Complaining: Darkness Induced Audience Apathy

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy has long been misused for complaining about works being dark as opposed to it's intended definition is, per Square Peg, Round Trope, being "so dark that there's no meaningful conflict anymore or the resolution of the conflict is meaningless (like a child molester vs a genocidal slave-trader) and large parts of the audience lose interest." It's used on works with clear sides to root for, not dark enough, or so successful most fans/audiences are not being put off by them.

Wick check of 50 examples gave at least a 58% complaining/misuse rate (the works had root for-able characters, ultimately happy ending, and/or are successful/well received showing audiences were not put off). It could be as high as 78% as only 11 out of the 50 examples give proof people were put off by it or the creators tried to fix it. Most examples sound like it's from a Hatedom of a for as opposed to those who were fans/the target audience. Even reveal examples of creator backlash against the darkness of the work are not DIAA as they're successful and not about apathy over the conflict.

It was proposed in DIAA cleanup we require DIAA examples to have citation or otherwise prove audiences were put off by it as was done for Audience-Alienating Premise. Mods and tropers involved in cleanups augured against as the problem is DIAA is so misunderstood even sources claiming such might be misusing it. Seeing even the creator claims being misuses I agree, though am not ruling out requiring proof once we agree what it should be.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy has 2126 wick and 68,574 inbounds, I've even seen it used out of this site. It sounds like something we want to keep in some form so here are some options to consider:

• Give it a new name that better reflects what it's supposed to be (like "Darkness-Induced Conflict Apathy" or "Darkness-Induced Audience Abandonment") and clear rules.
• Disqualify Sadist Show and Cosmic Horror Story examples as the former don't have overall conflict to be apathetic to and the hopelessness of the later is fundamental to the genre which overall has fans despite.
• Disqualify successful works as their success proves audiences are not being put off.
• Require successful works explain how they are successful/have fans despite apathy to the central conflict (like Play the Game, Skip the Story).
• Maybe remove the "doesn't count if it has sympathetic characters" part as redundant with Eight Deadly Words.

Also, how is Angst Aversion supposed to be different than not liking a work for being dark? Otherwise it risks becoming the new dumping ground for complaints. My impression is it's "works with a reputation/expectation of darkness such audiences avoid them regardless of quality" as opposed to lose interest due to apathy. Is that it?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Nov 13th 2020 at 9:31:06 AM

Opening.

I get the impression that the most confusion comes from the "darkness" part of the name. Would it help to have a name more like the So Bad, It's Good line of tropes? Like, So Bleak, It's Boring or something?

That name sounds like an improvement, similarly to how I Liked It Better When It Sucked was renamed to So Bad, It Was Better fairly recently due to people missing the fact that "sucked" specifically meant the work was So Bad, It's Good.

Edit: Fixed a bizarre grammatical error I made while not completely awake.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 13th 2020 at 8:39:25 AM

Let's try a rename. A long-term thread after we're done, if there isn't one already, would also help to watch over the examples.

I think a rename to something like that might help. At the very least, it'd cut down on people adding entries about comedies, which are very rarely described as "bleak".

I wonder how much of this misuse is a result of people confusing DIAA with other tropes? We have Angst Aversion, which is for when audiences avoid a work that's gained a reputation for being dark or depressing; and there's also Eight Deadly Words, which is when audiences don't care about what happens to the main characters because they're either unlikable or just boring. I especially think most of the complaining examples are people confusing this trope for Eight Deadly Words. But I think that trope requires citations (I'm not sure if that's for the page itself), so they should probably be deleted regardless.

There had been the idea of establishing the nuance that Angst Aversion could refer to works that whose reputation precedes them and loses audience members and Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy being about works who gradually lose an active audience, but that seems really hard to gauge and it's difficult now to see how both reactions stand.

I'll admit, I'm skeptical about how common this even is because so many of the examples are shoehorns if not outright false- but a rename sounds like a fine idea either way.

It seems likely that we can cut most examples, yes. It's still a trope in the same sense that Eight Deadly Words is.

Yeah, I've felt for a while that the name is actively sabotaging this trope. It sounds like just a page to complain about works you thought were 'too dark,' when the definition is a lot more specific (and actually tropable, unlike the pure complaining page that would be.)

Failed Due To Darkness?

Does the work have to fail? I've seen claims that it requires that, but the description isn't clear about whether success (or lack thereof) is a factor, and that claim was contested on the discussion page for Tropes Needing TRS.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 13th 2020 at 9:52:47 AM

When I added that bit to the Tropes Needing TRS entry, I assumed that was part of the description after seeing a bunch of examples brought up in the thread and cut for that reason. I believe the logic there is "if it succeeded, people can't have been all that apathetic toward it."

The work has to fail, because otherwise this is not a trope (but instead "complaining about dark works you don't like").

(of course, it's a YMVV trope, so "failing" is not objectively defined)

Edited by Spark9 on Dec 14th 2020 at 3:53:38 AM

Audience-Alienating Premise is YMMV, but it was still agreed it needed commercial failure as proof due to rampant misuse. It's still YMMV as the cause is an audience reaction. (It was brought up it might fail for reasons unrelated to the premise, but I think it's better than what we had and I have never seen such false positives.)

But I really like "So Bleak, It's Boring". It better conveys the intended use (even those who do enjoy dark works find it uninteresting, the appealing things of a dark setting (action, dark comedy, emotional torque) are absent or don't permeate the darkness) and that if you are outraged at the work it's misuse as the trope means you don't have the emotional vestment in the work to be outraged. I'd be fine with not required proof it alienated if we go with this new definition. (Though it should have a disclaimer that if a work is long-running and successful, it's kept enough fans to not be an example unless it makes an effort to course correct.)

And about Angst Aversion. I've seen tropers removing True Art Is Angsty examples as In-Universe Examples Only. Is there any justification for Angst Aversion, which is the opposite and seems innately complaining, being allowed on pages? Answering that might explain how AA is supposed to be different from DIAA and prevent DIAA misuse from being moved to that trope.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Dec 17th 2020 at 12:38:52 PM

Technically no, Audience-Alienating Premise doesn't require the work to fail...it's just that it's the only possible way to confirm the premise did alienate people.

Just an idea.... should we have the usual folders for where a show is this for the entirety of its run, and one for specific seasons, or is this a bad idea?

I'd say no, because I have an inkling that people don't agree on which is which

I’ve seen it misused to the point of having to remove it from Zero Punctuation and Persona 5 (probably the most ridiculous misuse I’ve seen). I agree that it’s best to rename it to be a bit more specific about it being for works that are so dark and hopeless that there is no true conflict or point in caring about what happens to the characters rather than an excuse to rant about a work being too dark.

I agree with the name change to So Bleak, It's Boring.

Bump, I guess.

Changing the name to "So Bleak, It's Boring" is a fine compromise in my book.

Edited by Jokubas on Jan 12th 2021 at 6:21:37 AM

I like So Bleak, It's Boring.

I originally just said So Bleak, It's Boring is an improvement, but I'm giving a full-fledged vote for it now.

Rename.

Rename to So Bleak, It's Boring.

On another note, should we add "So X, It's Y" to the "snowclones that work" section of Everything's Worse with Snowclones?