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A slacker's day.

"It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?"
Will, About a Boy

Huh– wha? Describe Slacker here? But it's like, early…late… in the morning… evening… something like that, anyways, why don't one of you do the job of describing for me so I can get back to training my Pokemon?

A character, almost Always Male (at least in older works) somewhere between age 14-40, whose single Goal in Life is to get through existence with as little effort as possible. May be Book Dumb or Brilliant, but Lazy but either way, they'll take crap jobs rather than aspire to anything greater. Even there, they are often the Weasel Co-Worker. Are usually filthy pigs at home, and sometimes with regard to their personal hygiene as well. May also ingest copious amounts of marijuana, but this is not a necessity. Often part of an Odd Couple with a driven, ambitious Neat Freak. May have a job as an Apathetic Clerk.

There are a few things they might put effort into: appearing cool to peers, lining up relaxing social activities involving alcohol, and trying to have sex. If they are the The Stoner subtype, they will be motivated to score weed.

Another thing to note is that most slacker stories tend to have a strong point of view: either the slacker is a lovable goof who's better than the Type A personalities around them, or he's an irresponsible Jerkass who needs to shape up.

Slacker girls are rare in fiction (and are often presented as essentially an oxymoron); generally the Slacker's girlfriend (or would-be girlfriend) will be much more focused and getting on with her life. She might break up with him if she is able to see that he is going nowhere fast. However, this gender split seems to be weakening as of The New '10s with films like Bad Teacher and Young Adult showing female slacker leads.

See also Dismotivation, NEET or The Stoner. Compare Lazy Bum. Contrast Professional Slacker, who is lazy at work and Ambitious, but Lazy, which involves characters who are ambitious despite their slothfulness. Foil of the Consummate Professional.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 

  • In Bloom Into You, President Kuze tended to delegate most of the work to Touko and the other members of the student council, and the reason why he recommended Doujima to the Student Council was that Doujima was the sort who would be willing to take the work. Surprisingly enough, Touko's sister Mio, who'd been seen as The Ace, actually turns out to be this, as according to Ichigaya, she only took on the duties that were fun (e.g. delivering speeches) and even asked her fellow members to do her summer homework for her. Ichigaya doesn't hold it against her, though, and has come to accept that kind of leadership as normal for student council presidents.
  • In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Zenitsu's case it is more of a combination of his bad self-esteem and fear of getting hurt in any way possible, so he hates any kind of training that will force him to put more effort than he personally would like give, with that Zenitsu must really be coerced in a way that will make him go through it even if complaining along the way, two popular methods are he himself feeding on his dreams that getting stronger will make Nezuko fall for him, and the other is filling him with praise, Tanjiro honestly believes in Zenitsu so that usually works, but also Shinobu pretended to cheer Zenitsu up to get him going. The tragedy with his master's death made Zenitsu be serious about his training and future without others forcing him however.
  • Homura Hinooka from the light novel series Fire Girl, like Seychelles above her, is an unusual mix of this and Plucky Girl. While she's not one to back down when a goal or objective is right in front of her, she's also content with just lounging around and exerting as little effort as possible in the things she does. It's for this reason that she's both a Determinator as a Magician in the Exploration Club and a girl who finds it difficult to get up early in the morning.
  • The main protagonist of Gabriel DropOut, turns from hardworking and idealistic angel, into this, after she discovers Video Games.
  • Those Three Girls of Hayate the Combat Butler, Miki Hanabishi, Izumi Segawa, and Risa Asakaze, actually take this to the level of barely staying within the relevant plot of characters. Izumi is the only one who's actually shown interest in Hayate, Miki has actually disdained his interest and Risa hasn't seemed to decide whether she wants to be interested or not. All three love to hang out with Hard-Drinking Party Girl Yukiji, actually attempt to keep their grades barely above failing and only seem to show up often enough to cause trouble for the chapter to revolve around.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers:
    • Latvia doesn't work hard unless he's ordered (and threatened), normally by Russia. The funny thing is that when he does actually try, he's amazing at things: For example, he (as an agricultural nation) managed to build an entire working railroad alone, at Russia's behest. Notably, according to one of his character profiles he might be Obfuscating Stupidity.
      Russia: Oooh! Did you make this? You are incredible!
      Latvia: Th-th-thank you! I'll do my best with the next one too...
      Latvia: [to Estonia and Lithuania] Would somebody here be so nice and do the carrot-and-stick thing with me...
    • Seychelles is a rare female example, made even odder given how energetic she is. But at the same time, she's portrayed as being very carefree, putting off cleaning (even when it's covered in ants), and somehow falling asleep in the middle of her own Image Song.
  • Himouto! Umaru-chan: The main character is one of the prominent female examples of this—she's a physically literal chibi who lazes around at home, naps, plays games, surfs the Internet, eats junk food, and downs Coke all day—and would do them all at the same time if she could. Noted subversion too in that she's only like this at home; at school, she has a regular-sized alter ego who's amazingly beautiful, smart, with perfect grades, and yet is somehow still totally humble — in short, to quote Mary Poppins, "practically perfect in every way".
  • Justy Ueki Tylor from Irresponsible Captain Tylor is quite possibly the best example of a Slacker Hero.
  • Shikamaru from Naruto. What a drag. Though he does fit the Brilliant, but Lazy definition of this trope.
  • Deconstructed in Ramen Fighter Miki: Miki Onimaru is a Womanchild who only took the job of Kanban Musume (Poster Girl) of her mother's Ramen restaurant because she could slack all she wants there, lying to herself that her job is exciting (she's practically a Burger Fool). When she has her day off, she doesn’t know what to do… because she never delivers the ramen on time, has little money, no tv nor videogames. The Rival, Megumi, another Kanban Musume that takes her job seriously, has money and better things in her house.
  • Sailor Moon: Usagi Tsukino prefers playing video games, reading manga, eating junk food, and taking naps over studying for tests or doing her chores.
  • Servant × Service: Hasabe, so much so that the first questions he asked Ichimiya were details about break time and the whereabouts of places he could slack in. Whether he would develop into a Professional Slacker — it's a civil service job after all — is another question.
  • Shaman King: Yoh Asakura is the Slacker hero. He is willing to work his ass off to become the Shaman King in the hopes of never having to do anything for all eternity. Also, he might be able to squeeze into stoner territory, from his name meaning leaf, a well-known nickname for weed, to Viz and 4kids editing out the (much argued about) "Leaf" on all of his clothes.
  • Panda of Shirokuma Cafe is so lazy that he thinks working half of a half-day at the zoo is too much for him and blatantly tells Shirokuma in an interview for a job at Shirokuma's cafe that he had no intention of ever working. This attitude towards working has gotten him attacked with his mother's vacuum cleaner.
  • The title character of Soul Eater starts out as this.

    Comic Books 
  • 100 Bullets: Wylie. He's lazy, has no ambition or passion in life, and hates his job. His favorite pastime is to drink and pass out. When Sheppard visits him and says: "don't work too hard", he replies, "Don't worry it's against my religion".
  • Gaston Lagaffe: Gaston has turned slacking into a lifestyle.
  • Henchgirl: A female example. Mary Posa repeatedly draws the ire of her fellow gang members for her laziness and having a pesky conscience. She'd rather eat junk food, watch movies with her friends, and pursue the rookie superhero she frequently runs into. An injection of Psycho Serum cures her of that bad habit, but even after she is captured and reforms, she'd rather be a security guard (and a lazy one at that) than a hero.
  • Incandescence: A rare slacker girl is found in the comic. The title character is an unmotivated young woman, barely attending college and mainly going to rock shows to her father's chagrin. Though as the trope suggests, she does start making steps to change her life.
  • Rudi: Rudi and Freddy from the German comic; also, their punk buddy Heinz.
  • Runaways: Chase Stein.
  • Scott Pilgrim: Scott is an unemployed 20-something who spends his time playing video games, hanging out, and playing in a band.
  • Werner: In the German comic, Werner and his friends (except for when they're brewing beer or tuning bikes, then they're very industrious)
  • X-Men. Elixir, especially paired in an Odd Couple with Prodigy, who is an overachiever.

    Film 
  • Almost all Kevin Smith male characters.
  • Most characters Seth Rogen has played or written.
  • Shaun from Shaun of the Dead, though at the end he manages to get his life together. Ed might be a better example.
    • Another zombie-film example: Juan, Lazaro, and California in Juan of the Dead.
  • Slackers, naturally.
  • The characters from Grandma's Boy (2006).
  • The Dude from The Big Lebowski.
    The Stranger: The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man — and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide.
  • Kumar of the Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle movies is one of the examples of the Odd Couple, pairing him with obsessive Harold.
  • Regina 'Reggie' Belmont, heroine of cult '80s movie Night of the Comet is another female example.
  • The titular heroines of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion are a prominent female example (they are also prominent examples of the Dumb Blonde trope, but hey, not all slackers are smart).
  • Private John Winger in Stripes.
  • Jack Black's character Dewey Finn in School of Rock. He even initially slacks off when he passes himself off as a teacher.
  • Jane from Smiley Face. A lot of the plot happens because she's afraid her dealer will take her really comfy bed to pay off her debt to him. Also The Stoner, obviously.
  • Aram in The Rebound.
  • Claire from The Innkeepers is a female example. Her coworker Luke is a slacker, too.
  • Gang-du from The Host (2006). However, this is explained that as a child he didn't get enough nutrition as a child, which explains his slight narcolepsy.
  • Electra Glide in Blue: As a motorcycle cop, Wintergreen's partner Zipper spends most of his time sitting on his motorcycle in the shade, reading comic books, eating junk food, and listening to the radio.

    Jokes 
  • A Frenchman drops off a pair of shoes at the shop in 1939 to get the laces repaired. The day after, the war starts and he gets sent to the front. He gets captured and sent to a POW camp until the Soviets liberate the camp. He is forcibly recruited into their army for a few years, gets in a fight with an officer, and is sent to the gulag for a decade. When he's finally freed, he returns home and sees the shoe shop is still there. He enters, asks about a pair of shoes dropped off about twenty years earlier. The shopkeeper asks a few questions about them to confirm they're his... and tells the man they'll be ready in a week.

    Literature 
  • Oblomov's favorite activity is lounging on a sofa, sleeping or daydreaming. He is too lazy to read or dress properly. On the other hand, he just doesn't care about a lot of things that most people around him do.
  • Ron exhibits some of these traits in the Harry Potter series. It's implied that, having five older brothers who are all brilliant in their chosen field (and his best friends are an overachieving genius and Harry freakin' Potter), Ron feels like he may as well not even try to compete.
  • Victor Tugelbend from Moving Pictures aspires to being a student wizard forever. However, he keeps himself in good shape, because it's too much bother dragging all the excess fat around. And he has to study quite hard to ensure that during finals he comes just short of passing, but doesn't completely wash out of school. He doesn't see the irony in his situation. He has some justification; as long as he's a student and does not drop below a certain grade threshold he has a guaranteed income from a bequest, and being a full wizard is a dangerous occupation at this point in the series.
  • The Slacker Handbook, a half-serious illustrated history/guide covering slacker fashion (comfort is key), assessing jobs for slack potential (able to turn up drunk and not get fired = win), perks (sleep, glorious sleep), and more.
  • Cameron, the main character of Going Bovine, is made of this trope, especially at the beginning of the novel.
  • A subversion in John Hemry's Paul Sinclair series beginning with A Just Determination: Commander Sykes, supply officer of the space cruiser Michaelson, is described as a slacker, even a "slacker god," because he's so laid-back, always hanging around the wardroom with a cup of coffee, never seen doing any work. The subversion is that he does do the work, and does it right, so quietly and efficiently that he has plenty of time to spend in the wardroom. This is pointed out by his immediate subordinate, who'd be in the best position to know if "Suppo" were pushing the work off on others. There's also an invocation of the Odd Couple effect because the ship's XO seems like his polar opposite — except for the quiet efficiency they share.
  • Language Arts: Before Charles met Alison, he was a pot-smoking bartender with no ambitions besides making a decent salary and seducing customers. Alison persuaded him to marry her and start working as a high school English teacher.
  • Deckard in the Outlander Leander series. He's constantly being punished for slacking off, but punishments do nothing to motivate him.
  • Cameron Boxer in Gordon Korman's Slacker is exactly this. He plays video games all the time and refuses to do anything, even prevent his house from burning.
  • Glenn in Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor. This isn't solely due to a personality flaw but also because of trauma from being a former Mage Killer and being unable to stop his partner being killed. He starts the series not wanting to work or go outside at all. He's forced to get a job and start paying most of his expenses by his guardian Celica (she still lets him live rent-free in her mansion). He initially doesn't put any effort into his new job as a magic teacher, though this changes later on.
  • Alderamin on the Sky: Ikta takes pride in seeking the easiest possible life for himself. He declares laziness to be the driving force behind mankind's progress, leading to the invention of the well instead of going all the way to the river, etc. Too bad he is thrust into adventures he never asked for.
  • Houtarou Oreki, the protagonist of Hyouka, claims he has no energy and lives his life in "the grey", the middle path between all forms of activity. His two rules he lives his life by are "One: Never do anything you don't have to. Two: If you have to do something, do it quickly."
  • Ryner Lute from The Legend of the Legendary Heroes is totally like this. He's perfectly comfortable with going to prison because he won't have to do anything there. In fact, he considers it preferable to being in the military academy. He mostly does stuff only when Ferris threatens to kill him. He even made slacking into a philosophy: it's the motivated people who start wars and the like, and the unmotivated people get to suffer as a result.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Daisy in Spaced, a writer who lives off unemployment and never writes. She sees herself as a Brilliant, but Lazy Starving Artist, although it's unclear how accurate this is.
  • Our Miss Brooks: Walter Denton is an early example, although intelligent about some things, he's Book Dumb, constantly taking shortcuts in his studies, once mentions he keeps his room a mess, and tries to minimize the time he spends in school or actually doing school work.
  • Most of the cast of That '70s Show. Especially Hyde, who is the smartest character on the show, but has no ambition or motivation to do anything but sit around in a basement.
  • Dave Lister in Red Dwarf, although later seasons do see him develop.
    • The Cat doesn't care about much other than eating and how good he looks early on. At one point, when told by the insubstantial Rimmer that Lister is in trouble, the Cat refuses to help until he finishes his meal (and he doesn't exactly speed up his eating either). Like Lister though, he too begins to contribute, though he is still remarkably narcissistic.
  • Tristan from All Creatures Great And Small doesn't take much of an interest in his studies despite being a perfectly good vet who probably could have qualified years ago if he'd applied himself.
  • Muriel from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. She's close to retirement but on several occasions, she's neglected her duties. She once came into the Martins' suite and stayed there, eating all the food out of their refrigerator. She also walked in on a date between London and a boy, stayed there, and when London asked "Aren't you supposed to be working?" responded with "What's your point?"
  • A rare female example: Jaye Tyler in Wonderfalls. In one episode, she actually explains how she's created a "stress-free expectation-free zone" to live in. It is, however, shown in some episodes that part of her would like to accomplish something, she's just not sure what.
  • Like Jaye, George Lass of Dead Like Me (also created by Wonderfalls creator Bryan Fuller) is this at the beginning of the series. She puts it best when she says, "I excel at not giving a shit." She develops enough over the series to accept a promotion at her job and become a productive member of the team.
    • Mason also embodies this trope, preferring to steal from his reaps to get by, rather than holding down a job as the other reapers do (or are implied to have done).
  • Maynard G. Krebs, the beatnik sidekick in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. As portrayed by a pre-Gilligan Bob Denver, Krebs would let out a panicked yelp of "Work!" at the mere mention of the word.
  • Unusually, Married... with Children contrasts The Slacker with the Lazy Bum. Al Bundy has a 9 to 5 mall job, but he's a bad worker; he insults customers and makes little effort on the clock. But next to his wife Peggy, who chooses not to work at all (even blithely neglecting their kids), he's a picture of diligence.

    Music 
  • The only reason Johnny Ramone wanted to form a band was because he wanted to make a hit so successful that he wouldn't have to do anything for the rest of his life...

    Mythology & Religion 
  • The Bible: In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites as a whole are accused of being this by Pharaoh's men when they are told to go and find straw for themselves to make bricks without reducing the number of bricks they must produce each day, only for Pharaoh's men to be told they are at fault for not providing the Israelites with straw for making bricks.

    Newspaper Comics 
  • Wally in Dilbert is based on someone Scott Adams worked with who, in order to take advantage of incredibly generous severance packages, made a deliberately calculated effort to be in the bottom 10 percent of the company.
  • The title character of Beetle Bailey when he's not being a Professional Slacker.
  • Zonker Harris and his nephew Zipper in Doonesbury.
  • The cast of Rocky.
  • Bucky's cousin Funny Foreigner Mac Manc Mcmanx from Get Fuzzy could be seen as this, considering how long he stayed at Rob's apartment before finally leaving.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Tetsuya Naito after his return in New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2015 after an excursion in Mexico his new gimmick became being lazy and doing as little as possible to win. Hiroshi Tanahashi admitted he was totally thrown off by this "stalling strategy". Naito's slacker gimmick is actually a brilliant example of NJPW making lemonade out of a serious lemon: Naito was pushed to the top of the card as for a feud with Kazuchika Okada. The problem was that the fans weren't buying what he was selling, and in a rare moment of fan response changing the trajectory of a company, there was a vote over which match should main event Wrestle Kingdom: the heavyweight title match between Okada and Naito…or the Intercontinental Championship between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura. The fans voted for the latter. Thus, Naito's entire slacking gimmick is rooted in this supposed "betrayal": the fans didn't give a damn about him, so why should he care about anything? And ironically, by not giving a crap about anything anymore, the fans took to him completely. After the response he got during and after winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt at Invasion Attack 2016...The fans aren't going to be voting him out of Main Events any time soon.
  • Orange Cassidy of All Elite Wrestling. Billed as being from... wherever and weighing... whatever, his biggest moves are a series of devastating kicks (toe taps to his opponent's boots followed by a "superkick" to the shin) and an elbow drop from the top turnbuckle (literally a drop, because he just falls). The latter may have to do with the fact he spends a lot of time with his hands in his pockets.

    Radio 
  • The staff of General Assistance Department in The Men from the Ministry tend to avoid work at all costs, only completing it at the last minute.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The goal of the card game Chez Geek is to accumulate slack, and this is done by such things as sleeping, watching tv, buying beer, and getting nookie.
  • In Cypher System, every character chooses a Focus that makes them unique. One of the available Foci is called Doesn't Do Much, which means, well, Exactly What It Says on the Tin. In practice, it gives the character a bunch of free skills since they have more time to pursue hobbies, and lets them recover health more quickly because of how chill they are.

    Theatre 

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE:
    • On Metru Nui, Takua was infamous for doing very little work and for making trips to trade souvenirs during his work hours, to the point that others joked he had an entire squad of Vahki enforcer robots to make sure he did his job. (This was likely due to the fact that Takua was not only the first Matoran villager ever made by the Great Beings, but also―unknown even to himself―a Matoran of Light disguised as a Matoran of Fire.) On the island Mata Nui, following a couple bouts of amnesia, Takua became a more dutiful Chronicler and sports player, but he was more fond of wandering off on adventures than doing his tasks. This largely went away when he became Takanuva, most likely due to the greater importance of his duty. (That, and his job is more adventuring and heroism than hard work.)
    • Onepu, though he technically was the highly respected captain of the Ussalry combat regiment, did everything he could to avoid mining duties, convincing his dimwitted "friend" Taipu to do both of their jobs while Onepu stayed at home to wax the shells of his Ussal crab steeds.

    Video Games 
  • An actual profession in The Sims 2. The career reward is a hydroponic garden.
  • Komachi Onozuka from Touhou Project is a slacking Shinigami. Her slacking was so hard it spurs the whole events of Phantasmagoria of Flower View.
    • Yukari Yakumo surpasses even Komachi, literally sleeping all day and even through the entirety of winter (her shikigami Ran explicitly refers to it as "hibernation"). Then again, she is reality-warping Physical Goddess, so the few times she's actually awake, she gets shit done...or screws it up even worse; Yukari is an infamous Troll.
  • Kyo Kusanagi from The King of Fighters. The guy hasn't even finished high school because he's more interested in fighting.
  • Rock from the Harvest Moon series. Fancies himself a ladies' man and quite the catch, despite having no job, no desire to get one, and no obvious skills other than being pretty.
    • Karina of Rune Factory 3. Most of her voiced dialogue has to do with her being lazy, her Artificial Atmospheric Actions have her falling asleep standing up, and she once tried to keep a diary, but her only entry was "Dear Diary, I decided it would be too much trouble to keep you, so I won't."
    • Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town: Jacopo seems to be only interested in lazing around. He only has his current job because his father, the mayor of the town, forced someone's hand in hope that having a job would change Jacopo's attitude. One event has Jacopo's employer vent about his lack of work ethic to the Player Character. Jacopo responds to overhearing that conversation by suggesting that he might be more motivated if he had a beautiful wife, hence his employer should find one for him if he wants him to work harder.
  • Dragon Quest VII has Hondara, The Hero's lazy Type-B uncle. He's a complete leech who constantly takes advantage of his brother/the hero's father's kindness, a hopeless lech, and a would-be Con Man. The hero's mother absolutely hates him and fears her son turning out the same way. The weird part? He manages to get his hands on several plot-important items. The Holy Water is real (and his neighbors are stunned to hear it), and the Hot Stone is a key item.
  • Solax, of Custom Robo Arena's Terrible Trio.
  • Gillian Clout from Atelier Annie, as well as the title character herself.
  • Neptune and Plutia in Hyperdimension Neptunia V are this seeing as they prefer to just slack off and sleep. The problem is that they're the CPU goddesses (equivalent to president) of Planeptune. Modern Gamindustri Vert is nearly as bad, as while she's motivated, it's entirely towards her MMO games and yaoi collection, and she uses such breathtaking Insane Troll Logic to justify her habits even Neptune thinks she's overdoing it.
    • Neptune's such a bad case that when she falls into an Alternate Universe early on and wonders aloud where her alternate self is, Noire calmly posits that since this Neptune wasn't immortal, she probably died of starvation and self-neglect. Hilariously, it turns out that this dimension's Neptune is actually a Dimensional Traveler who gets into crazy adventures.
    • Interestingly, Neptune is a special case; it's revealed in Megadimension Neptunia VII and Re;Birth2 that she's actually a very competent CPU. It's just that she sees no point in doing it if more capable people like Nepgear and Histoire are there to do it for her, making her Brilliant, but Lazy.
  • Sans of Undertale is notorious for his laziness—the two things he seems to put much effort into are pranks and trying to be a good sibling to his brother Papyrus. That, and kicking your ass on a No Mercy run and dealing out (questionably official) judgement near the end of every route. For instance, when building a snowman of himself, he simply heaps some snow together, writes "Sans" on it, and calls it a day. At another point, he totally blows off guard duty—his supposed official job—to sell hot dogs, from out of the guard booth he's supposed to be keeping watch from. As an understandably impressed Papyrus points out, Sans is somehow managing to not do his job by doing another job altogether.
  • Randal's Monday: Randal to a tee.
  • Kaoru in Ensemble Stars! claims to be entirely uninterested in anything except dating girls (and, occasionally, surfing) — he skips class often, sometimes doesn't even show up to his own unit's performances, and only joined the Marine Bio Club because the president never actually asks him to do anything (in fact, he only shows up once a month). However, he cares more than he lets on — he admits easily that he doesn't want to bother with anything difficult because his family is so controlling, but it also has to do with his grieving over his mother's death. Over the course of the year, he comes to admit the true friendships he's made at school and that he actively wants to be a part of their lives and to work hard for his idol unit.
  • Dudley Landgrabb from The Sims console game and The Sims Bustin' Out.
  • Slakoth and Slaking from Pokémon. They are known as the "Slacker" and "Lazy" Pokémon respectively. Their signature ability, Truant even makes them too lazy to fight every turn!

    Visual Novels 
  • Henry from Double Homework hates hard work, and he’s happy to be graduating late, as it means another year away from the real world and all its responsibilities.

    Web Animation 
  • Flipnote Warrior: Mome tries to skip school because she's not feeling it and wants to go back to sleep. When Ugo asks her to investigate an ancient, she suddenly feels like going to school instead. Then, she prefers gaming to fighting monsters, and is only convinced because her favorite anime is at risk.
  • Grif from Red vs. Blue fits this pretty well. He snoozes through staff meetings and misses his duties to the point where Sarge stops assigning them to him because he knows they won't be done. Heck, the man himself admits he's lazy. At least one of the DVD profiles says that this is a plot on Grif's part to get himself discharged, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say he's normally like this. It's strongly implied that the reason he's such a slacker is because he had to take on a lot of responsibility like taking care of his sister after their parents abandoned them, joining the military due to his own awareness of his inability to function without structure and routine...only to find himself subjected to selfishly cruel people who didn't hesitate to take advantage of him, causing him to slowly care less and less until he became who he is today.
    Grif: I was born to take it easy.

    Webcomics 
  • The Japanese Beetle from the webcomic of the same name.
  • Rumisiel from Misfile started out as an archetypal stoner but has matured (for want of a better term) into more of a slacker. It speaks volumes about Rumisiel that this is an improvement.
  • PHD: Mike Slackenerny has been in his PhD program for nearly a decade, owing to his preference for sleeping and eating to doing any research or working on his thesis. The only reason they keep him around is that he's brilliant despite himself and because the machinery in his lab is so old that he's the only one who knows how to use it.
  • Darth Maul, of all people, in Ansem Retort. He literally passed up an opportunity to go to Hawaii because he'd rather stay home and crank-call prostitutes. And he once called the producer of the show to get him to bring Maul the remote... which was four feet away from him.
  • David 'Walky' Walkerton of Dumbing of Age. He's admitted his slacking is partly motivated by simply not knowing what it is he wants to do.
  • Jenn from Sturgeon's Law works at the company only to fund her anime habit, and she doesn’t work very hard.

    Web Original 
  • Mudd from The Book of Stories OCT. He has grown so laid-back and emotional, it affected his capacity to protect the Book of Stories, treating it with little care and then leaving his Twin alone to take care of the Book when he was confronted.
  • Foul Bachelor Frog, a Meme character who does as little housekeeping as he can get away with, and spends his entire day sleeping in, watching TV, playing video games, and masturbating to Internet porn.

    Western Animation 

  • Jake from Adventure Time, in a "Go with the Flow" kind of way.
  • Richard Watterson from The Amazing World of Gumball is willing to make some effort when his family needs him (with... mixed results), but otherwise is so incredibly lazy that holding a job for less than a day turned him into a walking Reality-Breaking Paradox.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head: Beavis and Butt-Head rarely attend school and spend much of their life watching TV while eating junk food. They also have a tendency of goofing off at work, rarely, if ever, performing their duties.
  • Carl Crashman from Carl². This is what drives him to order a clone of himself, thus leading to the series' premise.
  • Daria:
    • Daria and her friend Jane are the Brilliant, but Lazy versions. While studies come easy to Daria, and Jane is passionate about her art, they prefer to spend their afternoons watching Sick Sad World than achieve things that are expected of them. For Daria though, it's not so much that she's lazy, rather she simply doesn't care about a lot of things that most people do, and that there simply isn't much in Lawndale to challenge her in the areas she cares about.
    • Trent, Jane's brother, is a more straight example of the troue, although he is very serious about his music.
  • The Flash in the DC Animated Universe in his superhero identity. As Wally West, he's very good at his job as a forensics analyst for the police.
  • Futurama:
    • Fry. Even after coming to the future, he spends much of his time sitting on the couch and drinking beer.
    • Amy is a Rare Female Example; it helps that she's rich though.
    • Bender has turned doing nothing into an art form.
  • Gravity Falls has a rare female example in Wendy, the teenage employee at the Mystery Shack. When Dipper asks her to make an entry on the subject "how to relax" in Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun! she just surmises that putting a lot of work into writing about slacking off sounds like it'd be anathema to the subject, so she's just going to accept Stan's bribe to let him have the next few pages and take the rest of the day off instead.
  • Beezy J. Heinous on Jimmy Two-Shoes. He even once went as far as to cryogenically freeze himself so he would never have to do anything again.
  • Kaeloo: Stumpy, Quack Quack, and especially Mr. Cat. They're sometimes portrayed as being so lazy that in one episode, Quack Quack's beak falls off, Kaeloo hands it to Mr. Cat, who doesn't bother attaching it properly, and instead of re-attaching the beak properly, Quack Quack changes the way he eats.
  • Wade from Kick Buttowski. He's content with living at his stepmother's "basement" (a hole under her trailer), when he was promoted, he tried to be downsized back, and (when the "basement" was no longer a dwelling option) he once became spokesperson for a drink named "Slacker Z" in exchange for room at a businessman's tool shed.
  • Kim Possible:
    • Shego is the most cunning and down to earth Super Villain in the series, but she's stuck being The Dragon for Dr. Drakken. She spends much of her time hanging around Drakken's lair reading villain magazines or filing her nails.
    • Ron Stoppable is also this. Unlike his A-type partner and best friend Kim, he is content in kicking back, lazing around, and relaxing. While Shego and Kim are usually compared because they are both strong and intelligent women, Ron and Shego aren't that different in that both enjoy relaxing and prefer to follow their more driven partners.
  • Andy from Mission Hill. This eventually comes back to bite him in the ass in "Unemployment Part 2" when he realizes that while he's been goofing off in his post-college slump, the rest of his generation has jumped on the dot-com boom and left him in the dust.
  • The Pound Puppies (1980s) episode "Kid in the Doghouse" featured a kid named Jerry who ran away from home because he hated doing chores. The Pound Puppies get him to see the importance of pulling one's weight around by pretending to be too lazy to care about their duties.

  • Mordecai and Rigby on Regular Show. Rigby is the lazier of the two, but Character Development changed things a little as the show went on.
  • Heffer Wolfe from Rocko's Modern Life is so lazy that he refuses to hop off his chair just to pick up a remote control he dropped on the floor that is barely out of his reach.
  • Homer Simpson of The Simpsons is an interesting example; a would-be slacker. He goes to work, but mostly just goofs off and is shown in several episodes that he shows up extremely late and barely attends his actual job duties. Homer's idea of a perfect life is one of complete physical immobility, as shown when he lived at Grampa's retirement home for a few days, and enjoyed the experience of using bedpans and electric wheelchairs rather than making even a mild effort to move.
  • Slacker Cats, it's built right into the name.
  • Total Drama: Noah starts off as this but loses it in season 3 due to Character Development.
  • Dr. Venture, Pete, and Billy Quizboy from The Venture Brothers are "not so super scientist" versions of this.
  • The Wombles, out of Britain, gives us Orinoco. While his Womble peers are hard at work clearing Wimbledon Common of humans' trash, he's usually looking for an out-of-the-way spot to catch another forty winks. Due to his love of sleep and Big Eater tendencies, he's also the fattest Womble (although he'd claim he's just "cuddly"). Elisabeth Beresford, the creator of the Wombles, reportedly based Orinoco on her then-teenage son.

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