YMMV / Austin & Ally

• Adorkable: Ally is a shy, neurotic Cute Bookworm who suffers from stage fright so badly she'll wreck a television studio to get away from the camera. She has many adorkable moments particularly when she's dancing, or nervously chewing her hair, or when she's doing her vocal warmups.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Dez. Some love how unbelievably wacky and over-the-top he is, but the problem his detractors have with him is that he has bad comedic timing, and tends to ruin moments. It got worse after his actor got his own segments that play during commercials, making him come off as a Creator's Pet.
  • Trish. While admired for her sarcastic one-liners and being a good friend and manager to Ally and Austin, there are people who hate her for her mostly selfish behavior. She also has it out for Dez for no particular good reason. She showed excitement at the prospect of him having his life threatened by sharks and eagerly tried to feed him to an alligator once. While Dez is a fellow Base-Breaking Character, it's too jerkish to be considered a Take That, Scrappy! for his haters.
• Crossover Ship:
  • Since the All Star New Year special it's become popular to ship Jessie and Austin, despite their in universe age difference of about three to four years. You can thank their beyond catchy music video performance where they (kind of) act flirty at points. (Ross and Debby’s age difference is only two and a half years in real life Debby Ryan looks fairly young, which also helps.)
  • The (more) likely canon ship from that special, Emma and Austin, is pretty popular too. Who wouldn’t want to watch a nice fan like Emma get to date their rock star crush if only for a little while.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Austin’s career nearly getting finished off by Miami H8tergirl’s blog becomes harder to watch following the rise of the cancel culture movement in 2020.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In December 2011, the episode "Kangaroos And Chaos" aired, with Austin singing "A billion hits is what I'll get". In December 2012, another artist does get a billion hits. By 2017, it's a regular occurrence.
  • In "Princesses and Prizes" Sofia Carson guest stars as a girl who wins a date with Austin in an auction, and dresses up as a princess. That was a subtle hint as to her role one year later, which involves her wanting to be a princess.
• Hollywood Homely: A rare in-universe example: Chuck has been through no less than three girlfriends and has been asked to the prom five times. What makes him an in-universe example is that characters themselves treat him as a loser and are surprised that he's such a ladies' man.
• Ho Yay: Austin and Dez. Especially on Dez’s side (Dez always tears off his own pants to give to Austin, and he dressed like him for Halloween.) Laura Marano is a fan.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • The idea that Austin would permanently lose his voice in "Successes & Setbacks" was never believable, since that would have reduced the show's premise to a big pile of rubble.
    • On top of that, it was a shameless recycling of the episode "I Am Hannah Montana, Hear Me Croak" from not 5 years before. See the Trivia Section for more info.
  • Ally actually leaving to go to the music school in New York in the season finale "Albums & Auditions". As the show was renewed there is no chance they'd have Ally leave for any permanent amount of time.
  • Promos of the series finale teased us with Austin proposing to Ally. Yes, it is the finale, but this is hardly believable, because 1). They're too young and 2). Disney has been down that road before. It turned out to be a joke made by Dez during the epilogue. They do actually get married, but that's after a time skip.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Trish's brother JJ now works at a superhero hospital.
  • Sabrina Carpenter's whole career started with her guest appearance as Lucy Gluckman in the show. In turn, Ross Lynch and Laura Marano returned the favor when they in turn showed up in the Girl Meets World episode "Girl Meets World of Terror 2".
  • Sofia Carson as Chelsea, a girl whom Ally gets jealous over in "Princesses & Prizes".
  • Max, one of the Music Factory's students, is Ethan Diaz.
  • Cameron Jebo, though it was hard for kids not to recognize him, since he was on Power Rangers' 2014 season at the time as well.
• Tear Jerker: In Relationships & Red Carpets, the scene where Ally tells Austin that she thinks they might not be "meant to be", and Austin tearfully cradles her face and begs her not to leave him. Ross Lynch gets mad props for his acting here; the crack in his voice on the line "I don't want to lose you again." is positively heart-wrenching.
• The Scrappy: Jimmy Starr is not very well liked after Season 3 due to putting Austin's musical career in limbo. Even with him lifting his ban on Austin's performances in "Mini-Me's and Muffin Baskets", a lot of fans aren't about to forgive him.
• Take That, Scrappy!: The imagined universe where Trish became a superstar in Austin's place has her act even more selfish than normal - this causes her fans and almost everyone around her to disown her.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Piper. She only appears in three episodes, the first one having her get into a relationship with Austin and her last appearance - which is a two-partner - having her break up with him. And unlike Kira, she never appears again after her break up, making her come off as a plot device in Austin and Ally's relationship. At least Gavin had an extra episode with him being with Ally.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many viewers felt this way when the writers ended Austin and Ally's relationship all of a sudden. However, their relationship picked up again starting from "Last Dances & Last Chances", but not without a few obstacles along the way.
  • In "Mysteries & Meddling Kids", the antagonist turned out to be Brooke. They seem to have forgotten about Tilly Thompson from "Bloggers & Butterflies", who already has a reason to be out to get Ally, considerable talent with Latex Perfection disguises, and whose actress (Audrey Whitby) has had a few semi-recurring roles on other shows on the network in recent years.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Trish, in "Beauties & Bullies". Sure, the other students mock and tease her, but she has been doing the same thing to others (mainly Dez) since day one. So, it's less like that she's being a victim of bullying, and more like she can dish it out, but she can't take it. This is technically karma for her.
• The Woobie: You can't help but feel sorry for Austin in the first two episodes of Season 4, because he still can't make music. This is also a case of a gender-inverted Fallen Princess. Then comes "Karaoke and Kalamity". In desperation to feel the thrill of performing again, Austin's been disguising himself and performing at a karaoke joint. Jimmy Starr comes to the place, revealing himself as a guest judge for a competition at the place. He also tells Trish that he's considering letting Austin perform in public again. It all seems to be going well, but then Austin's fake beard gets knocked off due to an accident, after which Jimmy tells Austin that he can forget about public performances. Yes, Austin disobeyed Jimmy, and yes he should be lucky Jimmy's not taking legal action, but it still feels like Austin was robbed of his chance to perform again.
  • Luckily Jimmy has a change of heart in the next episode.

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