Tropes dealing with shame, embarrassment, and humiliation... or the lack thereof.
Compare Envy and Jealousy Tropes, Insult Tropes, Being in This Index Sucks, Tropes of Awkwardness.
Contrast These Tropes Love to Brag and Admiration Tropes.
Tropes
- Acquaintance Denial: Pretending not to know someone to avoid embarrassing yourself or being scorned.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Children find their parents' antics embarrassing.
- Backing Away Slowly: Slowly moving away from a very awkward, embarrassing, strange, or off-putting situation.
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Having to wear an embarrassing outfit for a job.
- Be All My Sins Remembered: Somebody is ashamed because they're being praised but feel that they don't deserve it because they did bad things.
- Big Secret: People are investigating a crime, one person didn't do it but is a suspect because they have a shameful, unrelated secret.
- Break the Haughty: Something bad happens to an arrogant person, doesn't necessarily involve shame.
- Break Them by Talking: Gaining a psychological advantage over someone else by talking to them and making them feel awkward.
- Candids for Sale: Someone sells candid photographs or videos of someone else.
- Carload of Cool Kids: A vehicle full of people. Needn't involve shame but often involves the people in the vehicle heckling.
- Catch the Conscience: Reminding someone of their crime to shame them.
- Caught on the Jumbotron: Being caught on the camera doing something embarrassing at a sports stadium.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Someone is caught with their pants down masturbating or preparing to masturbate.
- Circle of Shame: A group of people surround an embarrassed character and laugh at them.
- Closet Geek: A geek who is embarrassed by their geekiness and tries to hide it.
- Clothing Damage: Someone's clothes get damaged, usually played for Fanservice but not always. Not necessarily to do with shame but can cause it.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Somebody's underwear gets exposed, and it's Played for Laughs. Doesn't always embarrass them, but often does.
- Cone of Shame: A pet has to wear a cone collar to stop them from licking stitches or something, but it looks ridiculous to either the animal or the surrounding humans.
- The Conscience: A character who reminds another character to be morally good.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Someone is about to walk away from a person or people who need help, but then feels guilty and and goes back to help them.
- Cultural Cringe: People are embarrassed by an aspect of their own country's culture.
- Curious Qualms of Conscience: Someone is ashamed by their duty.
- Defeat by Modesty: Defeating the villain by damaging or stealing their clothes in a way that exposes (or threatens to expose) their privates or underwear.
- Dinner Order Flub: Somebody tries to order from a menu, but due to a language barrier, not knowing what a term means, not being able to read/see properly, or whatever other reason, they order something they didn't want or don't even order a dish. Doesn't always cause shame, but often does.
- Dirty Business: A good guy does something arguably bad out of obligation, and feels ashamed.
- Don't Look At Me: Someone doesn't want to be looked at.
- Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: Performing for young audiences brings nothing but humiliation and other indignities for the unfortunate performer.
- Dunce Cap: Someone is punished by wearing a large cone-shaped hat with the word "DUNCE" or a "D" on it.
- Easily Embarrassed Youngster: A child or teenager who embarrasses easily.
- Embarrassed by a Child: A character is doing something that embarrasses them, and they get more embarrassed by a child pointing it out.
- Embarrassing Ad Gig: A character stars in a commercial that embarrasses them.
- Embarrassing Animal Suit: A character has to wear an animal costume but is embarrassed by it.
- Embarrassing Browser History: A character doesn't want people to see what they look up on the internet.
- Embarrassing Cover Up: Someone is doing something secret and is asked what they're doing. They use something embarrassing as an excuse.
- Embarrassing Damp Sheets: A character wets the bed (or damps the bed in any other form) and may (or may not be) ashamed of it.
- Embarrassing First Name: Someone is embarrassed by their first name.
- Embarrassing Hobby: Character has a beloved pastime, but is too embarrassed to let anyone else know about it.
- Embarrassing Initials: A person's initials or an acronym spells out something embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Last Name: Someone's last name embarrasses them.
- Embarrassingly Dresslike Outfit: A male character is embarrassed to wear a robe, toga, kilt, etc. due to thinking it resembles a dress/skirt.
- Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn: A sunburn embarrasses the one getting sunburnt.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Somebody is embarrassed by their middle name.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Someone has an In-Series Nickname they find embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Someone is embarrassed by a childhood photo of him.
- Embarrassing Password: Someone has a password that embarrasses them.
- Embarrassing Pyjamas: Someone is embarrassed by and/or ridiculed for their sleepwear.
- Embarrassing Relative Teacher: A student feels embarrassed when their relative starts working at their school.
- Embarrassing Ringtone: Someone uses a ringtone (usually in the form of a song) that he finds embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Slide: Someone shows somebody else a series of photographs, one of which embarrasses the second character.
- Embarrassing Statue: Someone is embarrassed to have a statue made of them.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Somebody has a tattoo that he finds embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Voicemail: Somebody leaves a voice message that they really don't want anyone else to hear.
- Embarrassment Plot: A whole plot or sub-plot focusing on embarrassment.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Everybody is ashamed of someone, even a pet.
- Exposed Embarrassing Purchase: You wanted to keep this purchase private? Too bad.
- Trojan Gauntlet: The above but specifically for condoms.
- Face Doodling: Drawing on a sleeping person's face; not always embarrassing but often is.
- Fake Fabric Fashion Faux Pas: Wearing clothing made of polyester or some other artificial material marks you as a tasteless tacky boor.
- Freakiness Shame: Being ashamed because you don't look normal.
- The Freelance Shame Squad: A group of people who laugh at and/or tease a stranger's mistake.
- "Gaining Confidence" Song: A character is feeling shameful and insecure at the start of a song, but gets over it while they sing.
- Go-Go Enslavement: A captive (usually female) is forced to wear an embarrassing outfit.
- Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Guilt haunts someone's dreams.
- Guilty Pleasures: Someone feels guilty about something he enjoys.
- Hannibal Lecture: The villain asks the hero questions, which get progressively more embarrassing to the hero.
- Humble Pie: An embarrassing event deeply affects the one being embarrassed.
- Humiliation Conga: The villain is defeated with a lot of embarrassing things.
- I Hate Past Me: Someone meets his past self via Time Travel and, often due to shame, hates him.
- Innocent Awkward Question: A child asks an adult a question that inadvertently embarrasses or shocks the adult.
- I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Someone cringes about the clothes he used to wear.
- Interrupted Bath: Someone gets interrupted while taking a bath, often leading to embarrassment.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Someone is embarrassed because another person posted a video of them doing something they find embarrassing on YouTube or similar.
- It's a Costume Party, I Swear!: Lying that a party is a costume party in order to get someone to dress up and be embarrassed.
- Less Embarrassing Term: Someone uses Insistent Terminology to cover up an embarrassing term.
- Mark of Shame: Giving someone a mark on his body or piece of clothing in order to shame him for something he did.
- Moment of Weakness: A moment in which a character acts contrary to his usual nature out of stress, causing damage and usually guilt.
- Monument of Humiliation and Defeat: The villain wins (at least temporarily) and makes a monument to shame the hero.
- My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Being ashamed of one's own country.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Someone feels really guilty.
- My Greatest Failure: Someone feels embarrassed or guilty about one big failure they did.
- Naked Freak-Out: Somebody covers themselves, squeals or both upon being naked.
- Never Live It Down: A YMMV trope for when people associate a character with one minor thing, not necessarily related to shame.
- "No Peeking!" Request: A character requests another to turn away or not to look while they perform an action, usually due to shyness or shame.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Someone feels guilty about doing something that will negatively impact another person and decides to keep it a secret from that other person.
- Of Corsets Funny: Corsets are played for comedy, often involving embarrassment.
- Old Shame: Trope for when a character is ashamed of something from their past.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: A character has done something in the past that the other characters refuse to forget...or let them forget.
- The Penance: Punishing/shaming oneself.
- Personal Horror: The way you've alienated yourself from yourself often results in shame.
- Plaster Cast Doodling: Drawing or writing humiliating things on someone else's plaster cast.
- Prone to Sunburn: A character sunburns very easily and is embarrassed by it.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Telling someone off by rambling on about how they are bad.
- Rejected Marriage Proposal: Both being rejected and doing the rejecting can potentially cause feelings of shame and embarassment, especially if there's other people watching.
- Reluctant Fanservice Girl: A woman is embarrassed because she has to be naked or in skimpy clothes but doesn't want to.
- Resigned in Disgrace: A person quits their high-ranking job, willingly or otherwise, because of an embarrassing scandal.
- Roadside Wave: A person gets soaked by a passing car driving through a puddle. Frequently an element in a Humiliation Conga.
- Saved From Their Own Honor: A character is honor-bound to harm themselves, but is stopped by someone wise/benevolent.
- Seduction as One-Upmanship: A character seduces another character's significant other to put one over on them.
- Self-Imposed Exile: A character exiles themselves, frequently out of shame.
- Shamed by a Mob: A group of people stare at a villain to shame them.
- Shameful Shrinking: Someone literally shrinks when they're embarrassed or ashamed.
- Shameful Source of Knowledge: Somebody doesn't want to give out useful information because they're embarrassed about where they got it from.
- Shameful Strip: Somebody is stripped of their clothing to embarrass them.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: A woman who doesn't care about nudity being taboo (despite being aware), she runs around naked or in her underwear anyway.
- Shameless Self-Promoter: An arrogant person brags about their skills shamelessly.
- Shaming the Mob: The hero shames an angry mob with a speech.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: A shape-shifter who's evil shames the good guy by impersonating their friend/love interest/etc while in combat.
- Shy Bladder: Somebody is too shy to pee.
- Slut-Shaming: Portraying promiscuous women as bad.
- Sudden Humility: Two people are friends, one of them has a disadvantage, then something bad happens to the person with the advantage, putting them on the same level as the disadvantaged person and humiliating the former advantaged person.
- Suicide Is Shameful: People think suicide is immoral.
- Suntan Stencil: Someone tries to embarrass another person by writing or drawing things/words on them that will show up when they tan.
- Sympathetic Murder Backstory
- Uncool Undies: A character has underwear that's seen as embarrassing.
- Underdressed for the Occasion: Somebody is embarrassed because they aren't wearing formal enough clothes.
- Undressing the Unconscious: A character is embarrassed upon finding out they've been stripped while they were unconscious.
- Unmanly Secret: A man is ashamed of being In Touch with His Feminine Side.
- Virgin-Shaming: Virginity is seen as shameful.
- "You Used to Be Better" Speech: An admirer says how a person used to be better in the past than they are now.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: The hero accidentally does something bad, the villain compliments the hero, which makes the hero feel bad.
