Basic Trope: All the members of a secretive or undercover group take a group photo that easily blows their cover.
- Straight: The Society for the Worship of the Eternally Awesome Trope-tan (SWEAT) takes a group photo at one of their secret conferences with everyone's faces exposed and clearly identifiable.
- Exaggerated: SWEAT takes a 360° panoramic image capturing not only the entire society from several angles, but also the complete layout of the reception hall and every caterer, waiter, and janitor that serviced the event.
- Downplayed: SWEAT takes a group picture with everyone wearing Sinister Shades, keeping their identities hidden from strangers, but doing nothing to hide them from people who already know them.
- Justified: This conference is a very important occasion in SWEAT's history, and the society wanted to document the moment for future generations.
- Inverted: The Troperville Educational and Academic Resource Service (TEARS) takes a group photo at one of their public conferences with everyone's faces obscured by large hoodies and Stocking Masks.
- Subverted:
- Alice, a photographer at SWEAT's secret conference, calls everyone to gather around for a group photo, but is quickly berated by the High Priest Bob for her stupidity.
- Charlie discovers a group photo of SWEAT and uses it to go after Bob, but ends up finding someone else named David instead because everyone in the photo is actually wearing Latex Perfection masks to throw off investigators.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob chastises Alice for her stupid idea of taking a group picture of SWEAT...using a regular 1080p camera instead of a 4K one. Alice switches out the camera and takes the group picture with everyone's faces captured in excellent detail.
- The latex masks used by SWEAT are modeled off of its actual members, with everyone wearing a different face than their own. David, a former member of SWEAT, identifies Bob's face in the photo (being worn by a low-ranking newbie) and Charlie is able to successfully track down Bob.
- Parodied: SWEAT has an entire yearbook full of Secret Society Group Pictures that reveals not only everyone's faces, but their names, nicknames, positions in the society, relationships, and the person who was voted Most Likely to Defect. And it's publicly searchable online.
- Zig-Zagged: The photo is very old and has been worn down and damaged over time, so while some members can be easily identified, others need to be analyzed in detail due to poor photo quality or the member having aged significantly since the photo was taken, and still others can't be identified at all.
- Averted:
- No secret society ever takes a group photo.
- There are no secret societies to begin with.
- Enforced: “Charlie's investigation is hitting a dead end, and we only have three episodes left. Let's have her find a group photo of SWEAT to keep the plot moving.”
- Lampshaded:Alice: (holds up camera) Everybody say “Busted”!SWEAT Members: (smiling) Busted!(camera flashes)
- Invoked: Charlie pays Alice to become The Mole so Alice can take a group photo of SWEAT, enabling Charlie to quickly determine who its members are.
- Exploited: Instead of wasting time and money on infiltrating SWEAT, Charlie steals Alice's camera bag to find a group photo of the society, knowing that Alice is a member and just came back from a “Wednesday church gathering”.
- Defied: High Priest Bob prohibits all cameras and cell phones from being brought inside SWEAT's headquarters and severely punishes anyone who manages to take a picture.
- Discussed: “If only this was one of those detective shows, I could really use a convenient group picture of the guys I'm after right now.”
- Conversed: “Don't worry, at this point, our detective will find a picture of the whole organization and track down the bad guy. Happens every time.”
- Implied: Charlie corners Bob and tells him that she knows he's the High Priest of SWEAT. When he asks how she could possibly know, she shows him a Polaroid-sized piece of paper, the face of which isn't visible to the audience. Bob appears to recognize the paper and says, “Oh, that's how.” with a look of guilt on his face.
- Deconstructed: SWEAT has a very good reason to keep secret, so if an Amateur Sleuth like Charlie can easily track them down using a photo they themselves took, so can their enemy, the Belligerent Legion of Overlords who Observe Darth-tan
(BLOOD). - Reconstructed: The members of SWEAT only wear their robes and funny hats during very important religious ceremonies, and during regular social functions, they take group pictures while disguised as members of the Sugar-tan Worshippers' Evening Entertainment Troupe (SWEET).
Back to Secret Society Group Picture.
