Audience-Alienating Premise

This ATT thread was getting pretty long, so I'm bringing it to the forums.

Audience-Alienating Premise is a pretty confusing Audience Reaction. Presumably, it's for works that fail to find an audience due to its odd premise. However, the way the page is currently written and used makes it sound like it's about any work that doesn't appeal to a mainstream audience, even if it does find success among its targeted niche (or fails for reasons unrelated to its premise).

What should we do about it? It's clear that a cleanup is needed, but what it should focus on is unclear.

Back on ATT, I suggested limiting it to works aimed at a niche audience, when the target niche was put off by one aspect of the work, but after some thinking I do think that those aimed at a mainstream audience could also qualify. Basically, when the target audience (whether it be mainstream or niche) is scared off by an aspect of the work, it's an AAP.

The biggest problem with AAP in my opinion is that it gets declared preemptively, before a work has been released and returns realized. The pre-release opinion about a work is only relevant if it affects launch sales, and that can only be determined after the fact.

Regardless of any other decision made, all AAP examples for works not meeting the criteria above should be removed.

As for the trope definition, unless we rename it, the title gives no indication that this is about niche-audience works as opposed to general-audience ones.

I also wonder if there's potential overlap with Hype Backlash.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 17th 2018 at 12:41:18 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Judging works before they're released is overall a big problem with Audience Reaction tropes. People really want to get the first hint of a reaction up on a trope page, any trope page, so we get all these pre-emptive examples that haven't gathered any solid ground yet.

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What kind of timescales of success are we talking here? What if something does initially poorly because of the premise, but then becomes more popular later on through another medium (i.e. something tanks at the box office but gets a lot of dvd sales). What about Cult Classics?

Edited by naturalironist on Oct 17th 2018 at 1:08:01 PM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I would think maybe the standard should be the amount it makes when first released. Something can be Vindicated by History but still fail initially because of its premise. For films this would be box-office sales, I'm not sure how other mediums would work.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Box office receipts, first-week or first-month sales for games, etc. Whatever the industry adopts as its general standard for how "successful" a product is.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I think we need to exclude any works aimed at a niche audience; if it repulses that demographic by its premise alone (rather than execution), why should we think it was aiming for them? I would assume in such a case it was misaimed marketing (the advertisers targeted that niche when the creators had no such intent).

The problem with commercial failure is that there can be many reasons for it. Maybe we should ask for citations from market research that identified it as a problem. Or even better, show that the marketing was trying to hide part of the premise (as with Spice And Wolf).

Many entries cite tone, violence, continuity lockout or slow start as problems for new audiences. But that's not what a work's premise is. I would suggest restricting it to where the problem comes up in a brief description of its subject matter, or in adverts.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

I would agree.

How do you define "niche audience" though? I could see excluding things like Fanfics, literary fiction, and roleplays that don't really have a fandom or huge sales. But what about kids shows? Seinen anime? Independent films? These all have a narrow demographic that could be considered niche, but they also are popular on this wiki, and have measurable sales and potentially cultural impact.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Maybe instead of focusing on "niche" and "mainstream" we should just focus on the fact that the work fails to appeal to an audience (with said failure resulting in failure for the work) without worrying so much about who the work was aiming for.

For example; say a kid's show doesn't appeal to kids because it has an off-putting premise, but garners a Periphery Demographic that keeps the ratings up, despite the initial reception being poor and the first season failing. Would we be able to say that the kid's show had an Audience-Alienating Premise even though it did attract an audience and become successful?

Because it is hard sometimes to judge whether or not a work is aiming for a specific, niche audience. I don't see why we should exclude otherwise valid examples on this basis alone, if the work still failed to capture an audience and make money thanks to the premise.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 17th 2018 at 10:50:19 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yes, I would consider AAP as an obstacle, not always a failure.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

^ If that's the case, then fine, but the current idea seems to be that the AAP must spell doom for the work (at least in it's initial release when it counts).

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The premise behind the trope is that there is a stigma or otherwise added hurdle built into the work that makes it struggle for success, and this is independent of the actual value of the work itself. Success in this sense is that it was trying to reach a broad enough audience to acquire several seasons, rather than just putter along in cult-circles as a Short-Runner.

I do think a number of examples go in a wrong direction in simply listing "This is a thing that turned away some viewers" instead of commenting on the difference between mainstream appeal versus niche appeal. Everyone has different tastes, some people are turned away by the most absurdly popular mainstream sitcoms and dramas. As such examples like being a Prequel with a Foregone Conclusion really shouldn't count.

Of course, one problem is that with the advent of streaming services being able to offer niche programming without having to deal with tv scheduling means what would normally be a niche show lasting half a season can achieve enough notoriety and acclaim to last several seasons, like Bojack Horseman. So the ideas behind the trope are evolving in unexpected ways from when it was first created.

Edited by KJMackley on Oct 17th 2018 at 11:03:58 AM

For some reason, One Piece is listed as having an Audience-Alienating Premise. It's arguably THE biggest and most popular manga that's still ongoing.

Mortal Kombat too. It's stated that the high level of violence scares people away (if anything, the gory fatalities are one of the game's main selling points and the whole reason the franchise is as big as it is).

Given how both of these are Cash Cow Franchises, I'm pretty sure this means neither has alienated its audience.

The only thing alienating about the first one is the disgusting art, and that's not a premise.

The second sells because of the violence, so it's not an example.

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I've also seen a few examples of AAP on works that haven't failed; I wish I could remember the exact pages.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I don't think every example HAS to be a failure, but there should be an impression of It Will Never Catch On, Sleeper Hit or Vindicated by History with any given example.

Saw this on YMMV.Mario Plus Rabbids Kingdom Battle, the style it's written in seems like a decent basis for describing a successful work that still has an out-there premise.

• Audience-Alienating Premise: Though the game overcame initial expectations and reactions and was very well-received by critics and players for its surprising depth, fun gameplay, and pretty good humor, the very premise of Kingdom Battle still sent people running for the hills for various reasons. It's a game involving an Eldritch Abomination that inexplicably fuses the two worlds of Mario and the Rabbids together and Mario & Friends have to team up with their Rabbid counterparts in a Strategy Shooter/RPG campaign, a gaming genre that neither franchise is exactly famous for.

I do personally believe successful works can still have AAPs, but it takes work to not shoehorn (i.e. the aforementioned Mortal Kombat and One Piece "examples").

"Come on! Let's get this show on the road."

Agreed; that's a good example of how to alienate audiences and overcome the challenges of an unusual premise.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I do agree that a work could still end up successful in the end, but we do of course have to restrict it to works that failed, whether initially or totally, due to the premise.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I don't think that alienated people as much as people just thought it wouldn't be work. Which boils down to speculation. People were certainly curious about it. Unusual and weird, yes, but alienating? No.

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Which is the main problem here: one man's "alienating" is another's "intriguing". It's YMMV for this reason.

Like the Mario and Rabbids example, this ymmv stuff is better seen when Tainted by the Preview is also involved: some people get alienated by the premise shown by the preview, but later when the work actually gets out they enjoy it for one reason of another.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

^ That's why I think there should be some sort of citation to show that the premise did alienate viewers and at least serve as a stumbling block for the work.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I was removing examples that fail to explain the commercial failure from AudienceAlienatingPremise.Anime And Manga when it noticed this description:

"Some anime and manga series are able to appeal to multiple demographics. These series, however, appeal to very small and obscure groups."

This is misuse as it admits it does appeal to that target group. (It can only count if it appeals to such a small group it fails commercially.) Permission to remove?

I removed it from YMMV.Star Trek Discovery as it said " The show has, however, gone on to be very successful despite the opening episodes being quite atypical for the franchise." By definition it failed to alienate if successful.

It was added back stating "No it doesn't, the trope is about a work scaring away some of its audience, not that it's unsuccessful on the whole because of it. Half the entries on that page were successful in spite of the premise." I'm certain this is misuse but want to double check before risking an edit war.

Should I add this to Square Peg Round Trope?

UPDATE: I realized the problem with this trope is Fan Myopia. The Audience isn't just fans who'd be put off by it. In case this helps with cleanup. And I'm going through with adding to Square Peg Round Trope since there's three threads and a mod saying it's misuse.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Aug 22nd 2019 at 3:16:18 AM

We had a TRS thread about this before, which settled on the definition "the basic premise is alienating; the work can be successful despite that." In that case, the page description and use are both fine. That definition is one of the few audience reactions that can in fact be judged pretty easily before the work comes out.

There was no actual crowner, but it came out to "there's not a problem here, let's close it up."