"YOU LAZY, NO-GOOD SLACKERS DRIVE ME NUTS! CAN'T YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME ONCE IN YOUR WORTHLESS LIVES?! 'CAUSE IF YOU DID, YOU'D SEE I'M TRYING TO TEACH YOU SOME SIMPLE RESPONSIBILITY, SOME PRIDE IN DOING A JOB WELL DONE! BUT YOU WOULDN'T KNOW A JOB WELL DONE IF YOU PAID SOMEONE TO DO IT FOR YOU, AND EVEN THEN YOU'D SCREW IT ALL UP ON THE ACCOUNT THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN FOLLOW THE SIMPLEST OF INSTRUCTIONS, WORRYING MORE ABOUT LOOKING COOL THAN DOING YOUR JOB!"
— Benson, Regular Show, "Think Positive"
People generally tend to frown on laziness; for some people, others' lack of effort can be so frustrating that it warrants calling them out. Said calling out might be done out of a desire for someone to improve themselves, frustration with a person's continued refusal to put in effort, resentment at having to carry somebody else's share of the load, or disgust with attempts to get ahead without effort. Because laziness can come in multiple forms, there are a number of ways this trope can manifest, with some of the more notable manifestations including:
- Lazy naturally talented people will sometimes be called out for relying too much on their natural abilities and not bothering to improve themselves.
- People who try to get ahead without trying hard will be condemned for trying to take shortcuts.
- People who try to manipulate others into doing their work for them and/or take credit for other people's accomplishments will sometimes be called out as parasites who leech off of others' hard work.
- Some envious people try to drag others down rather than improve themselves. Characters with this mentality will sometimes be called out for putting more effort into bringing others down than they do bringing themselves up.
- People who are entitled and/or spoiled will sometimes be chewed out for expecting things to be handed to them rather than work for them.
- Someone who feels entitled to a relationship will be called out for expecting someone to automatically fall for them rather than try to earn someone's affections by improving themselves.
- Sometimes a character might be called out for Deliberate Under-Performance or Dismotivation, where they're actually less "lazy" and more just trying not to stand out too much. Some characters even put in more effort trying to avoid certain tasks to the point that you can't even tell what counts as "lack of effort" anymore.
- While the one doing the calling out is usually meant to be in the right, some variants have the one doing the calling out insisting that others' lack of success is the result of not trying hard enough, even if the latter tries extremely hard. See also Hard Work Fallacy.
- One form of this type of calling out comes in the form of a Psychological Projection. In this case, the accuser is either trying to divert attention away from their own laziness or they genuinely believe the person they are accusing is the lazy one.
Can be part of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Compare Cowardice Callout.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: A self-inflicted version in Chapter 147. Tama suffers a breakdown after becoming racked with guilt over lazing around in the Hanazono mansion while all the other girls are working or studying and believing herself powerless to escape her situation.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: After Jaden defeats Dimitri, a student who copies other people's decks and even went so far as to steal Yugi's, he and Zane tell Dimitri that a good Duelist has to create their own decks and strategies rather than copy off of others.
Fan Works
- In the Naruto fanfic Final Evalutation
, Iruka invokes Tough Love on Shikamaru by tearing him a new one about being Brilliant, but Lazy, praising his gift at tactical thinking but telling him that if he is going to approach everything regarding being a ninja as something "bothersome" and he cannot even try to improve his physical skills, he is better off quitting before he gets his teammates killed.
- Danny Phantom: Stranded: Travelled, has a rare case of a character doing this to themselves; Chip Franco was a Big Jerk on Campus who spent his high school days goofing off and making others do his schoolwork. As a result of this behavior, he became a failure who peaked in high school, while Johnathan Strong, one of his former victims, became a wealthy and successful lawyer. At one point, Chip chews himself out for spending more time partying than studying and admits that his life's struggles are a result of his own actions.
Films — Animated
- The Lion King (1994) has a negative variant; after Scar takes over the Pride Lands, it becomes a wasteland because he allowed the hyenas to run amok eating as they pleased rather than try to rein them in. When Scar accuses Sarabi and her hunting party of not doing their jobs (finding food), Sarabi explains that the herds have moved on. Scar's response is to accuse Sarabi and her hunting party of not looking hard enough.
- In Surf's Up, Cody and Geek are going on a walk through the forest, when they stop to rest against a heavy log. Geek then reveals a surprising knowledge of surfing by confirming that the log is Koa wood, the best type of wood for making surfboards with, and asks whether Cody would like to make such a board. Cody, however, embittered and apathetic following his recent wipe-out against Tank "The Shredder" Evans earlier, refuses. Geek becomes uncharacteristically angry and says, "WHAT?! Man, I come all the way down here to help you find a board, and you say, 'Nah'?! Get off your lazy butt! (he pushes Cody off the log and starts shoving it away through the forest) We're making a board, come on!"
- In Klaus, at the beginning of the movie, Mr Johansson calls out his son Jesper for purposely squandering his postman training to continue living as a rich spoiled man under his care, before giving his son the ultimatum of getting 6000 letters stamped in the dangerous town of Smeerensburg or be disowned and spending the rest of his days in the gutter.
Films — Live-Action
- The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland: When Oscar is convincing all the other Grouches to band together to take back the things Huxley stole from them, he berates them for not doing anything about the thief in Grouchland.
- About the Little Red Riding Hood: Red Riding Hood has an entire song where she calls out the Spoiled Child for never doing anything by himself and points out he won't survive without his servants.
- The infamous Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Dropo is introduced by Kimar as "the laziest man on Mars" and lives up to that title throughout.
Literature
- Arios Orlando's party — minus Rein Shroud, of course — suffers this in Beast Tamer following the end of Edgar Fromware's demonic rampage against Horizon, as said event was ended by Rein and his girl companions from the strongest races, while Arios' party did nothing to help the citizens during the chaos and yet got the gall to demand supplies from one of the affected shopkeepers.
- In Little Women, Laurie falls into a depression after Jo rejects his marriage proposal and travels aimlessly through Europe, living a life of shallow pleasures on his grandfather's money and enjoying none of it. That is, until Amy nicknames him "Lazy Laurence" and calls him out for doing nothing productive with his life. He takes her words to heart and first tries to become an opera composer, then eventually goes to work for his grandfather, and in the process falls in love with Amy and she with him.
Live-Action TV
- Gilmore Girls: In "Teach Me Tonight", Rory calls Jess out for his Deliberate Under-Performance in school. He's on her level intellectually but is at risk of being held back because he isn't doing the work and rarely attends class. She's been pressed into service tutoring him, and this comes after he's been avoiding studying all night. Jess makes the point that he isn't going to be attending college, so he has no motivation to put any effort into his schoolwork. His plan for adulthood is basically to drift, doing "whatever, wherever." Rory still insists he could do more with his life. When he returns in season 6, full of Character Development, he reveals he's published a novella and runs a publishing house with a couple of friends, and credits Rory's faith in him for this accomplishment. Slightly subverted in that there isn't actually anything wrong with Jess's work ethic when he finds something he deems worthwhile; he ends up being unable to graduate due to truancy because he's working a full-time job in addition to working at Luke's. He just doesn't put any personal value into academia.
- Kitchen Nightmares: In the UK edition's episode on Piccolo Teatro, owner Rachel never even tried to make her restaurant work, constantly making excuses for why she couldn't be bothered to show up or even open the restaurant at profitable times. Eventually, the whole restaurant goes bust, and Gordon Ramsay gives her one of these after the fact. Unfortunately, she doesn't listen and storms off.
Gordon: You're lazy, you've put nothing into it, and you deserve a kick up the fucking arse.
- In the Power Rangers S.P.D. episode "Abandoned", the B-Squad Rangers decide that, with Doggie joining the team as SPD Shadow Ranger, they can take it easy and let him do the heavy lifting. Doggie doesn't take this lying down and quickly forces the Rangers to get themselves back in the game and stop relying on him.
- Trailer Park Boys:
- Lots of characters like to mock Ricky for being vulgar, having a poor education, and showing little interest in anything except getting drunk, eating junk food, and growing and selling cannabis. Of course, Ricky being a Cuckoosnarker, he can return fire no problem.
- Randy, Mr. Lahey's fat assistant, is no more ambitious or motivated than Ricky, and spends most of his time mowing lawns — or trying to — smoking dope, and eating cheeseburgers. This prompts Phil Collins to get very shirty with him in one episode of Season 7 when he's not putting out enough missing posters for Phil's son Jacob:
Randy: (after failing to get a lawnmower running, flipping it over, and then taking a whiff of his bong) Hey, Phil, are those cheeseburgers done yet?Phil: Randy, my son is missing, and all you can worry about is drugs and FUCKIN' CHEESEBURGERS?! (...) Let's get these fuckin' posters out, if you're not too FUCKIN' HIGH!!!
Music
- In the final verse of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car", the narrator calls out her boyfriend for becoming the same lazy, alcoholic deadbeat that her father had been, going out drinking all night with his friends while she works hard to pay off their bills. Ultimately, she kicks him out for it.
Video Games
- Lethal Company: At the end of each day one of the players is given the moniker of "laziest employee".
Web Animation
- Etra chan saw it!:
- Azami is envious of Yuri because of the CEO's praise of her. In order to make Yuri look bad, Azami decides to spread rumors about Yuri; the CEO doesn't buy Azami's lies for a second and chews her out for harassing other people rather than do her own job.
- Akamatsu and Akane's wedding was a disaster because he tried to copy off of Katsura's wedding without doing any research and only spent a month planning it. When Akamatsu tries to blame Katsura for his poor decisions, Katsura counters by pointing out how he should have done more research and spent more time planning out his wedding.
- Azami
Web Videos
- The Angry Video Game Nerd: At the end of his review of Kid Kool, the Nerd states the game's various flaws are a result of it being untested and rushed, and that in order to make a game good, it takes time.
- Moleman's Epic Rap Battles: In Ned Flanders vs. Clay Puppington, Flanders criticizes Clay's alcoholism by asking if he's ever tried to go sober.
- Party Crashers: When playing 1-vs-3 minigames in Mario Party, TCNick3 often relies on his teammates to carry him to victory, something the others call him out on regularly, to the point where they claim that the "C" in his username actually stands for "Carried":
Brent: Dude, Nick, you did nothing! It's like Eevee said, all you do is get carried!
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: In "A Touch of Eval(uations)", Louise is mad at Ms. LaBonz for failing her diorama, which was just a cotton ball on a plain shoe box as a polar bear in the snow. Louise has just given her a harsh student evaluation when she learns that LaBonz did it to motivate her since she thinks Louise is a bright student and could have done a much better job if she applied herself. In fact, Louise did a much better presentation after that just to show LaBonz wrong.
- Hey Arnold!: In "Baby Oskar", Oskar and Suzie have to look after Baby Oskar, the infant son of Suzie's cousin Nancy. Oskar is very unhelpful to Suzie since most of the time, she's the one taking care of him (never mind that he's a grown man and his nephew is just a baby) and he also finds it confusing that he and his nephew share a name (since Nancy named her son before she really knew Oskar). When Oskar becomes impatient waiting for Suzie to bring him his breakfast, Suzie calls him out for being so lazy and unhelpful; she's the one taking care of the cleaning, the bills, and the baby, and all he does is whine, moan, and ask her to make him a sandwich.
- Johnny Test: The episode "Johnny Bench" has Mr. Teacherman calling out Johnny, who spent the entire episode trying to cheat his way into a passing grade, by explaining that the reason he's so hard on Johnny is because he knows that Johnny could be a good student if he stopped goofing off. By the end of the episode, Mr. Teacherman is proven right when Johnny manages to earn a passing grade by simply applying himself.
- The Simpsons: In the episode "I'm with Cupid," Apu earns the ire of the other husbands of Springfield after his frequent romantic gestures towards his wife cause the other husbands' wives to hold them to higher standards. While most of the other husbands insist that Apu is to blame for making them look bad, Ned Flanders insists that they should try to be better husbands toward their wives rather than sabotage Apu, which causes him to be kicked out of the group.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Rock-A-Bye Bivalve", SpongeBob and Patrick adopt a baby scallop and begin looking after it, but SpongeBob ends up doing all the housework while Patrick spends all day at work and all night watching TV. SpongeBob eventually loses his patience and chews Patrick out for not helping with Junior, and the starfish agrees to help out around the house more... only to come home the next night at midnight. It then emerges that Patrick's "work" consists of him sitting in his home watching TV, meaning he's been sitting on his ass the whole time and leaving SpongeBob to do everything, prompting SpongeBob to call him out all over again.
- Thomas & Friends:
- In "Percy's Predicament", Daisy the Diesel Railcar substitutes for Thomas on the latter's branch line while the latter is being repaired after accidentally crashing into the Stationmaster's house. Daisy prefers to do just what work she chooses and no more, which results in Toby having to take her milk van and Percy having to take the Troublesome Trucks from the quarry. The Troublesome Trucks push Percy into a brake van, damaging him and forcing Sir Topham Hatt to run the line with only Toby and Daisy. After Sir Topham Hatt scolds Percy for his carelessness with the Trucks, he scolds Daisy, saying that engines on his railway work hard and he sends lazy ones away. He does, however, give her a second chance, having heard from Toby how hard she worked to clear the wreckage away after Percy's accident.
- In "Thomas' Day Off", Sir Topham Hatt gives Thomas the day off and sends a new diesel engine named Dennis to deliver a set of tiles to the school to repair its roof. Dennis doesn't like working, and he tries to trick Thomas into doing his (Dennis') job for him. When Dennis decides to leave his freight cars behind and get far away from his work, he doesn't look where he's going and derails, needing Thomas to rescue him. After Thomas rescues Dennis and delivers the tiles to the school, Sir Topham Hatt scolds Dennis for not doing his job like he was supposed to. Dennis feels ashamed, and since Thomas has shown him that being really useful is much better than being really lazy, he promises to try to be more useful from now on.
- In "Ryan and Daisy", Sir Topham Hatt gives Daisy some new work to do on the Arlesburgh/Harwick branch line, such as pulling a mail coach and doing her passenger runs earlier in the morning and later into the evening. Just like before, Daisy prefers to do just what work she chooses and no more. She tricks Ryan into doing her work as well as his own, which results in him having to push her mail coach and pull his passenger coaches at the same time, and accidentally taking Daisy's passengers to the Ffarquhar Quarry. Near the end of the episode, Sir Topham Hatt scolds Daisy for not doing her work like he asked her, and tells Ryan that although he appreciates him helping Daisy, she should have done the same for him. He then makes Daisy take Ryan's freight cars to the quarry as punishment for overworking Ryan.
- In the Tom and Jerry short A Mouse in the House, Mammy Two-Shoes tires of Butchnote and Tom's excessive laziness allowing Jerry to freely raid the fridge, so after a few bouts of sarcastic compliments, she lays out one final ultimatum:
(Tom and Butch scream in terror and rush to the wall, holding each other tightly.)Mammy: (threateningly) There's a mouse in the house... and there's two cats. But there's only gonna be ONE cat in this house in the morning, and that's the cat that catches that mouse! Now get goin'!
- In the CinemaScope short "Mucho Mouse", a woman in Spain scolds her cat for playing the guitar instead of chasing Jerry. So she has called Tom from the United States to chase Jerry out of the house.
- Total Drama: In "Ocean's Eight — Or Nine", the Killer Grips have to put together a getaway car, but Justin won't help because he doesn't want to do anything that would mess up his good looks.
Justin: Hand modeling is one of the things that put me on the map.Courtney: Obviously, that would be the map of Uselessville.
