Intermission}} screen is suddenly interrupted by an {{expy}} of ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera''.

** Twice in his story in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" Berlioz stares and music notes knowing what to do and says something else, first time [[MurderIsTheBestSolution switching to murder]], the second time smoking more opium [[SubvertedTrope then]] writing a symphony.
** The {{Intermission}} screen in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" is suddenly interrupted by the ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'''s Phantom {{Expy}}.
** Trice in his backstory in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" IH usees ExactWords. First he says he was raised in the orphanage... which his parents rented. He was sent to boarding school, a school that studies boards. Then he spent years in a coma, ahem, in Acoma town.

** ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales'' in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" is described as the longest jounrey ever at the time with a footnote "not true".

** In "I am become Fancy: Theatre", the Historian recounts Music/HectorBerlioz's crazy plan to murder-suicide the love of his life (who eloped with another man) by disguising himself as a maid and sneaking into their house carrying poison and guns, represented as Berlioz's head pasted onto ''Anime/AkibaMaidWar'' clips. Later on, long after giving up on his plan and marrying another woman, it turns out he went on to cheat on her with the housemaid... which naturally [[ScrewYourself immediately brings up the Berlioz maid picture again]].

* OccamsRazor: During his ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aZuj_SDqDo Liverpool's Closed | He Will Not Divide Us]]'' video where /pol/ was once again organizing to steal Creator/ShiaLaBeouf's flag, he mentions how their first plan to get to the roof and steal it was to quite literally just walk in the front door and take the elevator - the video even literally calls this plan "Operation: Occam's Razor". [[SubvertedTrope Naturally, Shia had thought of this]]: the third and fourth floor had been disabled in the elevator, and guards were on 30 minute rotations checking the halls and emergency exits. [[DoubleSubversion On the other hand]], while everybody else on /pol/ were organizing several backup plans revolving around drones to cut the flag, torch it, or drop paint on the camera watching it, three dudes with no planning or preparation just climbed the outside of the building, immediately having to give up because they didn't have scissors to cut the zip-ties the flag mechanism was secured with but still making enough of a scene that Shia called off this iteration of the project after only 25 hours.

** Berlioz's MurderSuicide plan in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" is described using a clip from ''Anime/AkibaMaidWar''.

** The Trojan Horse construction in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" is stylized after ''VideoGame/LegoAdaptationGame''.

** The ship was only rated for two-compartment flooding[[note]] this basically means that in the event of any kind of crash, the ship could handle 2 of its compartments being flooded without sinking. Incidentally, this is also the same amount of compartments that the Titanic was rated for[[/note]].

* AnachronismStew: As [[LampshadeHanginglampshaded]] by Berlioz in "I am become Fancy: Theatre", he got a phone call from Rome despite phones not existing yet.

** The [=NordVPN=] Man segment in "I am become Fancy: Theatre" parodies several archetypes of streamers, including those who try [[FollowTheLeader to copy]] Asmongold, stream in a bath, or leave during a reaction stream, and referencing outside WebVideo/{{Jacksfilms}}'s house as one of his possible VPN locations.

* BlackComedy: "The Cost of Concordia" was about the largest cruise ship disaster since the infamous UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic sinking, and the Historian even respectfully acknowledges the casualties of the disaster. This doesn't at all stop him from filling the second half of the video with memes about the ''Costa Concordia'' crashing into stuff.

** When claiming that Gregorio de Falco told Francesco Schettino to "[[PrecisionFStrike Get the fuck back on board]]" in "The Cost of Concordia", the Historian plays an actual audio clip from de Falco saying just that.
--->'''de Falco:''' ''Vada a bordo, cazzo!'' ("Get back on board, for fuck's sake!")

** There's Shadow Man, a man dedicated to making sure people know about Raid: Shadow Legends, going as far as to cause car accidents and plane crashes for it. In one ad, he gifts Raid: Shadow Legends to his children on Christmas (instead of telling them their mother died), and they respond with delight.

** There's Raycon Man, who is on a personal quest to replace all wires with Raycon earbuds. On his journey, he cuts the [[WireDilemma wrong wire to a bomb causing untold amounts of injury]], cuts an astronaut's oxygen line, leaving him to die in space, and cuts power to major cities along the American east coast. He also proposes to a woman with Raycon earbuds and, apparently, has a proclivity for putting the earbuds [[AssShove in places other than his ears]].
* OccamsRazor: During his ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aZuj_SDqDo Liverpool's Closed | He Will Not Divide Us]]'' video where /pol/ was once again organizing to steal Creator/ShiaLaBeouf's flag, he mentions how their first plan to get to the roof and steal it was to quite literally just walk in the front door and just take the elevator. [[SubvertedTrope Naturally, Shia had thought of this]]: the third and fourth floor had been disabled in the elevator, and guards were on 30 minute rotations checking the halls and emergency exits.

** Multiple sane men (and women) in "The Cost of Concordia", most notably Gregorio de Falco of the Italian Coastguard, who radioed the deserting captain to tell him to "[[SophisticatedAsHell Get the fuck back on board!"]], an order which was disobeyed.

** Creator/ShiaLeBeouf's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p4h3jwJob0 "He Will Not Divide Us" project]] both benefited yet also suffered from this - it caught much more widespread attention than it probably would have if 4chan hadn't taken notice of it, but it also quickly became a lightning rod for trolling because 4chan thought the whole idea was an easy target, and Shia's attempts to preclude trolling in further iterations of the project just drew more and greater efforts from 4chan until it reached the point where he made the project too boring to continue messing with.
** Creator/{{CNN}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_yCj6fXtlA intimidated someone who made a meme against them]] by threatening to reveal his personal info unless he deleted the meme, which quickly angered the rest of the Internet into not only making more anti-CNN memes, but even making efforts to harm CNN directly, like rating their mobile app one-star and lowering their ratings by using universal remotes to change public [=TVs=] tuned into CNN to different channels. The Historian compares it to a hive of bees retaliating after one gets smashed.

* StreisandEffect: {{Discussed|Trope}} in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsqjbJ6hamc Planking]] video. Planking went from being a viral fad that was already on the way out to a practical epidemic after the media, multiple governments, police, and places of employment started to condemn it (after somebody died doing it). It spread and spread, prompting more and more backlash, which of course caused it to be more and more popular. And (take note people who want to stop things from spreading) it was a picture the Prime Minister of New Zealand uploaded of his son planking that made the whole thing become TotallyRadical, immediately killing it.[[invoked]]

** There's Raycon Man, who is on a personal quest to replace all wires with Raycon earbuds. On his journey, he cuts the [[WireDilemma wrong wire to a bomb causing untold amounts of injury]], cuts an astronaut's oxygen line, leaving him to die in space, and cuts power to major cities along the American east coast. He also proposes to a woman with Raycon earbuds.

** "[=9gag=]'s Meme Rock | [=#SmashTheStone=]" echoes the work done from the "He Will Not Divide Us" series with [=4Chan=] successful in managing to locate the digging site of the limestone monument before it could be buried. There's just one catch; it's in the middle of the desert in Almeria, Spain, making it very out-of-reach for the predominantly English-speaking community. Even if people tried, the Historian snarks about the effort needed to make at least one person fly out to a desolate location for the sake of digging it up... just before noting [[CouldSayItBut how reactive limestone tends to be with vinegar and linking to cheap flights to the place]].

* DontTryThisAtHome: Frequently urges this with regards to widescale pranks he documents, but ''especially'' anything [=4Chan=] does, which ranges from distasteful to illegal.

* UncertainAudience: {{Discussed}} in the Dashcon Q&A video, as the IH expresses his belief that this trope was one of the reasons why the event was dead on arrival. Instead of the convention focusing on a singular or or even a blanket topic (for instance, the TV shows the site's userbase was known to enjoy at the time) that would attract a dedicated audience and clearly provide appeal to the new convention, the organizers' attempt to cover ''all'' of Tumblr's incredibly wide and vast range of interests (most prominently its focus on LGBTQ issues) made it very unclear what Dashcon was even about, which meant only those who were interested in a lot of subjects would bother to go in the first place. [[invoked]]

* WakingUpElsewhere: It's become a bit of [[PetPeeveTrope pet peeve]] on the Storymode channel after ''VideoGame/{{Turok}} (2008)'' used it so many times that they started wondering if the writers knew any other way to progress the plot than knocking out Turok and have him get dragged around in his sleep.

* DirtyCoward: From "The Cost of Concordia", Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, jumped in a lifeboat in disguise and abandoned the ship as it was sinking, a sinking that he had a good deal of blame in. When confronted, he claimed that [[BlatantLies he had tripped into the lifeboat and didn't have time to get back out]]. And yet when the disgusted Coast Guard Captain Gregorio De Falco sees right through him and tells him to "get back on board, for [[PrecisionFStrike fuck's]] sake", he ignores it and shuts off his radio, and ignores Falco's angered calls to his cell as well. This blatant desertion was a major factor in him be found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2017.