Basic Trope: The stupidest person in a community is the most unpopular.
- Straight:
- Steve is the dumbest student at his school and is at the bottom at the social hierarchy.
- Hiro is mentally disabled and treated with derision by everyone else in his village.
- Exaggerated:
- Steve has an extremely low IQ and is the most hated person in the world.
- The school's social hierarchy directly proportional to intelligence, with the popular kids being the smartest, the above average kids being well-liked but not popular, the kids of average intelligence not being particularly hated or loved, the kids of below average of intelligence not being liked that much, and the least intelligent kids being hated by everyone else, including each other and themselves.
- Justified:
- Steve's stupidity makes him a nuisance to deal with.
- Steve is an Insufferable Imbecile; he's stupid and unpleasant, meaning there is no reason why anyone would want to associate with them.
- Hiro is very shy and doesn't really interact with people which causes other people to assume that he's thinks he's too good for everyone else.
- The other villagers in Hiro's village are ableist.
- Inverted:
- Popular Is Dumb
- Intelligence Equals Isolation
- Steve is a Chick Magnet despite, or even because of his stupidity.
- Parodied: Steve is an average and popular student, and becomes a pariah because he got one bad grade on a test.
- Implied:
- Steve is The Ditz and is never shown associating with other people.
- Hiro is severely mentally handicapped and isn't shown having an friends or close family
- Exploited: Steve's stupidity and isolation makes him a perfect tool for a cult; he's isolated enough that he's desperate to desire companionship, but too stupid to realize the cult is using him.
- Deconstructed:
- Because Steve is both stupid and unpopular, it means that people are unwilling to listen to him even when he has a point.
- Hiro's low intelligence combined with his lack of popularity make him believe that the world would be better off without him, and he commits suicide.
Back to No Respect for the Village Idiot
