The Hindsight tropes, Hilarious in Hindsight, Harsher in Hindsight, and Heartwarming in Hindsight, are among the most misused Audience Reaction tropes on this site. Many people don't understand that the tropes require more than just "This happened, so that happened", and end up adding examples which either lack connection or the substance that makes them funny/serious/not-so-funny/heartwarming. Some of them may be suited better for other tropes (ex: Life Imitates Art), while some may not belong on TV Tropes at all (such as ones involving politicians, due to Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment).
Please report any Hindsight example that you feel are questionable, and we'll analyze them to see if they are actually examples or not.
Remember that the Hindsight tropes are Audience Reactions. That means if an example under review discusses significant fan response pointing out the hindsight, the example can't be cut solely for being too tenuous for this thread.
- Creator's character/portrayal dies in work and then creator dies in real life, unless their fictional death is closely similar to their real one (such as Billy Bob Joe portraying a character who dies from pancreatic cancer, then Billy Bob dies from pancreatic cancer himself)
- Mundane word related to something terrible (such as "corona" or "Epstein") unless there's more to the connection (such as someone named "Corona" having the flu)
- Creator appears in work then becomes more controversial later on.
- A common event (such as a typical natural disaster) happens in work, then happens in real life (unless they are closely similar, such as the event happening to the same area in both reality and fiction around the same time) For once, not everything related to disease has to do with COVID-19, not everything related to racism and Police Brutality has to do with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, and not everything related to sexual abuse has to do with #MeToo.
- A common/generic concept was used in this work and then later reused in that work (too loose for a connection, unless the concept is so unique it's identified with the work)
- Two actors appear together then do so in another work
- Hindsight examples involving recent events, due to them often being shoehorns. Specifically:
- COVID-19 examples, before 75% of the population has returned to normal
- George Floyd/2020 Black Lives Matter examples, before protests have declined
- Examples which fall guilty of Older Than They Think, such as "Make X Great Again" slogans. Aside from violating the ROCEJ, this slogan has been in use since the 1940s.
- Characters using slurs which are treated as annoying at worst in the work, but is now harsher due to how severe the slur is made now. Discrimination has always existed with that slur. (May qualify for Values Dissonance if work is at least 20 years old.)
Note: As of January 2022, "Funny Aneurysm" Moment is no longer separate from Harsher in Hindsight.
- The former redirects to the latter and all wicks to the former (with the exception of ones on archive pages and the YMMV Redirects index) must either be moved to the latter (if they're valid) or removed (if they're invalid).
- The subpages for the former are still accessible from this page
. After a subpage for "Funny Aneurysm" Moment has been completely cleaned up, turn it into a redirect to the Harsher in Hindsight subpage for the same medium to preserve inbounds.
Edited by Tabs on Jun 21st 2023 at 11:51:25 AM
The Draftsman of Doom
- Harsher in Hindsight: The infamous "#metoo
" joke ("I spit the truth without a filter, like every comedian before #MeToo," a joke Velma makes about the Louis C.K. allegations) became even more uncomfortable to watch after a video resurfaced in January 2023
where Velma's actress Mindy Kaling made an anecdote about having engaged in predatory behaviour towards a costar on The Mindy Project.
Not to sound pushy, but I still haven't gotten any proper feedback on what to do with this
.
From The Bullet Train:
- Harsher in Hindsight: There would be an actual train bombing in 2004 in Madrid
, and it's a nasty look at what might have been if the bomb on the Hikari had gone off.
Shoehorn due to completely different locations and motives between the two. I think 'bomb on a train' is way too broad to be hindsight anyway, but a quick check of Wikipedia
gives me a train bombing in 1887, which confirms that this film didn't exactly invent the idea.
From Captain Planet and the Planeteers
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Now that Neil Patrick Harris, whom the HIV-stricken teen Todd was played by, has come out as gay, it's pretty obvious why he did the role (the character he played was accused of contracting HIV from unprotected sex with his male friend, rather than a blood transfusion gone wrong), since, back then, homosexual men were discriminated against because of it. Speculating on why an actor chose a role doesn't seem okay
- One episode is about rhino horns and how poaching might make them extinct. Watching it over 20 years later might make some people cringe knowing what happened to the western black rhino...
Needs a rewrite, but sounds legitimate
- If the Planeteer Alerts about pollution from cars had been taken more seriously, there probably wouldn't be this much smog over big cities today
. Sounds too general
- As of the OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes crossover, any time Wheeler bickers with the other Planeteers, since eventually the group broke up due to infighting and went to "find real jobs". Unsure. "Any time [X]" entries always feel a bit weak
- In "Mind Pollution", Linka's cousin Boris gets hooked on a designer drug called "Bliss", and gets Linka hooked, too. A decade or so later, designer drug "Krokodil" had similar effects on actual Russians. Except worse. So does it effect other people or just Russians? I'm pretty sure it was based on a real drug
- The episode about AIDS was very much an anvil that needed to be dropped at the time it was made. During the Turn of the Millennium and early parts of The New '10s? People laughed at it - because it just seemed so outlandish. However? As mentioned by Verminous Skumm, if the public is misinformed about a disease that makes it easier to spread. Listen to that line after the COVID-19 Pandemic happened... then realize just how much of it was happening in North America and Western Europe. COVID shoehorn
- Heartwarming in Hindsight: The "If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast" episode, which one segment dealt with Wheeler managing to talk down both the Catholics and Protestants from nuclear detonation along with getting them on a peaceful relationship, became more heartwarming 6 years later with 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Though tensions and terrors have occurred after that, especially at the tail end of the 1990s, the results have been overall very positive with the sectarian violence winding down and both Sinn Fein (Catholic) and Democratic Unionist Party (Protestant) peacefully sharing power in Northern Ireland parliament in 2013. Unsure
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Zarm's second voice actor, David Warner, also voiced Ra's Al-Ghul on Batman: The Animated Series - a character that has almost the complete opposite goals as Zarm, being a villainous environmentalist. Even funnier is that Zarm's third actor, Malcolm McDowell, played his son, Arkady Duvall in the episode "Showdown". Actor trivia
- In "Deadly Ransom", Dr. Blight and Duke Nukem capture Captain Planet and ultimately shoot down the geo-cruiser in front of him when the Planeteers come to get him out. Given the fandom's interpretation of their relationship, it resembles the later scene from The Incredibles. Fan Myopia
On the Neil Patrick Harris example, I agree that speculating about someone's motivations for taking a role in relation to their sexuality, especially when he did the role at a relatively young age (19), feels icky. On his Wikipedia page
, it cites an anecdote about him having his coming out story during a 1997-1998 relationship which was a few years after the Captain Planet episode; I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but it's a good demonstration of how people's opinions on their own sexuality change, and why it's not great to go 'this actor is out and proud now, so they must've felt the same decades ago'. I think it's an easy cut.
The smog example is not only too broad, but also incorrect. Air pollution has legitimately improved since the 1990s
.
The Northern Ireland example is still referring to an ongoing event. As of right now, the Northern Ireland Assembly is facing issues over power-sharing, so this example already feels outdated.
Those are my comments; the rest I agree with as written.
- Harsher in Hindsight: The show's infamous MacGuffin (a virus that wipes out most of the world's population) became this with the COVID-19 Pandemic. The timeline even aligns, as the show specifically takes place in 2020 — the year the pandemic took hold. Will Forte eventually spoke about how disturbed he was by the coincidence, though he also noted even the characters in his silly little comedy knew masks would have been a good idea.
This is technically a COVID shoehorn, but it is noteworthy that the timeline matches and the main actor acknowledged the similarities.
Edited by SharkToast on Mar 23rd 2023 at 6:09:28 AM
Agreed, 2020 is too specific a year, it works.
As for the NPH example, could it worked if reworded to be less speculative? Like if it focused on the Reality Subtext of a gay-coded character being shamed for having HIV, being played by an actor who would come out as gay? Or would that be Heartwarming in Hindsight since NPH eventually came out and had a family with his husband?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.I've been cleaning up YMMV.Hypnosis Mic for a bit and I came across this:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Fans of Namu Amida Butsu! -UTENA- will recognize Gentarō (Sōma Saitō) and Dice (Yukihiro Nozuyama) as Tamonten and General Sanshi respectively, a massively Ho Yay mentor/student duo in that fandom. seems like Fan Myopia
- Sōma Saitō, who has published an essay collection and has stated his love of books at least once in interviews, has voiced a historical fictional character known for his intelligence and a historical author. Here, he's an author who likes to play up his intelligence by dressing in a historic style and using complicated words. unsure
From Cs188's YMMV page, because even Youtube Poop creators get hit with this.
- From OPPA GODDAMN STYLE: "Korea's got a bomb, US could become a target". North Korea has threatened to launch a nuclear missile towards the United States multiple times (even performing multiple test launches) since 2013. Hasn't North Korea's nuclear program been a thing for longer than that? This video is from 2012, and I think it was an old punchline by then.
- All the references to cjflo become this when you consider how much of a Jerkass she was to cs in one video. I had to see who that was (she's another YTP maker). I can't find this specific video where she's (allegedly) rude to him.
- Pooping the Charts Vol. 7: Why Can't I Think Of A Title? makes fun of Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe" by rearranging the lyrics to proclaim he was "gonna get so high, eating toads." While he didn't do so eating toads, the news reports talking about him smoking marijuana were almost prophetic. This seems like a weak connection. Plenty of celebrities abuse drugs, and marijuana is pretty mild compared to others.
- In the beginning of "Linkin Park Want Candy Bars Stuck In Their 'Divide'
", Chester Bennington sings "Wish I could find a way to SHUT UP!". About seven years later, Bennington committed suicide out of grief from the death of his close friend Chris Cornell, who was also Driven to Suicide. But he doesn't die in the video.
- He took the "No one needs foundation repair" and other HoH SiS videos off his channel because the company whose ads they pooped had filed a privacy complaint, and later on, one of them called up CS and said that they were still getting prank calls from his fans. Some time later after CS told fans to stop calling them, Home Savers went out of business
. (Perhaps people were 100% unsatisfied with them having to do the JoJ all over again?) Might be more Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things.
- "At home, our top priority is burning our citizens" from Obama Sh!ts in the Gulf on National Television became this in light of the California wildfires since 2017. Maybe a stretch
- One of his self-YTP videos features a joke about him saying "you have to go around and destroy all of the Jews" before the video is shut down by Youtube. Not long after, this happened to a certain Swedish Youtuber, who made an ill-advised anti-Semitic joke to the same effect and lost his ties to the company. Leaning towards valid. If I remember right, Pewdiepie's "joke" was having kids hold a sign saying "Death to all Jews", which is pretty close to the quote in the video.
- In "THE PHONE THAT FOLDS ITSELF OUT OF EXISTENCE" has the Galaxy Fold constantly breaking all over the video. A week later came news that the folding mechanism had caused the screen to break and glitch out. Maybe? I feel like this phone was subject to snark from the moment it was announced.
- His Kesha poops (made in 2010-2011) are full of jokes portraying the singer as a sex addict, something that can be hard to watch after it was revealed years later that she was sexually abused in real life by her producer Dr. Luke. This is valid, moreso than the other examples here.
- Depending on when cs came up with it, the “wreck the helicopter” joke from "A MAN HAS FARTED INTO THE RIVER IN LEGO CITY" may fall under this given the video was released days after the tragic helicopter crash that killed NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter, among others. Probably get rid of, if it came out AFTER the crash. The example even admits that he might have come up with the idea due to the crash.
The Kesha one I definitely feel is valid. I think the Pewdiepie one is too, but am less sure. The others, I want to cut. How do we all feel?
The Bieber one feels more Hilarious in Hindsight depending on your views on him smoking weed (if he's discussed it as an actual problem he had then it might count). The Home Repair one shutting down might fit (I don't count it as "mortality" as a business isn't doomed to go out of business like people are doomed to die). Agree with pretty much every other assessment.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.This ATT thread
brings up two COVID Harsher in Hindsight examples recently added to YMMV.They Are Billions. I believe that they are shoehorns but would like more consensusnote . Example in question:
- A late campaign mission is called, "Omicron Laboratory," an unfortunate coincidence with the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 that broke out in late 2021.
Edit: I've now removed the examples.
Edited by VoidGhost on Mar 27th 2023 at 12:08:10 PM
Shoehorn. The game is a post-apocalyptic zombie survivor, there can be no comparison.
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupThe following Harsher In Hindsight/Real Life entry is a contradictary and untrue version of an earlier entry on the page, and should be cut:
- In February 1959, Waylon Jennings lost a coin-flip to Buddy Holly and was forced to take a bus to Minnesota whereas Buddy took a plane. Before leaving, Holly joked "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up.", to which Jennings joked, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." Tragically, the plane did crash, killing Holly and everybody else aboard. Jennings was haunted by those words for the rest of his life.
YMMV.The Legend Of Heroes Trails Of Cold Steel has these bad boys:
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- From a voice actor perspective, D.C. Douglas voices Rufus in both games. He's also hired Ouroboros to take part in the Civil War. Let's just say he really has Ouroboros. seems like Fan Myopia
- One of the final quests of Cold Steel II is named "My Jormungandr Don't Want None
◊", something translated by XSEED. While the description is funny by itself, it's even more hilarious when in Cold Steel IV, the operation name for the empire to wage the world war is called "Operation Jormungandr". seems valid
- Gaius's associatation with the wind becomes quite hilarious when you realize his English voice actor, Kaiji Tang voiced Wingul in Tales of Xillia, whose primary element is also wind, and serves a man who is coincidently named Gaius. seems like Fan Myopia
- A fan modded Duvalie to be playable in
Cold Steel II years before Duvalie was confirmed to be playable in Cold Steel IV. seems valid
- Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the "Rip Along with the Ripping Friends" segments features a sentient male hotdog and a sentient female hot dog bun. The bun had its mouth sideways. Seth Rogen would use a similar design choice in Sausage Party.
Is this more of Older Than They Think since the example reads more like "this isn't the first time these character designs were used"?
Edited by TroperNo9001 on Mar 29th 2023 at 2:31:00 AM
Still waiting for someone to break him free...
