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)
- 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.
Edited by Someoneman on Nov 28th 2022 at 8:58:17 AM
I did make another suggestion, so please read my last post, which is the last one on the earlier page. Also, you got ninja'd. :P Then again, last posts of the page suckkkkkkk.
Ah, I think you read it. Perfect reply on the ATT. :)
And yes, I'm aware I could use the regular smiley. >.>
Now, getting back to the other one, my suggestion is to look at how many General examples there are. Does removing them all give essentially a stub? If so, the Advertising section could be moved the Other sections in some way. It also depends how many entries we have. There may be a General one or two worth keeping, though. Feel free to post each example so we can go through 'em.
Edited by Irene on Aug 21st 2019 at 9:11:12 AM
Darkwing Goose
Advertising is a HUGE page. If we remove Ad Types it won't be a stub.
SP00PY month!
Ah, good. Well, could we post the general examples? I never saw that page. That way we can look at each one individually. In case many might be salvageable(probably not, but never hurts to check).
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Here:
- Many, if not all, animated web and pop-up ads can easily fall here, especially if you have an older, slower OS or are browsing using a mobile platform. Yes, it does cost money to ruin our lives, but do these execs seriously believe that clogging up people's modems so their logo can fly across your screen and obscure the text you're trying to read will create a positive reception for their product, especially when nobody who's the least bit worried about their reputation employs that strategy?
- Any ad that automatically plays sounds is more likely to make the user mute their volume or close the page than to catch their attention. To make things worse, certain sound-playing ads are actually a whole commercial, and are designed to begin playing their audio before the page is even open onscreen so you're forced to either listen to it or click around wondering which open window is playing the sound. It's not as annoying if your computer's sound system has physical controls for volume on it, but if they don't - and you haven't turned down the sound on the computer itself - you just wonder what made the companies think annoying you is a good way to advertise their product. Thankfully, some web browsers, including Firefox and Chrome, now not only show an icon on tabs that are playing sound for quicker squashing of those ads, but let you click that icon to mute the tab without leaving your current one.
- Some ads can easily cross into Nightmare Fuel territory, namely because they cover your whole screen, attempt to terrify you with a false statement of your computer being infected, and then prevent you from leaving the page normally. Most of these sorts of ads are from rogue antiviruses or ransomware scams based out of India or another third-world country, and you'd be surprised how many people fall for them.
- Any web ad that disguises itself as a Microsoft Windows dialog box. Designed to trick gullible users into downloading spyware and will get the makers in hot water with the Better Business Bureau (I-A-2, second bullet point). Not to mention that they almost always look very off: they usually impersonate the Vista/7 style in the default color scheme, failing to fool those who bothered changing the color scheme, let alone those who use other operating systems. Up until around the mid-2010s, many were still using XP-style or even 9x-style boxes.
- Straight from Russia, a new type of browser-hijacking ad has emerged to take advantage of the rise of browser extensions - heralded by the sound of "CLICK ADD EXTENSION TO CLOSE THIS PAGE" being blared through your speakers by a crappy text-to-speech voice, you'd better hope you can close them before they finish loading, or they'll spam your computer with dialog boxes that force you to install their malware-loaded extension, and even then the ad might not close afterwards. Attempting to close the dialog boxes just causes more to load up. Once it finishes loading, the only way to get out without installing the malware is to close out of your browser entirely.
- Any web ad that automatically redirects your browser. These are particularly loathsome, as not only do they interrupt whatever you're trying to read, nine times out of ten they try to install malware on your computer. The worst ones will even attempt to keep you prisoner by displaying an "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" dialog box when you try to leave or by redirecting you in such a way that backing up a page will send you back to the same page continously unless you spam the Back button or Backspace key or use the page history dropdown.
- There's a growing trend among seedier ad purchasers to spit out pop-up ads screaming about how your Flash Player, or computer drivers, or anything else are out of date and need to be updated. Naturally, clicking on the download link and running the executable it gives you will pump viruses into your computer instead of actually installing anything.
- Some file-hosting sites actively try to trick you into clicking on advertisements by plastering the download page with ads which have a large, bright button saying "download" and little else. You have to hunt for the actual download link for the hosted file, which is of course small and nondescript.
- When you try to download files off of Mediafire, it will occasionally open up a blank tab and redirects the tab you've downloaded the file from to an advert page after you click on the download page, regardless if you have an adblocker or not. This advert page could be anything from Roblox to obviously-fake "virus detected" or "update your extension" pages to pages that automatically try to download files to your computer, and while you can close out of them, sometimes it's not as easy as it seems with them begging you not to close the tab by putting pop-ups on the page it's on. note
- Whenever a full-screen ad appears on a smartphone, most people's reaction will be to try and close it. Some advertisers have exploited that by putting a fake close button that, when clicked under the assumption that it will close or collapse the ad, registers as having tapped the actual ad and opens the link to the site they want you to visit. If you know that people hate your ad, why bother putting it up? Some companies also put a prominent X in their logo for a similar effect, with the bonus of having a built-in excuse for being misleading.
- Video ads on mobile devices. If North American cell phone companies weren't in love with data caps, this would be a minor annoyance (and still is when Wi-fi is in use), but when that video chomps up 10-20 MB in your 2 GB-per-month allotment, it gets old real fast. Also if you're listening to music or a podcast while browsing on your phone, the video will interrupt whatever you're listening to, forcing you to close the page.
- Ads that claim that someone made millions through doing something arbitrary. Usually, these ads crop up when you're attempting to download a file (and mess with the download itself) or appear in comments sections. They're as fake as a knockoff Chinese watch, and only serve to scam or infect the average internet user.
- Adverts that show a random person supposedly saying something to the tune of "I TRIED THIS NEW MEDICINE AND I GOT RRRRRRRRRRRIPPPPPPPEDDDD!" are a one-stop shop for scams and spamming.
- The mobile version of This Very Wiki has problems with web ads. Some of the worse examples:
- Oftentimes, an ad will pop up on the bottom of the screen, and more often than not clicking the "x" on the ad will simply force the browser to the top of the page, possibly to force you to click ads. On older versions of the Google Chrome app, some ads would forcibly open the App Store to get you to download a useless app, though newer versions of the Chrome app now give you the option to disallow this, as the page will now produce a dialog that says "This page will open in another app." Simply clicking "cancel" will stop this. But seriously, all these issues can make viewing the mobile version of TV Tropes an absolute chore, though using the Chrome app as opposed to Safari makes things a little better. And we mean a little.
- It got worse in 2018. On both the mobile and desktop websites, the site seems to be affected by some sort of adware that forcibly redirects you to another page that is often either trying to scam you or get you to download a virus. Or both. In addition to that, there now also exist ads that auto-play video, and these ads force the webpage to scroll to it to force you to watch it.
- Any snail-mail spam sent in an envelope deliberately designed to resemble envelopes used for official government documents. Depending on the local laws and the degree of resemblance, this may not even be legal, but in some regions of the US it's both legally grey and a fairly popular tactic. Additional shame goes to those who disguise the contents as an official government document as well. Consumer Reports occasionally wall-of-shames these in their back-page feature "Selling It" between humorous typos and absurdly spacious packaging. Joel Spolsky has a blog article entitled "How Many Lies Can You Find In One Direct Mail Piece?
" that details a particularly good example of snail-mail spam meant to resemble an important-looking FedEx package.
- Another variant is sending mail in envelopes that very clearly spell out the penalties for anybody but the adressee opening it, making the contents seem more important, when they're usually random offers from bankruptcy lawyers, life insurance companies, and such. Of course, opening mail that isn't addressed to you is indeed a federal crime, no matter who sent it.
- Some telephone companies, particularly Comcast/DirecTV, have started disguising their advertisement mail imploring you to switch as important messages or offers from your current phone and internet provider. They particularly like to do this in areas where rival companies AT&T and Verizon dominate. Consumer Reports has several examples of this, and other, underhanded Comcast ad tactics under their "Comcastic" tag. The worst part is, this might not even be legal in some places, and is dubiously grey in others.
- "Robocalls", telemarketing messages that play a pre-recorded message to a bunch of phones at once by using a mass autodialer. Before, it was always possible to tell a human telemarketer "I'm not interested. Don't call this number again." Now these calls are computerized so there is no person to hear you yell "Please quit calling this number!" This is only a minor annoyance on a household landline, but it is a big annoyance on a cell phone, with it eating at your data cap and all, and a major cause of concern for businesses because the calls can tie up their lines and prevent business from occurring.
These numbers have been plaguing US citizens more and more in recent years, to the point where the US government made it a felony to advertise over the phone via pre-recorded message without written consent, or if you are a church, charity, or political cause. ISP- and cell phone-blocking software are ineffective because these calls spoof the information on the caller ID and call from a different number every time. The worst is calling from a blocked or hidden number, or spoofing the number so it appears as "911" or something else important.
Some particularly infamous examples:- The New '10s have seen the increasing prevalence of robocalls programmed to make you initially mistake them for actual people calling by using voice recognition. Usually, they begin with something along the lines of "Is this the home of [insert name here]?", and when the person receiving the call responds, the robocall is programmed to proceed with its advertising spiel in response. The robocall may even ask something like "Is anyone there?" in response to silence in order to make them seem more like people being ignored. What makes these particularly terrible is that they not only have the annoyances of standard robocalls, but they actually fail at even robocall standards thanks to the new features. If you do manage to send the call to someone willing to listen to whole robocalls, then the voice activation will just confuse and annoy them. Yet the effort to get everyone else to continue listening fails once they realize it's automated, meaning the effort the robocall programmers put into including the voice recognition feature is completely pointless.
- One particular robocall that's been making the rounds is a scam call stating that the IRS is suing/arresting you and that you need to call back to resolve the issue. While the call seems convincing enough, it not only makes this list for being a blatant scam, but also for the fact that the IRS only contacts people through written letters note , rendering the whole attempt futile.
- Fax machines might be a bit old-fashioned these days, but they're not completely obsolete, and a number of people like to send adverts to them. Does anyone appreciate having their paper wasted like this? This is a very special sort of bad ad, as it may be the only form of advertisement that, by consuming paper and ink, costs the viewer money. However, it may also be the only form of advertisement one can fight back directly (as opposed to indirectly via ad-skipping with a DVR, ad-blockers and such): some have been known to take revenge on those foolish enough to leave a valid return number on their ads by taping a few copies of their ads together and feeding the resulting belt through their fax machine to that number, sending endless copies of the ad to its sender and costing them paper and ink.
- Radio ads that utilize car horns, tire screeches, ambulance sirens, or other loud noises, especially for listeners who commute to work. These are the kinds that are startling at best and accident-causing at worst, as they could be confused for real sounds. Curb Your Enthusiasm shows why this can be a problem, using the long-time transmission repair franchise AAMCO as an example.
- WhatsApp is the most-used SMS-replacement / IM / chat service used worldwide (outside of the U.S.). Thanks to this, lots of ads appear on mobile phone web pages by scammers who aren't associated with the real app that mimic an iOS / Android OS pop-up, saying "Your WhatsApp version is outdated which puts your security at risk; update it now to protect yourself." Clicking on any of those links will subscribe you to a costly SMS-subscription that's almost impossible to get rid of. Like any other proper Google-approved / Apple-approved app, it's only updated through the Play Store / App Store; keep strictly to [your OS] Store for updating your Apps.
- Any website that advertises itself by posting comments on unrelated websites can immediately be assumed to be shady, untrustworthy, and a ploy to steal your personal information and/or install malware on your device, especially if they create or edit pages on this very wiki to do so. Such comments are usually deleted quickly by the website's moderators, but some abandoned sites' forums and comments sections consist almost entirely of years and years of spam. note
- A very common type of advertisement for shady computer repair software has been showing up where if you do a Google search for any kind of computer issue, no matter how specific or general, it gives a page seeming to teach about how to fix the problem only to instruct you on how to use their software. Protip
- Many recent mobile game advertisements seem to follow the same pattern: gameplay never presented in the full product (Matchington Mansion, Words Story, Homescapes, and especially Mafia City are perfect examples of this), someone making a stupid mistake and having the audacity to call the game hard (this almost always overlaps with the fake gameplay) and, most infamously, stealing content from other games or even footage of someone's letsplay without their permission. This is most notable in Minecraft bootlegs, which alone have contained: a clip of a LetsPlayer playing a Granny map, several "gameplay videos" for "free mobile versions" (despite being played on the original PC version), and the trailer for the v1.14 update (Village & Pillage), which can be even worse if they use memetic images or videos that are supposed to be funny, but instead come off as obnoxious (Like an ad for Paper.io, which uses a remix of the Wii Sports Resort theme mixed with Roblox death sound).
Lordy, that's huge. We'll have to take them a few at a time. Or I will, anyway.
Animated Ads are a big enough deal that they can completely screw with computers. So it might be valid enough.
Though from what it looks like, most of these are just computer virus examples and not specifically bad ads. Even general bad ads. So they feel like they're kind of shoehorning in. This might be a bit more difficult. One thought is that we could redo the entries, but as its own "Virus Ad" thing instead, at least for those that fall under that. And give some hard examples of each one as is. It'd take forever to list every single fake ad for days, as they basically aren't much of a work to trope.
Actually, that's another issue here; they aren't works to begin with. There's little reason for them to have a spot among examples. It's basically complaining. Not that they're invalid points, but they don't serve a similar purpose to the rest of SBIH, which is complaining about actual works. Real ads are as close to works as you can get, usually have a video that can be full of bad acting, etc.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
The issue is, we can't keep them even if they're valid: Examples Are Not General. Even if we move them, they'd still be in violation of a rule.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Indeed. There's a few specific ones that we could salvage. While we work on that, it might be worth bringing up if this entry is valid too;
- Dwegons And Leprechauns is a failed attempt at an indie animated film with horrible animation, crappy voice acting that wastes the talents of Melissia Leo, hideous character designs, and a nonsensical plot involving descendants of leprechauns and dragons and a family that moves in with them. Not only that, but the 2nd scene is an old guy dying of a heart attack! It recieved a [[commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/dwegons-and-leprechauns 1/5]] by Common Sense Media and Ace Backspace pick it apart here
Twentington is declaring it isn't valid, but has given no reasons to believe so(he is also currently wiki-side suspended as per the Mod's statement in the earlier ATT). This is the same entry Awesomereese(who is now bounced, so we don't have to worry about their opinion on it) kept adding back without discussion. It's worth noting they did declare to ban evade, so we should keep an eye on the page if the entry is removed(or rewritten, just in case they feel the need to have if "their way" exactly).
Edited by Irene on Aug 21st 2019 at 9:52:38 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I didn't even realize there was an edit war going on. My removal the first time said "no evidence of horribleness, some reviews are average to positive" based on the fact that I found some online reviews that didn't seem horrible. Second time I just thought that a drive-by user had re-added the exact same content, and I didn't even notice that said content was being edit-warred over. Could I please have my suspension lifted over this?
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Take it to the edit banned thread.
As for the first on-topic thing I add to this thread, I'm in favor of cutting general examples, because I doubt SBIH is exempt from Examples Are Not General.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I'm in favor of cutting them too. There seems to be a few scattered specific ones among that general section that could be salvageable, but that depends if we should consider fake ads(well, that is, virus-related fake ads) as even something appropriate for this trope anyway. Since almost all of them are a case of this. The last example does have some meat to it, due to false advertising, but it still appears to be too general. If it was rewritten, maybe. Since it's for an actual work, they're just using incorrect information to advertise it.
Maybe a few others are akin to that.
I feel like virus-carrying advertising is way outside the scope of this site. All that stuff is awful, but it doesn't really have a lot to do with fiction.
Short-Term Projects herald
I deleted that section from the page.
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
...We never came to a consensus on that, though.
Not that I disagree much, but we were still working on a discussion.
Until we come to a consensus, it's easier if you please wait before making an edit like that.
That said, is there anyone who honestly disagrees with the deletion?
Darkwing Goose
Most of Ad Types can go except for the section on Mobile Game ads. That can be rewritten to be less general.
SP00PY month!
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I agree with the general, full hack-and-slash.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Migrated to Chloe Jessica!
Dwegons And Leprechauns has a 43% audience rating on RT, which is So Okay, It's Average territory, not So Bad Its Horrible. there's no critics' consensus, though; it's probably too obscure to be reviewed. either way, it doesn't look valid to me.
Migrated to Chloe Jessica!
I might've said the above poorly.
Any huge changes to a page should be discussed first(well, if you're making an all new page, that's the only real exception). Removing an entire folder is a pretty huge change. As we didn't figure out what yet to do with it, it's too early to remove it wholesale. We might have something of use, as noted above.
I'm all for removing the general examples regardless.
I'm for removing Dwegons and Leprechauns, but do we have any other reviews to go off of. So far, it's "mediocre" in ratings, which sounds like it doesn't belong to me.
Edited by Irene on Aug 22nd 2019 at 1:50:19 PM
Darkwing Goose
Mlsmithca deleted the entry on Live Action Tv for Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty without explaining why.
Edited by TheAlmightyKingPrawn on Aug 22nd 2019 at 3:28:10 PM
SP00PY month!
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
~mlsmithca, why the deletion?
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Ah, whoops, mistake on my part; I was reverting some other changes. One moment and I'll restore it.
EDIT: Aaaand done.
Edited by mlsmithca on Aug 22nd 2019 at 3:38:38 PM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Wouldn't this part of Horrible.Music Performances fit better under Horrible.Music Covers?
- Amateur garage cover bands can often be terrible, but there are few who manage to rupture the space-time continuum with their awfulness.
- This band horribly butchers "The Final Countdown". The keyboardist has the completely wrong sound on his synth and misses several notes, completely ruining the song's most iconic part, and the singer has absolutely no energy or passion (you know you have a bad cover when the original singer criticizes you).
- These guys try to cover "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The guitarist plays the Epic Riff at the wrong rhythm, and the singer just screams the lyrics during the chorus.
- These musicians (who later named themselves "Hush" as Self-Deprecation) fail horribly to cover "Comfortably Numb". Their versions of "Wish You Were Here" and Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" also deserve mention.
- This cover of "Sweet Child O'Mine" by three shirtless Brazilian boys. Each member seems to be playing a different song, the instruments' tuning is off, the singing even worse...
- This miserable excuse for a cover of Breaking Benjamin's "Anthem of the Angels". The guitars are too loud and in the wrong tone, the drumming is too hard, and the singing is horribly off-key.
- This talent show cover of "Feel Good Inc.". It sounds like neither of them can sing, and the only backing track is one of them poorly playing the bass riff.
- This band
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Maybe. In addition, I don't see a reason for those examples to be on second-level bullet points below a general example.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 22nd 2019 at 10:10:52 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
That too. The Hush example also relies entirely on weblinks...
1.) In case it's not clear I support the removal of Dwegons. The user ratings are too middle-of-the-road, and the critical ratings all but nonexistant, giving us very little to go on. Should we take a straw poll or something to determine its fate?
2.) Should fan works (remixes/covers/etc. in the song department, fan-games/hacks/mods in the Video Games department) be in the Horrible subpages at all? Things like YTP and fanfic have already been nuked for being contentious.
3.) Should some of the Webcomics be combed over too? I doubt anyone's going to dispute that something like Sonichu belongs there, because that one is the stuff of legend. I would think that something like Stalag '99 is too obscure to get a bead on, as other than Bad Webcomics Wiki I've found no word either way on its quality or lack thereof (and I happen to be an acquaintance of its creator, but that's beside the point).
Irene made a thread here
; just hit "Add Reply" to join the convo.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness