Basic Trope: Children don't ask adults for help due to fear of being labelled as a tattletale.
- Straight: Bobby is getting bullied by Alice. When he tells the teacher, Mr. Troperson, he gets accused of being a snitch.
- Exaggerated: Bobby is nearly beat to death by Alice and comes to Mr. Troperson crying and visibly injured. Mr. Troperson still says he's being a tattletale.
- Downplayed: Alice ends up breaking a rule, and Bobby tells Mr. Troperson. He's asked to mind his own business, since the rule wasn't all that serious.
- Justified:
- Bobby is telling on Alice for little to no reason.
- Bobby has a history of telling on people for little to no reason. When he does have a problem, people don't believe him.
- Mr. Troperson doesn't think that girls can be bullies.
- Alice is a Villain with Good Publicity.
- Inverted: Bobby is praised for telling an adult about his problem, and told he did the responsible thing.
- Subverted: Bobby gets worried that adults will call him a snitch, but Mr. Troperson believes him.
- Double Subverted: When he gets home, though, his mom Claire accuses him of snitching due to this incident.
- Parodied: Bobby tells Mr Troperson Alice and her friends are setting another student on fire. Mr Troperson tells Bobby to get out of his class for being a snitch.
- Zig-Zagged: Bobby tells multiple adults that he's getting bullied. Some believe him, some say he's "telling on" the bully.
- Averted:
- Bobby doesn't tell on anybody.
- When he tells an adult, the adults simply believe him.
- Enforced: "We need to address the negative ways that adults tend to act when children mention getting bullied."
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bobby finds an adult that will take him seriously.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "This show really knows what it's like to be bullied. I remember that once when I was a kid, someone shoved me down, and when I came crying to the teacher, she accused me of "telling on" him. And he got away scot-free!"
- Played for Drama:
- Bobby becomes an Extreme Doormat since no one will believe him.
- The abuse gets to be too much, and Alice either kills Bobby (or Bobby kills himself). Mr. Troperson has to live with the guilt due to knowing he did nothing to stop it, even when he knew what was happening.
- Played for Horror: Mr. Troperson is a Sadist Teacher who supplies this lesson through the gratuitous torture or murder of tattletales.
Don't tell anyone you were here, because Nobody Likes a Tattletale!
