Complaining: Bile Fascination

Bile Fascination is a trope about reviled works being watched by those who only want to see how bad they are. As could probably be told, it attracts a litany of complaining and ZCEs. While the trope does not allow on-page examples, off-page examples are allowed, and a wick check of 50 wicks done by myself and a few other tropers indicates the following:

26% of examples are used correctly

26% of examples are complaining

28% of examples are ZCEs

10% of examples are misused, and

10% were examples that were either unclear or we were uncertain about.

I personally think this trope should be made In-Universe Examples Only, as I believe this is a valid trope, just not one that should probably have real life examples allowed on account of the complaining and ZCEs. Alternatively, the comment in the complaining thread that led to me bringing this here suggested making it Flame Bait due to its similarities to Snark Bait, which was turned into Flame Bait itself. What should we do?

Opening this but also clocking, as the OP is a little so-so; it's not always clear what the distinction between complainy and correct examples is. OTOH going by the wick check it seems like there are a fair amount of In-Universe examples.

NVM

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 16th 2021 at 11:02:15 AM

So how is this distinct from So Bad, It's Good?

I not sure about the idea of turning it into In-Universe Examples Only while I can see the issues behind it the audience reaction of people checking out a work to see how bad it is a thing that happens quite a bit, I have personally experienced it a few times. I would say turning it into Flame Bait is probably the better idea at least in my opinion. Also, it's not like the trope is mostly being used for complaining it seems to be a split.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Feb 16th 2021 at 9:43:26 AM

So Bad, It's Good is “this work is so dumb and cheesy that it ends up being hilarious”.

Bile Fascination is “this work is so awful and stupid that you just have to see how bad it is”.

Essentially, Bile Fascination is being attracted to a work solely because of its poor quality, while So Bad, It's Good is being attracted to a work because it’s so bad that it ends up being entertaining for some people.

You know, that sounds like pretty much the exact same thing to me...

It's slightly different, though in ways that are hard to describe.

Bile Fascination is like wanting to peek at the car wreck you're driving past. You know you shouldn't and that it'll only upset you, but the curiosity can be overwhelming.

So Bad, It's Good is when a work becomes well-liked not for any actual good qualities, but for being so poorly made it's charming.

Bile Fascination might lead people to watch a So Bad, It's Good work, but they can just as easily watch something So Bad, It's Horrible.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 16th 2021 at 12:58:17 PM

Not really. For example, imagine we have two different films. One is Bro and Sis, a 2000s comedy film that has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes and often appears on “Worst Movies of All Time” lists. The other is Attack of the Zombie Clowns, a horror B-Movie from the 1980s.

Bro and Sis is Bile Fascination because people end up interested in it because they see how badly it’s received, and want to see just how bad it is for themselves. The audience watches the movie because they are expecting to hate it.

Attack of the Zombie Clowns is So Bad, It's Good because people end up interested in it because the narmy acting, ridiculous premise, and poor special effects make it entertaining in the wrong way. The audience watches the movie because they are expecting to find it entertaining because of its poor quality.

Edited by jandn2014 on Feb 16th 2021 at 1:09:52 PM

If I understand correctly, that's the difference between So Bad, It's Good and So Bad Its Horrible. I'm not sure how that shows BF as a clearly distinct trope.

to making it IUEO. It's the least restrictive thing we can do to it to prevent it from attracting complaining.

So should we make a crowner? Either Flame Bait or IUEO?

I think that sounds like a good idea.

Alright, the crowner has been made. I will holler to hook.

Alright so both of the crowner options are getting downvoted. I'm curious—what other options would anyone suggest for fixing this trope, if any? I'm willing to add them to the crowner if need be.

If I may ask, what exactly distinguishes correct use of Bile Fascination from "complaining"?

I'll be bluntly honest, I was confused as well. When I did the wick check I wasn't very experienced yet with wick checks, as I was (and still am) very new to the forums.

Generally I distinguish complaining from non-complaining through language. Is the entry neutrally describing people watching something for being bad, or is it agreeing with people watching something for being bad?

Unfortunately I'm still not entirely sure what to do here either. Perhaps I should not have started this thread. Unless anyone else has any idea what to do. Any ideas?

Complaining isn't necessarily "misuse", it's just...well, using the trope to bash.

I think what I should have done was figured out what "correct" usage would be. I'm still confused TBH. I don't even really see where this thread could go, I'm just holding on in case anyone has any ideas, which isn't looking likely on account of my badly-done wick check. I don't want to prematurely call for this thread to be closed, but I don't really see what we could do here. Could we even do anything?

We should at least discuss the trope more before creating a crowner.

Ah, OK. I should have waited to do the crowner, I got that.

So any other ideas?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 16th 2021 at 10:59:50 AM

What exactly is the difference between this and Snark Bait (whose description references Bile Fascination), which was made Flame Bait due to it being used as a less strict version of So Bad, It's Horrible?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 16th 2021 at 10:45:37 AM

Yeah, that's another one it's redundant with. Honestly, we should just merge this; keeping it separate over a technical or nitpicky distinction with a different complainy/flamebait page is not helping us any.

Bile Fascination is about the Audience Reaction and Snark Bait about the work it's aimed at, I believe.

As for the crowner...yeah, I am thinking we are not quite ready for one. Besides, the "what is correct use" question. Imma not hook it.

If this is redundant with So Bad, It's Good, So Bad, It's Horrible, and Snark Bait, do we need it at all? We previously cut Hypocritical Fandom completely because it was redundant with Fan Dumb and Hate Dumb, as opposed to making it Flame Bait.

Edit: Also, the Snark Bait thread established that in-universe examples of Snark Bait were already covered by MST.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 17th 2021 at 6:17:02 AM