So Bad, It's Horrible is one of the more flame-bait-y parts of the site, so a cleanup thread is needed to ensure that works aren't added simply because someone doesn't like them.
If you want to list a work under this, keep the following in mind:
- The work must have very few fans or defenders (both genuine and ironic). It should fail to appeal to any type of audience.
- Being offensive in its subject matter isn't enough.
- It isn't horrible just because a certain critic disliked it, though their reviews can be used as sources and citations.
- The work should have notably poor reviews (e.g., less than 3/10 on IMDb, or single digit scores on Rotten Tomatoes)
- For a Moral Substitute to qualify, it cannot even appeal to its target demographic.
- Please be polite while writing and as much as possible, avoid falling into Complaining About Shows You Don't Like. Instead, focus on explaining why the work is horrible.
In addition, per No Recent Examples, Please!, a work must be at least one month old before it can be added, to prevent knee-jerk reactions.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 6th 2024 at 3:34:45 AM
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I thought Vaxxed was cut but I guess it was re-added?
And no I don't buy Lindell's junk. I don't even watch conspiracy docs. But SBIH isn't for political criticism due to the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment. In fact, my reasoning for not wanting it here is because it would open the threshold to every other fringe conspiracy documentary and I don't even want to give some of them a platform at all.
Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 6th 2021 at 8:34:56 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Yeah, nobody here buys into that nonsense. It doesn't belong because it doesn't belong, not because we agree with it.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallNo I do not buy into the conspiracy garbage. I wouldn't trust the My Pillow guy to carry the groceries.
Nevertheless, I will just say that Horrible isn't for political criticism, even if the My Pillow man's documentary is filled with lies and bullshit. The target audience has to hate it (with exceptions only in extreme cases.)
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 6th 2021 at 10:18:32 AM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallAnything Lindell-related should not be added to SBIH. Absolute Proof, Mike Lindell, and My Pillow should be added to PRLC. After all, it already contains many people who share Lindell's political views.
Edited by Nen_desharu on Jun 6th 2021 at 1:34:37 PM
Kirby is awesome.
Who out there would try to make a page for My Pillow? I'd pay money to anybody who could find three tropes in a pillow.
TBH, I'd be cool with leaving out anything that's blatantly political, unless it's bad for reasons that have nothing to do with awful politics and the like. For example, Racial Holy War is a very politically charged work. It's also just a mess of a game, so badly made that it's not even playable. There's a difference between something like that, which just fails on every level, and a political propaganda movie that's offensive to everyone but the movie's audience, a movie that might have awful ideas and writing but still be decent on a technical level enough to not alienate the people who might want to see it.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThe grounds for including a political work in SBIH should be that it's technically shitty, or that there's proof that not even the target audience (no matter what that target audience is, or how nutty they are) enjoyed it. A work that has offensive or stupid opinions does not qualify for SBIH. As it says on top of every SBIH subpage (paraphrasing) "merely being offensive in its subject matter does not qualify a work as Horrible".
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."Right. And since we're currently discussing political propaganda films right now, I'm just in favor of slashing the lot of them, keeping only the ones that fail for reasons beyond their politics.
Because the funny thing about political beliefs is that none of them are unpopular enough to be completely unshared. You could make a propaganda film centered around, idk, flat-earth neo-ancon paganism, and that shit would find an audience. So no matter how horrible a work's politics are, unless the work is bad for reasons besides those politics, I guarantee it'll have fans.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallAs far as I can tell, Vaxxed was never cut despite a number of discussions highlighting that it doesn't really fit. I've cut it now.
I agree with the sentiment that political works don't belong here unless there is proof that even the target audience dislikes the work over its quality.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI'd be game for that. Curate any addition of a work that is particularly political very closely.
To that end, I'd like to point at the "Political Cartoons" section at Horrible.Comic Strips. Those should either be zapped or given a very thorough look. I already brought up an entry in there earlier that probably does not qualify.
Edited by WackyPancake on Jun 7th 2021 at 9:24:23 PM
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."The only one on "Political Cartoons" that gives a good explanation of why the strip is unsuccessful besides being bad political commentary is the entry for The Leftersons since it points out how the art is also bad... but I did a bit of googling and surprise surprise, it has conservative fans
. So it should probably be cut.
Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 7th 2021 at 3:34:38 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Art quality is subjective anyway; with a lot of these examples (political and not), I look at the "horrible art" and don't see too much noticeably awful about it. So all else being equal, "bad art" isn't a reliable metric unless there's some explanation of why the art is so bad.
I mean, The Leftersons style is no DaVinci, but I find it at least passable. Maybe more for a webcomic than a professional work though.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI mean, some comic strips have famously simplistic/"ugly" art (see: Cathy) and still have fans and don't qualify as Horrible. And art is subjective. "It looks bad" doesn't really explain anything.
Edited by WackyPancake on Jun 7th 2021 at 9:41:24 PM
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."Every quality about SBIH is suggestive, including art, but it should be a significant amount of people who think the art is terrible, like with The Easy Breather.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Hol' up.
Edited by WackyPancake on Jun 7th 2021 at 9:45:33 PM
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."Right. I just object to examples claiming straight up "the art is bad", as opposed to, say, "and people don't even like the art", which makes it more about the reaction to the art and why people might not like it, because unless for some very rare cases, "horrible art" is never as bad as people claim it is.
At the very least, it should be, "the art is bad, and here's why".
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 7th 2021 at 3:46:53 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThis is a pretty minor change, but on the Live-Action Films (N-Z) page, I've had the idea of tweaking the entry for Stardust (2020) to replace "a godawful small affair" with "the film is a saddening bore" (since the example is about a film), though I thought I'd leave it up to this thread as to whether it's actually funnier. Both of those are lyrics from the same David Bowie song ("Life on Mars?").
Here's how I'd word the first sentence (which has the "Life on Mars?" reference) if we change the lyrics:
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 7th 2021 at 12:31:42 PM
I got a rock for Halloween.I'd like to call into question the Farmers Only ad on Horrible.Advertising. The link
has far more likes to dislikes, and while comments are disabled, that seems to be par for the course for the ads uploaded on this channel. Personally I just think it's dorky and low-budget, maybe even So Bad, It's Good, but not mind-blowingly horrible.
I have some questions about an entry on the Music: Albums page
- Ratt has an album of demo recordings on Spotify, which is practically unlistenable. It features several of their big classics, except the guitars are consistently off-beat, out of tune, poorly mixed, overly saturated, and generally incredibly sloppy. Many early live recordings of the band reveal that this is how they actually sounded when playing live.
Without an actual album name given, I have no idea what release this is even referring to. I've checked both Discogs and RateYourMusic and have not found an album exclusively of demo recordings (a few compilations with one demo on them was all) nor any albums with a notably negative reception. Should we keep this?
cutting the Farmers Only ad. I remember that Cursed Commercials posted it on Twitter ages ago and people definitely found it to be So Bad, It's Good.
Just from the video I can tell the Farmers Only ad is more So Bad, It's Good than anything.
"I like girls, but now, it's about justice."

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Quibi the app probably qualifies, it was very poorly designed. The Quibi shows varied in reception; some were well received. I call for a rewrite.
She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqk