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Basement-Dweller

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Doesn't always have to live in a basement.
"...And then you've got the ones who are just waiting for their parents to die. My one friend is like, 'This'll all be mine one day,' and I'm like, 'What are you talking about? Your mother is only 54. What are you gonna do, poison her?'"

A stereotypical nerd who, despite being a grown adult, still behaves like an adolescent, right down to living with his parents. While the decor of his Poster-Gallery Bedroom is subject to the tastes of the character, be sure there will be a computer to communicate with the outside world. It's always Played for Laughs. More importantly, the subject is Always Male. There is much less stigma against a female character living at home - in the past, women were expected to stay with their parents until they married, men were expected to go out and earn money so they could be breadwinners while being shamed and/or shunned if they didn't do so, and these ideas still endure in many cultures today. This makes the trope a Double Standard against men (but see below).

The guys who are depicted in this condition usually fit into one of the following:

  • Lazy and unwilling to earn a living for himself. (May be a NEET.) If he does have a job, it'll likely either be something on the lower end of the earning ladder (i.e. a Burger Fool, Soul-Sucking Retail Job, or something else along those lines), or he works from home on the computer and so he doesn't need to leave the house, especially if he doesn't have to work from home. Even then, he’ll still be too lazy to help around the house even with a job.
  • Childish and requires everything to be done for him by his mom. She still washes and folds his clothes. As well, she yells at him and berates him as if he were still a kid.
  • Can't get any romance (not surprising given he lives at home) and hasn't moved out to start a family.
  • Technically unable to earn a living for himself (i.e. unable to get a career-type job and start his own household).
  • Has No Social Skills, so he is awkward and nerdy in the presence of others. This is even more pronounced around women.

Note that this trope only seems to apply when the character is introduced as an adult living with his parents. On most dom coms, characters who were children when the show premiered often continue to live at home after reaching adulthood, sometimes even moving into the basement to have more personal space. This is because the alternative would be either creating a whole new set for their new home/college dorm and splitting the plot between the parents' and the adult child's activities, or making them into a Drop-In Character who only occasionally appears, which can hurt ratings if the kid is a popular character. An accepted compromise is to just invent a reason (high rents in the city, needs to care for aging parent, etc) why they're still living with their parents, especially since by this point, the sitcom could be in its last few seasons.

In a Four-Temperament Ensemble, he tends to be either choleric if confident, bully others around and treat others like servants or phlegmatic if simply too unmotivated, indifferent, shy or depressed.

Note that living with one's parents is a stigma mainly in the USA and other Anglosphere countries, where working-age adults are expected to live on their own, so this trope shouldn't be applied to characters from cultures where this is the norm. This trope has become much less stigmatizing in Real Life, however, as rising rents and the increasingly precarious nature of work in the "gig economy" and with layoffs, more and more adults move back to their parents' homes, and some in the newer generation don't even leave in the first place. And if this article is any indication, this trope could even become discredited at some point in the future. In fact, it may already be that "near future".

For a more serious treatment of this as a social problem, see Hikikomori. Not to be confused with Madwoman in the Attic. Compare The Hermit and The Thing That Would Not Leave. See also Loser Protagonist. Contrast Minor Living Alone.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A Burger King commercial features a winged pig who used to be this but is now finally moving out.
  • This British Dulux paint advert wherein a couple gets their thirty-something rocker son to move out by... painting his room yellow?
  • An irate man is gathering signatures against an upcoming Star Trek marathon on Sci-Fi Channel, ranting how only losers who live in their mother's basements watch this stuff. The old lady he's talking to suggests her son might be interested. "I'll just get him. He's in the basement." Cue an enormous cosplayer dressed as a Klingon warrior emerging from the basement and knocking the man unconscious.
    Old Lady: [in Klingon, subtitled] You do not fight with honor!
    Klingon: Aw, Mom!
  • A female example: this commercial in which the lead singer laments that he and his "dream girl" wife are living in her parents' basement because he didn't check out his wife's poor credit, which is keeping them from getting a home loan—if he had known, he would have been "a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard."

    Anime & Manga 
  • According to the author's note from the third Hetalia: Axis Powers manga volume, Prussia ended up like this.
    Himaruya: Now he lives as a good-for-nothing at Germany's house and as an exclave in Russia!

    Comic Books 

    Fan Works 
  • In Emerald Flight Book One: Union Harry and Supergirl help capture a (rather pathetic) Killer Moth imitator while visiting Gotham City.
    Harvey Bullock: Come on, Moth, I'll call your mother for ya. Thirty years old, and you still live in her basement.
  • The roles are reversed in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series where Grandpa shamefully lives in the basement.
  • Nova Shine spends the majority of The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan living in Twilight Sparkle's basement, though it's not played negatively because he has plenty of money and his own house. It's just for convenience's sake, as they are working to rid themselves of nightmares and his home is three hours away.
  • Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space. Dr. Zarkendorf brings this up during his They Called Me Mad! rant. "They called me a nerd—they said I should get out of my mother's basement and get a life!" The alien invader D'Ork of the Thorkoth turns out to have the same issues.
    "For years I plotted in the dark places, awaiting the moment when I would emerge to make your world my own! Then my mother told me to get out of her basement and take a life."
  • Zim the Warlord: Irken Reversion eventually reveals that Zim has been letting former Table-Headed Service Drone Bob live in the basement of his base ever since the two of them survived the ending of the episode "Hobo 13". Skoodge likewise starts living down there when he arrives on Earth during Zim's six-month coma, much to Zim's annoyance (he lets Skoodge stay, he's just irritated Bob allowed him in without Zim's permission first).
  • Viva La Vida: The Todd Squad Headquarters is located in the basement of its leader's mother. Olive thinks of making a snide comment about it but stops herself and says that being snarky to Odd Todd would be something that the Olive of the past would do, and she decides to let the fact go.
  • In Proper Discipline, Jane Read becomes a Gender-Inverted example when she moves in with her father after the Read family home was burned down by her daughter D.W..

    Films — Animation 
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Mario and Luigi live in an apartment with their parents. They seem to be in the same bedroom at the end, but they get their own place in the Mushroom Kingdom.

    Jokes 
  • The COVID-19 Pandemic caused a number of jokes to emerge involving basement dwellers pulling a Who's Laughing Now? at the number of people who now had to stay inside their homes, possibly without jobs, and rely on electronic entertainment to stay occupied, or not having noticed that people were staying indoors.
    • Not to mention the darker Who's Laughing Now?, when the people who were not used to such a lifestyle, especially the solitude, developed mental health problems. Many basement-dwellers were quick to return the Condescending Compassion they often received from such people pre-pandemic.
  • Another common joke during the COVID-19 Pandemic was Lampshade Hanging that what is normal daily life for the basement-dwellers, most people considered Quarantine with Extreme Prejudice

    Literature 
  • Sacred and Terrible Air: Khan is one at the start of the book, still living with his mother. At the end of the book, he is out of the basement, but now homeless and going insane.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Bill Walter is a 30+-something man who still lives with his parents (later his grandmother).
  • Gender-Inverted and Subverted in The Help. The big publishing hotshot is disgusted to learn that our heroine lives with her mother. The heroine is actually taking care of her mother as she dies of cancer. Oops.
  • In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, Fitz's initial circumstances may count as a subversion: he's a single, 27-year-old, immature geek with a lousy job whose 65-year-old widowed mum lived with him before she moved into a sort of insane asylum shortly before he's introduced. She's generally mentally unwell and prone to delusions of being the devil and so on, in addition to being rather sickly and apparently prone to "taking the back off one-armed bandits", and therefore needs him to look after her.
  • Played with in Freakonomics with the chapter titled, "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?"note 
  • Beryl Bainbridge's comic novel Young Adolf expands on the not-unproven story that sometime around 1911 or 1912, the young Adolf Hitler travelled to Liverpool, England, and stayed here with his sister and brother-in-law.note  Hitler is expected to stop being an idle waster, get a job, knuckle down, and take advantage of the opportunity to learn some English. However, the unemployed failed student carries on taking advantage of others and carries on behaving like an idle entitled drifter. The amusing idea of Hitler speaking English with a Scouse accent is explored, but the picture that emerges is of a parasitical Basement Dweller that won't go away.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. He is highly educated but hellbent on avoiding any form of actual work or any new experiences, instead living with his mother (whom he constantly verbally and emotionally abuses). As the book progresses, his mother slowly builds up the courage to force him to get a job, though he manages to fail with spectacular results each and every time.
  • Harry from Scary Godmother is a freeloading werewolf who lives in his mother's basement and surfs the internet all day. Wild About Harry revolves around his mother kicking him out of the house. He tries to mooch off of his friends instead of finding an apartment and job.
  • Like a Fish Understands a Tree has George, who is 29 and has Down syndrome. He actually wants to move out and get his own place with his girlfriend, but My Beloved Smother does her best to prevent him from gaining any independence.
  • Morgan from Sanctuary lived with their parents until their mid twenties. Part of the reason they moved into Casswell Park was because they were worried about what would happen to them after their parents died.
  • The Kitchen Daughter: Ginny's ma never let her move out. She said they'd talk about it after Ginny got her college degree, but she was never able to finish her Oral Communications class, which is why she still lives at home at age 26.

    Music 
  • The main character of Brad Paisley's "Online" lives in such a situation.
    "When I get home, I kiss my Mom and she fixes me a snack / Then I head down to my basement bedroom and fire up my Mac"
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic:
    • "It's All About the Pentiums":
      Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
      Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
      And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er
      I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
      You're just about as useless as jpegs to Helen Keller
    • "You're Pitiful" (James Blunt parody):
      You still live with your mom and you're 42!
  • Bif Naked's "Letdown":
    Ain't had a job in about a year. Living down in my parents' basement.
  • "Asshole Son" by Bob Rivers, parody of "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden.
  • Played for Laughs in Ninja Sex Party's "Welcome to my Parents' House", where a still-at-home Danny tries to make his parents' house sound like the sickest crash pad ever to his date. (Free pizza rolls! Can you believe it?) Interestingly, in the music video, his date is only briefly surprised, then just rolls with it.

    Newspaper Comics 
  • Dustin: The strip thoroughly averts this with its main character, who does begin the story returning with his parents and younger sister after graduating, but considers his stay with the folks a "temporary measure", expecting to leave as soon as he gets a stable job.
  • In Mary Worth, Dawn Weston dates Jared, a Star Wars geek who still lives with his mom and her boyfriend. Dawn is surprised at this, despite it being fairly typical for a twentysomething in 2020.
  • Big Nate: The titular character's Uncle Ted is a stereotypical Battlestar Galactica (2003)-obsessed nerd who still lives at Nate's grandparents' house and comes up with multiple excuses as to why he can't work. School Picture Guy is also implied to be one, though he at least has multiple jobs to keep himself afloat.
  • Pivoting: Matt lives in his mom's basement and apparently she won't let him have women over as he tries to hide Jodie when she's down there. Downplayed as he's a handsome Dumb Jock personal trainer instead of a nerd, and it's unclear why he still lives with her.

    Video Games 
  • Toni Cipriani in Grand Theft Auto III is a Mafia boss who still lives with his mom and frequently gets yelled at by her. Not that he's always lived with her; three years before the game he'd been living alone (and far away from Mama) for a while. He just had to move back in at her insistence - she can be very... persuasive. This is also part of the Italian stereotype of men, no matter how independent, tough, or respected outside of the home, still are dominated by their mothers.
    • The entire McReary family from GTA IV, all grown, live with their Ma with a single exception. Derek is a fugitive recently returned from Northern Ireland, Gerald is in and out of prison, Packie is a small-time thug, and Kate, wholesome and innocent, keeps their Ma safe. The odd man out, Francis, is a deputy police commissioner.
    • Jimmy De Santa from GTA V is a far better example of this trope since all former examples were not of Anglo-American descent & earning their own living, therefore they get less stigma associated with this trope. He constantly sits up in his room, masturbates, smokes pot, and plays video games without making an attempt to get a job or move out.
  • Rowland in The Orion Conspiracy reveals himself as this. He says that he lived with his mother before coming to work at the space station. He is rather childish, immature, lazy, fat, has a chocolate addiction, and is a hypochondriac.
  • Larry Laffer in Leisure Suit Larry lived with his mother until he one day came home and discovered that she had gone traveling and sold the house. Larry was 38 when this happened.
  • Evil Dave in Runescape has constructed his lair in his mother's basement.
  • Your first employee in Youre The Boss says "Thanks for hiring me. You have no idea how much my mom wanted me out of her basement."
  • The main character in Plains Of Fantasy lives in his mother's basement and spends most of his time playing the title MMORPG.
  • The console versions of The Sims have a mission mode called "Get a Life". The very first level has your adult player character living in their mother's house, with the objectives centered around gaining life skills, money, and a job so they can move out.
    • The sequel Bustin' Out also features a mission mode in "Bust Out Mode", which also begins at Mom's house, but this time the only objective related to moving out of there is getting a job (the other objectives are things like "use the double speed") and you can move back in anytime (which is handy since some motives never go below 50% there, which is very handy for skilling).
  • In Trauma Team, the victim of the second forensics case, Veronica Cage, was a Gender-Inverted example of this. When she was alive, she lived with her parents and acted like a typical teenage delinquent, having dropped out of high school and staying out long every night, despite being 23 years old. More shockingly, she was also repeatedly beating up her parents! However, the latter is later revealed to have been caused by an Ax-Crazy-inducing virus, rather than her own volition.
  • Clarence's Big Chance: Clarence in the beginning and in the Bad Ending.
  • Rides With Strangers: One of the Strangers Elona can end up riding with is Carol the Dungeon Master, a fat, scruffy-bearded, sketchy-looking guy.
  • SaGa Frontier: Lute's story starts with him being unceremoniously booted out of his mother's house. He soon finds something to occupy his time when a friend of his late father lets him know exactly who killed him.
  • One of the NPCs in OMORI resides in a dimly-lit messy room, has his wall plastered with posters, a shelf full of figurines (that are kept in good condition), regards an anime character as his "betrothed", engages in plenty of online discourse and speaks in pretentious vocabulary. He even gives you a fedora if you beat him in a Clash. The game adequately gives him the name "Creepy Guy".

    Web Animation 
  • Strong Bad Email:
    • In "road trip" Strong Bad mocks the sender, reading his signature of "That Guy From That Place" as "Pete From Pete's Parents' Basement".
    • In "being mean", Strong Bad compares asking him for niceness lessons to asking a "42 year-old online game playing man-child that still lives with his ex-wife's parents" for lessons on responsibility and personal hygiene.
    • Strong Bad's antivirus software of choice, Edgar the Virus Hunter, is said to be "programmed entirely in mom's basement by Edgar."
    • In the 2008 fan costume commentary, Strong Bad describes a fat guy dressed as a Limozeen member as "Chuzz Palaroncini, still living in the basement of his parents' basement."
  • Minilife TV: Melvin the Ninja is 28 years old and he still lives with his mom.
  • Caillou the Grown Up: Caillou not only still lives with his parents at the age of 22, he is completely incapable of doing adult things like driving a car, cooking a meal, or even tying his own shoes without his parents' help.
  • X-Ray & Vav: X-Ray lives with his mom, playing games, and making her clean his room.

    Web Comics 
  • The Jenkins is about three grown men, who have lived in the basement for a very long time, trying to live on their own, after their parents move to the retirement home.
  • The Council of Three-And-A-Half in Nodwick:
    Bartholomew "Fart-Foot-Mcpoot" Macforte: I'll have you know we haven't used my mother's basement since - be silent!
  • In Narbonic, Dr. Madblood's "Elaborate Underground Base". He later switches to a moonbase, but still does his mom's laundry. After the moonbase was destroyed, he had to move back in.
  • According to Nelson, Frank and Lewis in Full Frontal Nerdity.
  • In Real Life Comics, while camping out in front of a store for a game, a guy, Greg's age, came by to sit in line. He didn't have anything else to do since his Mom's basement was being bug-bombed and then he offered to play Yu-Gi-Oh! cards with him.
  • Robbie and Jase in PvP at one point.

    Web Original 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara hasn't moved out of his parent's house in 30 years, as his review of Superman v. Terminator reveals. As of the 100th episode, he's finally moved out with his girlfriend Iron Liz to an apartment and rigged his old home to blow on unauthorized entry.
  • Riley from Less is Morgue is a rare non-male example. Riley has No Social Skills, they're writing a terrible fantasy novel, and they're obsessed with conspiracy theories. They also live in their parents' basement, despite hating them, especially their mother. However, it's justified and deconstructed, as Riley is disabled and thus can't hold down a regular 9-to-5 job, and freelance work doesn't pay that much. They would love to move somewhere else and not live with their emotionally abusive mom, but they can't.
  • Maddison Atkins refers to the people commenting on her videos as basement dwellers.
  • The Spoony Experiment: Until fairly recently, Spoony lived in his parents's basement. He ended one review on an explosive cliffhanger in case the circumstances of his move-out rendered him unable to continue filming.
  • In an episode of the Vacuum Consortium, Agamemnon Tiberius Vacuum is seen yelling to his parents upstairs after the credit roll.
  • Geoff from Mother's Basement used to live exactly where the title of his show suggests. Despite not embodying this trope anymore, he keeps up the pretense.
    Narration: I'm Geoff Thew, professional shitbag, signing-off from my mother's basement.
  • Nostalgia Critic:
    • Douchey McNitpick is revealed to live in his mother's basement in "The Next Top 11 Nostalgia Critic Fuck-Ups".
    • A precursor to Douchey: Melvin, self-claimed brother of the Joker, lives with his mother, whom he tries to pass off as his secretary to the audience, but to no avail. He finally admits it later in the video:
      Melvin: I do in fact, live with my mother. I see no shame in it... even though she constantly does.
    • Doug and Rob moved out of their parents's house around the time of The Room (2003) review. Then, they had a big and gorgeous. Now, they are married and live in different houses.
  • Similarly, Uncyclopedia articles assume that all the editors and readers must be basement-dwellers.
  • Defied in CinemaSins with a bit of Self-Deprecation:
    Narrator: We don't live in our mother's basements because we don't deserve such luxury. And there are spiders down there.
  • Update is told from the perspective of an unemployed 31-year-old man who lives in his parents' trailer.
  • According to Cracked, Valentine Strasser, the former dictator of Sierra Leone, had to live with his mom after being overthrown. And his current situation was so pathetic that the very same government that overthrew him felt the need to request that people stop throwing rocks at him.
  • The dude in Ukinojoe's Great: The Show 4 lives in his girlfriend's basement but only calls her for help. He mainly plays shooting games and is very fat and lazy.


 
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