Condemned by History is a problem trope for many reasons. It leads to edit warring and confusion over what qualifies. In this thread we'll look for bad examples, and look for feedback. Here are the guidelines for this trope:
- The franchise has to be truly popular and loved at first. Things that are So Bad, It's Horrible don't count.
- Simply losing popularity isn't enough. We need to see an actual backlash, with liking it being considered bizarre. Otherwise, every not-so-famous film or concluded television series would be here.
Let's go!
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 16th 2024 at 4:23:01 AM
The Star Wars prequels have already been discussed and cut. It's true that their initial reception - in all three cases, actually - was somewhat more positive than it is now, but there are defenders today and there was criticism at the time, so neither the "inescapably popular" nor the "universally hated" aspect really applies. (The Phantom Menace was inescapably marketed, but that's not the same thing).
To respond to a post upthread: The situation for diesel cars is radically different in the US and in Europe. In the US, they were never very popular, so the trope doesn't fit. In Europe they were actually more popular than petrol (gasoline)-fueled cars until a few years ago, but despite the recent backlash they are stiull common and definitely not hated, so the trope doesn't apply there either. I don't know about other markets, but this should be enough to disqualify them.
edited 7th Feb '17 2:42:24 AM by GnomeTitan
Cars are much more about what's practical than what's popular. They're also expensive and tend to be kept for a long time, so you can't see a turnaround without waiting for a few decades at the very least.
Check out my fanfiction!Found this entry in YMMV.Divekick while cleaning wicks:
- Deader Than Disco: Between 2012 and 2014, Divekick was pretty much everywhere. Most major tournaments had it featured, an enthusiastic community had arisen, and lots of people (both part of the FGC and not) were interested. Then it came out, and its popularity exploded...for a couple of months. After its release, lots of people started to notice the flaws with the game (such as the fact that some characters were Game Breakers and people got tired of losing to the same exploited tactics over and over). Afterwards, Keits revealed the "Addition Edition"...a move which pleased no one because both people who did and didn't play the game felt it was hypocritical that the parody game which began as a mockery of how fighting games (and gamers) take things too seriously was now taking itself seriously. Specifically, the idea of "editions" was mocked in the original trailer of the game, and now here it was doing the same thing.
Thoughts? I'm of the opinion that it fails the "man on the street" test when it comes to initial inescapable ubiquity; within the fighting game tournament fandom maybe, but that's a niche of a niche. The only fighting games that have arguably penetrated the public consciousness are Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.
Also, I'm not convinced the backlash against it is anywhere near universal, even among people who know about it in the first place. I own the game, played it for a while, and then forgot about it. Most people I know who played the game at all had a similar experience. I was unaware there was any backlash until reading this entry
edited 7th Feb '17 1:59:56 PM by HighCrate
On PC, not only is the game still well played (a stable 2-3,000 players), but the game is still well-reviewed (about 88% of people who've played it rate it positive).
That said, it was never at an "ubiquitous" level. I seem to recall this game was given away in a couple of bundles (Humble Bundle / Bundle Stars), but it never really rose above its novel concept. Also, judging from some reviews on Steam, at least one version of the game has been abandoned and there haven't been updates in nearly two years.
Also, I read through the Episode I pinball entry above. Not an example.
- One of the websites that rated that game shows its general rating level going up for a period of months, then peaking and going slowly downward to roughly where it was when it first debuted on that site.
- Some (possibly many) of the reviews are trolls or people outright hating it because of its association with the aforementioned film, with little to discuss about the quality of the game itself.
- This was the last pinball machine produced by Williams before they exited the business fifteen years ago. Pinball was already on a downward slope popularity-wise, even in 1999.
- I don't know of any other pinball game that went from ubiquity to universal hatred.
edited 7th Feb '17 4:06:50 PM by crazyrabbits
DTD is an Audience Reaction, though. It's all about how the audience reacts to it.
Check out my fanfiction!Heh, it's pretty rare for someone to actually look at links I provide. I actually feel pretty flattered. (No sarcasm here—it's really that rare for me.)
By the way, there was someone else here earlier on this thread who was arguing about cars and automobile-based infrastructure becoming universally disliked. I can say that, living in Los Angeles, this is very untrue. I still see plenty of public works projects involving building new roads and new bridges, widening and lengthening existing roads, and beautifying some arteries. We also have a very visible car enthusiast culture here, with lots of street racing going on, and the LA Car Show brings in about 150,000 people each year. Kids here still aspire to drive, and you are severely disadvantaged in your mobility if you yourself don't drive (and even ride-sharing services cannot make up that difference). At the same time, the Metro Light Rail has stalled with the UCLA line stuck in Development Hell, and the California High Speed Rail has fallen victim to Troubled Production as NIMBY community after NIMBY community have sued the agency tasked with building it. Proposition M passed, however, which would set aside funds to improve public transportation, so it seems we have a case of Broken Base here between supporters and opponents of public transporation. (And, in the case of a councilmember living near me who opposes all infrastructure growth. That's because she's a diehard equestrian and would rather everyone ride horseback. No, really. She's crazy though and isn't an example of any sort.)
edited 7th Feb '17 10:36:56 PM by ZombieAladdin
This may be flogging a dead horse, since the matter has been settled, but I understood that what was being discussed was not cars vs. public transport, but the idea of designing a city around private cars. The idea may be discredited, but it's still being done out of necessity, so it's not Dt D.
So I had deleted that YMMV.Divekick example above during wick cleanup, but troper KingZeal PM'd me disagreeing with that decision and I invited him to restore it until consensus could be reached here (and also invited him to join us here if he wished to argue for it to be kept).
Consensus here seems to be running overwhelmingly toward cutting. I'll give KingZeal (or anyone else who wishes to do so) a day to make their arguments and then re-cut it.
Yeah, this:
"By 2015, the online Divekick community was virtually abandoned, and even mentioning the game at FGC events basically got the response "What a fiasco that was, am I right?""
Doesn't support the evidence I've seen. Taking a look at virtually any page related to the game (including the Steam page, as mentioned above) would show you that the game is still held in decent (if not incredible) regard. And no, I don't consider one person's anecdotal statement to be absolute fact.
The game being abandoned from a player perspective (which isn't really true, because we have PC numbers showing it isn't) wouldn't be enough to be DTD on its own. I suggest re-cutting this.
edited 8th Feb '17 5:52:08 PM by crazyrabbits
Thanks for the input, everyone! I have one final thought:
Where is the line drawn to where something is considered universally hated? How few people have to like something for it to get the "universally hated/disliked" label? If something was popular and well-liked in the past, logically there should be at least one die-hard fan who continues to like that something for the rest of his or her life (even if secretly). I can see something reach the point where the mainstream dislikes it, where the mainstream AND the fans dislike it, and where you'll be mocked if you openly admit you like it, but I don't think it's possible for all 6.something billion people on Earth to agree that something is bad.
This is actually something I was wondering as I read this thread, because I have some family members (and friends of family members) who grew up when disco was popular and have continued to unironically and unashamedly like it to this day. Having grown up in the 90's listening to a lot of disco, that most people dislike disco is something I only learned recently. I know the name of this trope is Deader Than Disco (meaning it has to be more extreme than that), but I also get the impression disco is the baseline. In any case, there is no way that absolutely everyone who ever liked disco dislikes it today.
edited 8th Feb '17 9:32:31 PM by ZombieAladdin
Disco itself is almost certainly no longer Deader Than Disco (though at the time the backlash was remarkable). This is one of only several problems with the name, but that's not the focus of this thread.
![]()
Having a lot of fans does not disqualify something as long as they're a tiny number compared to its peak fandom.
(And yes, obviously, Disco is not deader than disco.
)
Yeah, we could loosen up the criteria, but we really really don't want to encourage people to bash things they dislike. That's not what this site is about. Even as it is, this is pushing the bounds of what we like to allow.
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.Yeah, the reason the requirements are so strict in the first place was because tropers just put down whatever someone didn't like. Falls under the category, "This is why we can't have nice things."
Check out my fanfiction!![]()
"Having a lot of fans does not disqualify something as long as they're a tiny number compared to its peak fandom."
It's not the ratio of current fans to former fans that matters. It's more a matter of what being a fan means. Yes, everything has some fans, but being a fan of something that's Deader Than Disco means being ridiculously out-of-touch. The purest examples may have fans, but it has precious few who will admit to being fans, and for those few who do, the very fact of their fandom is widely considered a sign of poor taste.
edited 11th Feb '17 3:42:51 PM by HighCrate
Does the Little Britain example counts then? I wonder because, although it was never my kind of show and I wasn't a fan (I'm more That Mitchell and Webb Look kind of guy) I hardly see someone been mock for liking the show. The humor is indeed a little dated now but it hardly has a massive backlash. Isn't more like a case of not popular anymore? sorry if was already discussed.
edited 13th Feb '17 12:48:54 AM by Luppercus
Also, regarding disco itself, I think we should not look exclusively at disco music, but at the disco culture, or sub-culture, which was the coolest thing imaginable at its heyday, but totally ridiculed a decade later. People continued listening to some disco music, obviously, but they didn't dress up like the characters in Saturday Night Fever, and so on.
I agree with High Crate one hundred percent. Though DTD works and creators may still have some fans, it's society's attitudes towards those fans that fulfill the trope. For instance, years back, I was actually accused of being gay because I liked Molly Ringwald. It's part of the reason I created that entry in the first place; even admitting you're a fan of hers is considered a mark of shame.

All right then. I remember being on Rotten Tomatoes during the Phantom Menace theatrical re-release. It felt a bit surreal to see the Tomatometer in the mid-70's when by that time, it was hard to find someone who admitted they liked the prequel movies.
The link on Rotten Tomatoes I provided shows mostly reviews from when Revenge of the Sith was new and thus was a time capsule from that time. Nowadays, I see most people lump Revenge of the Sith with Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.