Regardless of whether people are good, bad, or a bit of both, it's clear we love to insult in various ways, enough to make several tropes of them in fiction.
Contrast These Tropes Love to Brag, Admiration Tropes, and Compliment Tropes.
Tropes
Related:
- Abomination Accusation Attack: Accusing somebody of being a person who does or will do something nasty, like rape or murder.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Somebody begrudgingly finds a joke funny.
- Adoption Diss: An insult that has to do with being adopted.
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: When someone, genuinely or not claims to be a particular someone without appropriate ID, the other person snarks that they're a particular someone they know they're not.
- Appropriated Appellation: A person takes their nickname from a mispronounciation of their name or a nickname someone already gave them, often an insult.
- Armed with Canon: The writers of a work argue about who gets to do what with the canon.
- Backhanded Apology: An "apology" that actually shifts the blame to the person being apologized to (for example, most apologies that start with "I'm sorry you..." count as this).
- Bait-and-Switch Comparison: Making a comparison between a person and something, by saying that one is like the other but the other one is the other. (For example saying, "What's the difference between you and a flea? One's an annoying parasite and the other one's an insect!")
- Baldness Mockery: Making fun of someone for being bald or going bald.
- Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults: Somebody overhears people trash-talking them in a public bathroom.
- Beat Without a "But": Saying something bad about someone, leading people to expect you'll say "but..." and give them a compliment, but just stopping the sentence there.
- Better by a Different Name: Insulting a work by claiming it's a bad copy of an older work or that it is an inferior version of a newer work, with the format "X was better when it was called Y" or "Y is a much better version of X".
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: Childish insults.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: Jokes at the expense of people who made or helped make the work.
- Blowing a Raspberry: Sticking your tongue out and blowing to make a rude noise.
- Boring Insult: Insulting a person by claiming that they are boring.
- Brutal Honesty: Telling the truth bluntly.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: A protagonist has an important day of their life that was important because of the antagonist in some way. The antagonist insults the protagonist by saying that for them, it was just an ordinary day.
- Call a Human a "Meatbag": Non-humans use a word for humans that is (intentionally or not) rude.
- Calling Me a Logarithm: A character is called something positive or neutral but takes it as an insult because they don't know the word.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Someone tells off their parent or Parental Substitute.
- Carload of Cool Kids: A group of people in a vehicle stops to insult someone.
- Catchphrase Insult: Somebody has an insult that they say all the time.
- Comeback Tomorrow: A character is insulted, then thinks of a comeback and says it much later.
- Competing Product Potshot: A commercial insults a competitor's product.
- Compliment Backfire: Somebody tries to compliment another person, but the other person is offended.
- The Computer Shall Taunt You: A game insults and mocks the player, usually for making a mistake.
- Condescending Compassion: A character claims to feel sorry for somebody else for being inferior to them.
- Copycat Mockery: Insulting someone by mimicking them.
- *Cough* Snark *Cough*: Coughing or pretending to cough to hide (or even give the implication of hiding without having any real intention to hide) a rude phrase.
- Country Matters: The word "cunt" and how offensive it is in different countries.
- Cowardice Callout: Someone gets called out on their cowardly behavior/conduct.
- Creator Career Self-Deprecation: Someone writes a story making fun of the character's job, which is also the writer's job.
- Damned By a Fool's Praise: A writer insults something by having a stupid character or a villain like it.
- Damned by Faint Praise: Somebody dislikes something, but wants to compliment it to be polite or insult it in a creative way, so they only praise a minor aspect.
- Dear Negative Reader: A writer insults a reader/viewer, usually for complaining about the work or something related.
- Defacement Insult: Someone writes an insult or warning on somebody else's property.
- Defiant to the End: Insulting a character who's trying to kill the one doing the insulting.
- Dehumanizing Insult: Insulting somebody by implying they're "less" than human.
- Destroy the Product Placement: Something from a real-world brand is broken or destroyed.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: A villain implies that a hero was naive for believing they'd do something.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Taunting a much more powerful being.
- The Diss Track: Insulting someone in song.
- Excrement Statement: Showing contempt by deliberately urinating or defecating on someone or something.
- Eyelid Pull Taunt: Pulling one lower eyelid down, sticking out the tongue, and exclaiming (the exact exclamation depends on what language you're speaking) to be rude.
- Fantastic Slurs: Fantasy or sci-fi insults.
- Finger Wag: Wagging a finger to say, "No".
- Fisticuff-Provoking Comment: Bob argues with Alice and says something insulting. Alice reacts by punching Bob.
- Flame War: A heated argument online.
- Flipping the Bird: Sticking out the middle finger in order to insult.
- Flowery Insults: Very elaborate insults.
- Food Shove Gag: Shoving a piece into someone's mouth to keep them quiet or show disrespect.
- Friendlessness Insult: An insult directed at someone's lack of friends or loved ones.
- Gendered Insult: An insult that has to do with gender.
- Gentleman Snarker: Someone who is snarky and highbrow.
- HA HA HA—No: Someone pretends to laugh with another person, but then says, "No", "Shut up" or similar.
- Hand Puppet Mockery: Making fun of another person's looks/personality through puppetry.
- Hard on Soft Science: The writer talks trash about "soft" sciences.
- The Heckler: Someone who interrupts a performance to insult it.
- Height Insult: Insults directed at someone's height.
- Historical Longevity Joke: Making fun of someone's age (or accidentally coming off as though you were due to naivete) by implying they were around during a historical moment.
- I Banged Your Mom: You get under someone's skin by claiming to have had sex with their mother.
- I Shall Taunt You: Insulting someone as part of an agenda.
- I Take Offense to That Last One: Someone insults another person for multiple things, but the person being insulted is only offended by (or is the most offended by) the last and/or weakest one.
- I Will Show You X!: Someone says something along the lines of "I'll show you some X!" as a response to an insult.
- If I Wanted X, I Would Y: Somebody insults a thing by saying that if they wanted something to do with it, they'd do something else specific that has that aspect.
- If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: Insulting a bully/villain/whatever turns a person mean.
- I'm Standing Right Here: Talking smack about someone without noticing or caring that they're around to hear your insults.
- Immaturity Insult: A character insults someone by calling them a child or treating them like a child.
- Inspirational Insult: A character insults another character to motivate them, or they just do it to be mean but it motivates the person anyway.
- Insulted Awake: Snapping someone out of mind control, depression, amnesia, or a bad mood by insulting them.
- Insult Backfire: Someone insults another person, but that person takes it as a compliment.
- Insult Comic: A comedian whose jokes are insulting people's flaws.
- Insult Friendly Fire: A person insults another about something that also applies to a third character they did not intend to insult.
- Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: A character insults another in a language they don't understand.
- Insult Misfire: A person is insulted, but thinks that it's another person being insulted.
- Insult of Endearment: An insult gradually evolves into an Affectionate Nickname.
- Insult to Rocks: A line that goes something like, "I'd call you an X but that's just mean to Xs."
- Irrevocable Message: A character sends a rude message, but then feels bad and wants to take it back.
- Knocking the Knockoff: A character derides a copy of themselves from a different work.
- Lame Comeback: A reply to an insult that's not really a comeback as such.
- Laziness Callout: A character is called out for their laziness.
- Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Insulting someone's character by insulting their sexual prowess.
- Malicious Misnaming: Being mean to somebody by calling them a derogatory variation of their name.
- Magical Profanity Filter: A magic spell or other in-universe effect that prevents characters from swearing.
- Medal of Dishonor: An award that the person being awarded doesn't want, because it's lame or the award itself is ugly.
- Mediation Backfire: Somebody tries to break up an argument and succeeds, but because the arguers want to insult the person trying to break it up.
- Minor Insult Meltdown: Someone only means to insult another person a little bit, but the one being insulted gets very offended.
- Mocking the Mourner: Antagonizing someone using the fact that they have lost a loved one.
- Mocking Sing-Song: Teasing someone by singing the thing being teased about, usually to the tune of "Ring Around the Roses".
- Money Slap: Throwing money into someone else's face is disrespectful.
- Mooning: Insulting somebody by showing them your butt.
- More Insulting than Intended: An insult hurts far worse than the insulter knows.
- My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Dissing one's own culture or place of origin.
- My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: Children arguing about whose father/brother/etc. is better.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Insulting someone by leaving them out of a group (e.g. "These are my friends and this is Alice.")
- My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: Calling someone incompetent by saying, "My grandma/sister/etc. can do it better than you!"
- Network Sideswipe: A show disses another show that's on the same network.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: A character gets mad at being called a coward.
- No, You: Calling somebody something he just said (e.g., "It's an Ambiguous Situation." "You're an ambiguous situation!").
- Offending a Foreign Country: Insulting an entire nation by complaining about a single element of its culture.
- Offending the Fool: Calling out the Cloudcuckoolander.
- Oh, Wait!: A character says something hypothetical, then snidely adds something like, "Oh wait, it's true!"
- The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Somebody hates someone else but does have one minor thing they don't hate about them and uses this to insult them.
- Outside/Inside Slur: Somebody insults somebody else by saying, "On the outside, you're X, but on the inside, you're Y", implying that the person being insulted thinks or acts more like a Y than an X.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Somebody calls another person something like "the best X ever" when that group is ridiculously small so the compliment doesn't have much merit.
- Parenthetical Swearing: Conveying an insult through tone and delivery.
- Pitiful Worms: Insulting someone by comparing them to a bug.
- Police Pig: "Pig" is a very common insult for police officers. Sometimes taken a step further by portraying cops as literal pigs.
- Practical Taunt: A video game has an option to taunt a character you're attacking.
- Pretender Diss: People who belong in a certain category insulting people who pretend to be in that category.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A long, ranty insult.
- Relative Ridicule: Insulting someone's family, or who they are related to.
- Ridiculous Counter-Request: A Deadpan Snarker calls someone's demand unreasonable by making an absurd or fantastic demand of their own.
- Right Behind Me: Insulting someone before realizing that they were standing right behind you the whole time.
- Self-Deprecation: Insulting oneself as a joke.
- Servile Snarker: A servant isn't above making remarks at the expense of their boss.
- Sexiness Score: Ranking, rating or scoring a character's attractiveness and sexual desirability.
- Shaking the Rump: Wiggling one's butt (not necessarily an insult, but it can be).
- Slut-Shaming: Insulting a person for being very promiscuous.
- Snarking Thanks: Thanking someone in a sarcastic or insulting manner.
- Snub by Omission: Insulting someone by complimenting everyone except that person.
- Son of an Ape: A nonhuman insults a human by calling them an ape or a monkey.
- Spiteful Spit: Spitting to be rude.
- Spiteful Will: A dead person manages to get back at their hated peers from beyond the grave by arranging it so that the reading of their will allows them to posthumously insult the people they so despised.
- Stealth Insult: A character insults another character but intends for them not to understand.
- Stereotype Reaction Gag: A character is offended at another character assuming they have a stereotypical skill/interest, which they actually do have.
- Stink Snub: Insulting someone by saying that they smell unpleasant.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: A member of a group insults another member for having traits stereotypically associated with the group.
- Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard: Calling something the stupidest or most ridiculous thing you've seen/heard.
- "Success Through Sex" Accusation: A person's success is attributed to sex rather than merit.
- Take That!: A work makes fun of another work.
- Take That, Audience!: A work makes fun of its audience.
- Take That, Critics!: A work takes a jab at its critics.
- "Take That!" Kiss: Kissing or pretending to kiss someone to mock them.
- Take That, Scrappy!: An unpopular character suffers.
- "Take That!" Tit-for-Tat: When a work insults another work, then the second work insults back.
- Taunting the Transformed: A character reacts to the sight of a transformation with mockery, usually verbal.
- Taunting the Unconscious: Making fun of someone who's comatose, unconscious, or in a similar state.
- That Liar Lies: Reprimanding someone for being or accusing them of being a liar.
- This Loser Is You: An unlucky character is meant to be like the audience.
- Trash Talk: Insulting an opponent during a fight or a competitive game.
- Tongue-Out Insult: Someone sticks out their tongue as a means of insult.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: The winner of a competition celebrates by mocking the other competitors for losing.
- [Verb] This!: Replying rudely to someone's comment by saying, "[Verb that the person previously said in a sentence] this!"
- Verbal Salt in the Wound: Deliberately offending someone by bringing up a past injury - often one you inflicted.
- Virgin-Shaming: Insulting someone just because they never had sexual intercourse before.
- Volleying Insults: One character insults another, the second one insults them back, the first one insults them back, and so on.
- Why Don't You Marry It?: Mocking something someone likes by suggesting they should marry it.
- Witch with a Capital "B": Calling a woman a witch as an insult.
- World's Shortest Book: The idea that if a book was written about a certain aspect of the character, the book would be very short as the character has none or only a small amount of the attribute.
- World's Smallest Violin: Rubbing one's fingers together as though playing a tiny violin to imply that a person is exaggerating their problems.
- Would Rather Suffer: Claiming that one would rather do something extremely unpleasant than the thing they're dissing.
- Writer Revolt: Writers respond to Executive Meddling by sneaking in an insult towards the conditions forced on them.
- Writers Suck: TV shows and films make fun of writers.
- Wrong Insult Offence: Somebody thinks that they were insulted incorrectly (for example, "I'm not stupid, I'm clueless!").
- X Called; They Want Their Y Back: Saying that a time period "called and wants something back" to imply that the thing is outdated.
- Years Too Early: A Japanese insult, calling someone naive by saying that they're "X years too early" to fight the insulter.
- You Are Fat: Insulting somebody by calling them fat.
- You Fight Like a Cow: People exchange insults during a fight.
- You Fool!: The word "fool" is a common insult in fiction.
- You Rebel Scum!: A villain in authority insults a lower-ranking hero.
- Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: Insulting someone by saying, "Your little X".
- Your Mom: Insulting someone by trash-talking their mom.
- Your Vampires Suck: Vampires diss fictional vampires.
- You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum: Taunting someone by telling them they'd be worthless without X.
