- Consensus was to rename Cool Loser to Unconvincingly Unpopular Character, make it YMMV, and define and rewrite it to refer to when a character is treated as a loser in-universe, despite having many positive traits / averting the vast majority of loser traits, to the point that it threatens the Willing Suspension of Disbelief, as described in this post
.
- Clean up on-page examples.
- Clean up wicks. Off-page examples are only allowed on YMMV pages.
A name like Hollywood Unpopular or Hollywood Uncool would get the idea across of attempting to portray uncoolness but failing at it, unless "Hollywood X" is something this website is moving away from.
- ZCE/Pothole 21/50 (42%)
- Cool with "uncool" trait 11/50 (22%)
- Correct 8/50 (16%)
- Defines loser as not winning 3/50 (6%)
- Others 8/50 (16%)
Wick check:
1. Protagonists
- Portfolios:
- Daria averts or even inverts this—Jane is ticked at both her boyfriend Tom and her best friend Daria when they kiss, but forgives Tom fairly quickly, accepting his apology and the fact that their relationship was on the rocks anyway. She is considerably more hurt by Daria's betrayal, though, which takes most of a TV movie to repair. Jane had spent some time afraid about some Unresolved Sexual Tension going on between Daria and Tom and had been acting rather neurotic about it. The episode where Daria and Tom kissed started off with Jane forcing Daria to help her dye her hair and then blew up when it turned into a disaster, yelling that Daria did it on purpose to steal Tom even though Daria repeatedly stated she wasn't any good at dying hair. After apologizing about her paranoia and moving past her suspicions, Jane got thrown through a loop when Daria admitted she kissed Tom after she stated she had no intentions of going after him. Jane's hurt came from fearing Daria was planning to steal Tom, assured she wasn't, and then told to her face that Daria made out with him the very day after they settled the matter.
3. Loserz
4. Spoof Aesop
- Daria is prone to giving sarcastic summaries of an episode's morals, even if there is an actual moral buried within an episode.
Daria: Yeah. Look, why don't you just come back with us?
Jane: I don't know. Some kind of dumb-ass notion about seeing this through, I guess. Anyway, it's just another two weeks and then we'll be back at school! ...Wait, what's my point?
Daria: That life sucks no matter what, so don't be fooled by location changes.
5. Locke & Key
- Cool Loser: Scot Kavanaugh and Jamal Saturday.
- Marty and Doc in the Back to the Future trilogy are as close as a old scientist and a teenage Cool Loser can be. Perhaps Marty sees Doc as a grandfather figure?
%% * Cool Loser
- Daria:
- During the first three seasons Jane Lane shipped her older brother Trent with her best friend Daria. Of course, at the same time, she also takes great amusement in watching Daria get embarrassed in front of her brother.
- In "Write Where It Hurts", Daria's last story has her sister Quinn married to Jaime, one of her three constant suitors, while in another story Jesse is apparently dating Jane. Of course, yet another story had Jane/Kevin in a Graduate Homage Shot (with Kevin as Elaine), so these probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.
10. Camp Rock
%%* CoolLoser: Mitchie and Caitlyn
11. The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life
- Just ask Cally Stone of Dark Oracle about this one. Every potential relationship she has (and most of her friendships) get torpedoed by her attempts at dealing with the comic book that has taken over her life. Conversely, her brother Lance, and his best friend Dizzy, probably wouldn't have dating lives if the comic hadn't forced them together with their respective girlfriends.
12. Made Myself Sad
- On Daria, Jane comments on Daria's disbelief in a higher power:
"You know what's bothering you? You're afraid that it's true. That the Quinns of the world fit in so well because something really is looking out for them. Everything's already been decided, they win, you lose, and whatever you do doesn't matter because the end is fixed. So, why even bother?" (Beat) "God, I'm depressed."
13. Hi-Fi RUSH
- Spiritual Successor:
- Due to the cel-shading, character action gameplay and a goofy, Cool Loser protagonist that likes to show off, many have seen similarities to this and Viewtiful Joe, another game overseen by Shinji Mikami.
14. Live-Action TV
- The Secret World of Alex Mack: Played semi-straight with the Mack sisters. Older sister Annie is the textbook smart one, often called a super-genius, and while Alex is average or Cool Loser rather than pretty or popular, she has several friends while Annie has none. They bicker a lot, and Alex is often jealous of Annie's success, but they can't ever stay on seriously bad terms; Annie is Alex's Secret-Keeper and the only one who comes close to understanding how Alex's powers work.
15. Hearing Voices
- Discussed in Daria:
Jake: Hey, kiddo, how was your day?
Daria: Fine. I heard a new voice inside my head and Kevin stole a test, so everyone's getting an "F."
Jake: That's great!
Helen: (holds hand over phone) Daria, you were just kidding about the voice, right?
Daria: Relax...we don't have to answer that.- Also comes up in "Lucky Strike":
Ms. Li: (over P.A.) Students of Lawndale High, your attention, please.
Jane: Is that the voice in my head that tells me to kill and kill again?
Daria: No. Satan's voice is lower and he has an English accent.
16. Lockie Leonard
%% * Cool Losers: Lockie and Egg.
17-19. BoJack Horseman - The Main Group's Social Circles
- Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Played With. She's most definitely this with Allison Flierl, the school's resident nerd. However, Allison, judging by comments, is more of a Cool Loser and Penny, while higher in the social hierarchy, is not that popular. After two months and being with the cool kids, Penny eventually denies being friends with her at all, putting the state of their current relationship in question.
- Friendship Favoritism: While Penny is smart enough to know better than choose sides, she's passive and insecure enough to embrace the relationships that will make her life better and have a perception of life she'd like. This has backfired on her in several occasions:
- Pre-Time Skip, she was often implied to be good friends with Alison Flierl, the school resident Cool Loser, much to the chagrin of the popular clique like Maddy Ginsburg. Seeing the chances of raising in status fly by, Penny distanced herself from Alison, preferring to hang with Maddy, even neglecting any time spent together with Alison. Post-Time Skip, Penny denies ever being friends with Alison to Maddy as they head to the prom. As they never speak directly neither before or during the prom, it's dubious if they remained in touch, but it's clear they're not as close as they used to be.
- We Used to Be Friends: With Allison Flierl, the school's Cool Loser. Judging by the conversation Penny has with Maddy after the Time Skip, she would prefer if Allison was never mentioned and denies ever having contact with her.
20. Informed Loner
Compare Cool Loser and Hollywood Dateless.
- The Daria website describes Casa Lane as the house where siblings Jane and Trent "were raised. By each other." It's not entirely true, but their parents are usually off in some foreign country and their older siblings (all moved out by the time the show takes place) are all dysfunctional in some way, leaving Jane and Trent alone to try to stabilize each other. (Trent is older, but Jane is probably the more responsible of the two.)
- Cool Loser: He's good-looking, strong, athletic and something of a chick magnet in school, but this falls apart because of his antisocial nature, numerous misunderstandings, and sheer idiocy.
2. Falling
- Cool Loser: Frisk has everything that anyone would look for in a friend. But her fear of magic alienates her from society.
3. Gronk
- Cool Loser: Dale. Although in her case, it's not so much that she lacks social skills as she lives way out in the sticks. Not exactly uncool, but a reasonable damper to a social life
4. Clone High
- Cool Loser: Tall, friendly, athletic, fairly handsome-looking, and is the clone of one of the most respected presidents, but not very high on the social hierarchy. If it wasn't for being so awkward and insecure he'd have no trouble winning the respect of his classmates.
5. Persona 5: Sumire Yoshizawa
- Cool Loser: In spite of being an attractive young woman, an accomplished gymnast and an honor student, most of Kasumi's fellow Shujin students treat her with scorn. This is Justified to some extent: her classmates are jealous because they don’t think she’s talented enough to receive special treatment and the higher ups feel she’s also not bringing the results they need in order to fix the school’s damaged reputation. So apparently talented, but not talented enough
- Cool Loser: Inverted. Osamu seems like typical bully pickings—nerdy and awkward—but once his status as a Border agent is revealed, he becomes something of an idol and the school bullies promptly begin avoiding him. '''Inverts this concept as the "cool trait" cancels out the "uncool".
- Cool Loser: The Reject Five are attractive students (and Oka is quite wealthy) but they're all targets of ridicule because of a weird personality quirk that keeps them from being popular. In Kanade's case, it's the strange things Absolute Choice makes him do.
- Cool Loser: He started off being one of these, despite being the most skilled human student at DWMA due to his overbearing ego and grandstanding repulsing onlookers. He was seen as loud and annoying despite his skills and had no friends until Tsubaki came to greet him.
- Cool Loser: Becomes a complete outcast after losing her wealth, to the point of initially having no friends to hang out with and Eating Lunch Alone. This is despite still having her good looks, fashion sense, athletic skills, and social skills. She slowly veers into the Cool Loser archetype after developing a much nicer, more laid-back personality (at least as a high school girl and not putting her villainous side in consideration), but still remains unpopular and shunned, likely because her days as a nasty Alpha Bitch left everyone giving her the cold shoulder.Once mean, and people are not willing to forgive
11. Loser Deity
See also God Is Flawed which can lead to this. Subtrope of Cool Loser, with the "cool" part of being a deity.
1. Lady Bird
- Cool Loser: She is an attractive and strong-willed schoolgirl who nonetheless begins the film on the outside of the popular social scene. Over the course of her senior year, she starts dating people in cooler cliques.
- Cool Loser: Especially towards the end of the series, when he loses weight and becomes better looking, on top of maintaining a steady relationship with a pretty girlfriend, a consistent circle of friends, and a prosperous academic career. Even when he's more attractive, charismatic, and successful, he's still treated like a loser by the rest of the cast.
- Cool Loser: A classic one, as per usual of teen superheroes; Danny is outgoing, funny, dresses normally, acts normally, is intelligent (although lazy and, as previously mentioned, Book Dumb), and as far as you can tell with the art style, fairly attractive. His only real problems include being a bit awkward with girls and ending up in strange situations in public due to his superhero activity. Yet, for some reason, the entire school seems to treat him like the nerd plague. It could be because Sam and Tucker are highly unpopular, but in real life, he would certainly have more than just two friends, even if he does hang out with two "weird" kids. Admittedly though, his parents aren't doing him any favors either.
4. Tall Girl
- Cool Loser: Jodi is a rich, attractive, smart, and talented girl who has a caring family, two loyal friends, and three boys falling in love with her. She's still portrayed as a loser who has been bullied since childhood because of her only flaw: she's too tall.
5. X-Men Film Series: X-Men (New Timeline)
- Cool Loser: In X-Men: Apocalypse, he has a moment of self-deprecation when he calls himself a "total loser," and the rest of the X-Men chuckle with him (and not at him). They barely know Peter, but they are already beginning to like him.
6. The Nostalgia Critic S 12 E 22
- Cool Loser: In the words of the Critic, many of the supposed losers who are the heroes of this type of movies would be super popular in real life.
7. Tony Zaret
- Cool Loser: Treated by Jongulo like a cringe, out-of-touch simp. To most viewers, he comes across as a nice, successful family man whose content is at worst a little dorky; but who's overall more successful and happy than Jongulo and co.
8. Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy
- Played straight in A Cinderella Story. Supposedly dorky and unattractive Sam (Hilary Duff in a baseball cap) likes the Big Man on Campus and quarterback.
- Cool Loser: Dave used to have 0 platinum trophies. And he had 0 problems with that. Because it's so easy to get a platinum from playing a Telltale game, he probably did this intentionally.
2. Jon Moxley
- Cool Loser: Ambrose is no doubt one of the more entertaining, charismatic superstars on the roster and has put on some hard-hitting, entertaining matches with the likes of Seth Rollins, Wade Barrett and Bray Wyatt... but he didn't win a single PPV match or come out on top of a feud in between the Shield dissolved in June 2014 (or, if you count his time as a singles competitor in The Shield, since Night of Champions 2013, where he beat Kofi Kingston to retain his United States Championship) until Extreme Rules 2015 in April 2015, where he defeated Luke Harper in a Chicago Street Fight. Granted, a few of those PPV losses have been due to being screwed at the end somehow. Only Wyatt really ended their feud clean. Finally, officially, subverted at TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs 2015 when he won the Intercontinental Championship from one Kevin Owens, his first championship since he held the United States Championship while still in the Shield. This was further subverted after he won the WWE Championship and pinned both Roman and Seth clean in the space of the week to retain the title and win the blowoff to The Shield break-up storyline that had been going on for two years.
- Cool Loser: Not the strongest and the smartest team but they have big heart and defend their friends.
1. Literature
- Jessica Darling is prone to leaving out things she doesn't want to talk about, making conjectures with absolute certainty that turn out to be entirely false, and of course talking at length about how ugly and unpopular she is while people are constantly praising her and boys fawning over her. She's not entirely unaware of it, though; at one point she flat out wonders how she can be so incapable of ignoring anything even if she'd be happier not seeing it, yet at the same time completely miss so much. Another character tells her that while she is indeed quite perceptive, she's also prone to making up her mind about what people are like and refusing to believe that they could ever change. Character see themselves as unpopular despite not being
- Cool Loser: This is sometimes possible to achieve via a combination of artistic or musical merit with little else redeeming in one's life and a lack of responsibility that is read as being a "bad boy" rather than helpless or pathetic. That said, it doesn't work for most people because they won't be seen as cool bad but rather irresponsible and deserving of shame. Seems genuinely pathetic with a desperate attempt to seem cool
- Jaded Washout: Hodges is an interesting case. The description of him states that he returned from a brutal battle in Vietnam and “became a cynic” graduating 67th in his law school class at Georgetown Lawnote , has lost more cases than he won, and is two weeks from retirement. But he made Colonel, implying a highly successful career as a JAG attorney, and is shown to be well-liked by other marines during his retirement party.
4-5. Regular Show Main Characters Both examples seem to be "cool" despite their "loser" traits.
- Cool Loser: He's not popular amongst the crowd, or super successful, but he's still a cool guy amongst his friends, and the audience.
- Cool Loser: He's incompetent and incredibly lazy, but has some good style.
6-7. Saved by the Bell: The New Class
- Contrasting Replacement Character: She replaces Rachel (in the group and as Ryan's Love Interest) but, as lampshaded in-universe, she's her opposite: Rachel was a popular, confident shopaholic, Liz is an insecure Cool Loser who is more interested in sports than fashion.
- Cool Loser: In early season 5. In "Football & Physics", she has trouble fitting in with the other girls, just because she has different interests. Also, despite being as conventionally pretty as the other girls, she has never been on a date (at least before Ryan) and the others are surprised when two boys are fighting over her.
8. Turn of the Millennium - Live-Action Films
- Mean Girls.
- The portrayal of the Ambiguously Gay Cool Losers Janis and Damian illustrates the prevalent attitudes towards LGBT people among teenagers at the time. Regina suspecting that Janis was a lesbian was enough to get her to kick Janis out of her social circle and spread rumors about her sexuality, leading to her present outcast status, while the Plastics list Janis in the Burn Book as a "dyke" (a term that wouldn't be acceptable after 2010) and Damian as "too gay to function". This sort of casual homophobia on their part was shown as a sign of their Alpha Bitch tendencies even in 2004, but characters with such tendencies in 2014 would be portrayed as downright bigoted rather than merely callous, given that nowadays homophobia is seen by teenage girls as roughly on a par with racism, at least in the American Midwest where the film is set. It illustrates how, while tolerance of LGBT people had come a long way from the teen movies of The '80s where such attitudes were often treated as normal and went without comment, full equality and acceptance was still several steps away (this was the year when Massachusetts became the first US state to legalize same-sex marriage, an occasion that sparked controversy and moral panic), and being gay, or even Mistaken for Gay, could make somebody an outcast. Reason for loser status part of Values Dissonance.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 10th 2023 at 5:07:40 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Opened.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
So, reading the description, I don't think the Cool Loser is supposed to be viewed as uncool. If anything, it's the opposite — they want the audience to like them, so they give them traits that would typically make them popular or at least well liked in real life, but then have them be at the bottom of the food chain anyway. It's a way to make an unpopular protagonist without having to sacrifice traditional beauty standards, and badassery, and comedy, and friend groups, and romance, and all that stuff.
In other words, it's not the same as something like Hollywood Homely, as that expects the audience to believe the character in question is "ugly" no matter how attractive they actually are — in this trope, the audience isn't expected to actually see the character as a loser, aside from the objective fact that other characters see them as one.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 3rd 2023 at 1:58:24 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I'm not sure if the OP has the right idea behind the trope. The description says that it "is when a character who is smart, funny, fashionable and good looking is portrayed as being much less popular than they would be in real life" rather than it being about a supposed loser who is actually cool. I kind of wonder if this should be YMMV due to the "less popular than they would be in real life" part since it sounds like whether they'd be popular in real life would be open to interpretation; Hollywood Homely is already YMMV. Not decided on whether to rename, though.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 3rd 2023 at 1:03:31 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
Eh, but then the description goes onto admit that this can happen IRL due to the fact that people can be socially ostracized for damn near anything, and basically kids can be bullied for something as simple as "the popular kids felt threatened by them". Real world popularity isn't something we can put objective "would be / would not be" markers on.
The trope seems objective to me — it's a "loser" who has no real justification for being one, lacking any traits stereotypically associated with losers in media. And maybe that will end up lumping it in with the "lack of a trait" ex-tropes, but my point is that I don't think this concept is actually subjective. I suppose the argument is that what's considered a "loser trait" isn't something that can be gathered from the work itself, but it stands as a contrast to things like Stereotypical Nerd.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 3rd 2023 at 2:06:34 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I understand the idea behind the trope ("a character is given many good qualities to attract audience sympathy, but is treated as unpopular to make them the narrative underdog of the setting"), but I do lean towards the opinion that "this character should have been more popular than they are if they were in real life" can't really be measured objectively.
I think that sentiment might already covered by Unpopular Popular Character though.
Edited by Adept on Jun 4th 2023 at 11:04:59 PM
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
That, too. Which is why I prefer to focus on the "no justification for being a loser" aspect and less on the "unrealistically unpopular" aspect. Well, that, and the other stuff I brought up in my last post.
Admittedly, I do feel like this trope is mixing together several character archetypes under one banner. I know that in the past, I've seen examples for both Danny Fenton (a geeky boy with weird parents and lame friends) and Alex Russo (a snarky rebel who actively seems to oppose stereotypical popularity), only on the basis that neither are unattractive or weird or something.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 3rd 2023 at 2:11:09 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I'm not sure it is - there's a fair of Unpopular Popular Character types ("funny Jerkass" is a big one) where it's actually pretty obvious why a character would be likeable only to people who know they're fictional, not people who'd actually interact with them in real life. It doesn't by any means require the Informed Attribute part that's an essential aspect of Cool Loser's current definition.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I think the problem with relying on "no justification for being a loser" (and why this trope is basically YMMV) is that there really isn't a strict criteria for what does or does not qualify as a "loser". That's why Loser Archetype is an index and not a singularly defined trope. Some characters get treated as a loser for who they are, others for what they are, others for what they do, and even more still for who they're related to/associated with. All of those are legitimate justifications because what's cool/what's not cool is socially defined and context specific anyways. Whether or not the audience is going to find a particular character's treatment for being a loser "justified" is similarly going to vary. As will whether or not they'll find their other traits "cool". They're both subjective.
This reminds me of Hollywood Nerd which was another trope related to Informed Attribute, in that case "this character is meant to be read as a nerd but they don't exhibit enough nerdy qualities (particularly they're too good looking to be a nerd)". That trope was disambiguated.
Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 4th 2023 at 6:50:26 AM
Professional Wick Checker
I think the trope should be YMMV... for now though but if I look too deeper into it I might change my mind.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I kind of wonder if we should disambiguate this between Informed Attribute, Loser Archetype, and Unpopular Popular Character. As previously mentioned, Hollywood Nerd was a similar trope, and it was disambiguated.
If we keep this, I do agree with what was said about the "no justification for being a loser" part being subjective, and I think the lack of a strict criteria for what counts as a loser adds to the subjectivity. Maybe renaming to something like Hollywood Loser or Hollywood Unpopular and making this YMMV (possibly also clarifying the description) would be an option, or maybe even keeping the name the same while making it YMMV.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 4th 2023 at 9:22:25 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Briefly looking at the examples, I think the concept here is "The show expects the viewers to see this guy as cool, despite other characters treating him like a loser". If we're using the "what the show expects" angle, we can keep this as an objective trope.
Maybe something like Unpopular Cool Guy, or Cool But Unpopular would be better?
Edited by TrueShadow1 on Jun 4th 2023 at 9:48:43 PM
"The show expects the viewers to see this guy as cool, despite other characters treating him like a loser" I'm just not sure how you measure that in a consistent way for people to trope outside of YMMV. Having positive traits (friendly, physically attractive, smart, etc. These are what come up most frequently in a wick check) is not the same as being "cool". And being "cool" is not quite the same as being popular, though the two often go together. See every hipster ever, before being a hipster became meme'd into uncoolness itself.
The only way I can think of is if the character is being seen through the protagonist's / narrator's / some other characters eyes. Because then you'd have their narration / internal dialogue / commentary that would label them as cool despite being considered a loser. But I don't see many examples like this in the wick check.
Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 4th 2023 at 11:46:17 AM
Maybe we can just take the Hollywood Beauty Standards (of course our protagonist at the bottom of Popularity Food Chain is going to be good-looking and fashionable) out of the equation and just have it be about socially unpopular protagonists (done so the audience can root for them), unless there's something that covers that already?
Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 4th 2023 at 11:08:18 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I agree that that's still subjective without Word of God conformation regarding an Intended Audience Reaction.
I do feel that attractiveness isn't really an important part of the definition since it's not inherently related to popularity (it can lead to popularity, but it's not the only thing that can do that), so I don't have a problem with removing that part and leaving it about how popular a character is in the work vs. how popular someone like that would be in real life, though I feel leaving everything else would keep it subjective for reasons that have been previously mentioned.
Edit: Misread the above post originally. I reread it and adjusted my response accordingly.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 4th 2023 at 11:49:43 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
I do get what everyone is saying, as what counts as a "loser trait" and a "cool trait" may be up for interpretation. I still personally think that much of this can be observed objectively (character gets bullied, but lacks any stereotypically "nerdy" traits), but I do realize that even if we go based on the lack of a stereotype instead of focusing on the presence of "cool" traits that:
- Most tropes involving a lack of a thing suffer from problems and end up cut or retooled
- The trope remains bloated, and full of characters who have no commonality outside of being bullied
Now, I do still think there's something to this trope that makes it different from the other tropes mentioned, namely the intention of the creator. People keep bringing up Unpopular Popular Character and various Informed Attribute tropes, but I firmly believe that this trope is not about a creator trying and failing to make a "loser" character. It is absolutely about a creator who intentionally avoids making their character seem uncool while still giving them an underdog status. There's nothing inherently subjective about this definition, and their status as a school loser isn't "informed" — it's always a fact that they're at the bottom of their school's pyramid, even if there's no "valid" reason why. The creator isn't trying to actually make us believe they deserve this status, though, so there's no "mistake" being made when it comes to the audience asking "wait, WHY are they being bullied?".
...Unfortunately, that definition is hard to base a trope out of, and I understand why people see this as subjective. I do think a subjective version would be different than UPC though; one is about how much the audience likes the character, and another is the audience believing the character is too cool to be bullied IRL.
At the very least I could see us breaking this apart and focusing more on the character archetypes that seem very common. Beyond the Ordinary Highschool Student types, one character type that seems to pop up a lot is the edgy, alternative rebel girl who may be seen as a "freak" by the Alpha Bitch types. I'm talking Alex, Stevie, ANOTHER Stevie, etc. IDK if we have anything for this archetype beyond Ice Queen (which is also under debate right now in Trope Talk), but these characters are commonly put under Cool Loser for being "cool" in the "edgy rebellious badass" sense of the word.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 4th 2023 at 12:56:46 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I hear the point you're making. if we're just defining loserdom by "not being popular" then yes that is something you can point to in the work as objective. But it goes back to what is deemed justifiable. I think we're viewing it differently. Justified in the eyes of the audience is obvs YMMV. Justified in terms of the work however, is objective and all it really comes down to is "does the work give a reason for this character's loser treatment". And if the work wants to deliberately make the point of "regardless of the reason it's unwarranted", it's going to need to offer counterperspectives within the narrative to make that argument, going back to my point from before.
hmmmmmm, maybe this can be retooled into something like The Social Outcasts, for characters who aren't necessarily loners (they have maybe one or two friends) but the work makes it clear that they are on the outskirts of the Popularity Food Chain. Coolness is neither here nor there, so much as it is that they aren't really a part of any main clique, which keeps them away from all of the negatives of identifiable loser groups (geeks, nerds, butt monkeys, etc) but also keeps them from all of the positives from the easily identifiable popular cliques. Though I'm not sure how different in practice that would be from Loners Are Freaks and we'd still be defining a trope less by what it is and more by what it's not.
idk, I still think our best bets are to either make this YMMV or disambiguate, but i'll see what others think.
Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 4th 2023 at 1:54:20 PM
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
Yeah, I agree; I'm definitely taking a more "according to the work's logic" approach and less of an audience perspective since IDRK if that's NEEDED here. But, it's also a generally nebulous concept no matter how you go about it. There does seem to be some trends, though:
- The character usually has much nerdier friends, who contrasts them by being an understandable, "expected" target of abuse. Sometimes it's implied that this status is solely because of the people this character surrounds themselves with.
- The character tends to be easily capable of getting dates, making friends, and moving up the social latter when they try... so often it's implied that they don't actually try, or are being kept in line by the bullying when they would otherwise be fine.
- The character, while lacking stereotypically "nerdy" traits, also doesn't have many stereotypical "popular" traits. They're rarely rich, or athletic, or charismatic. They may be awesome or talented in other areas, but those aren't the areas that are inherently going to make someone popular (such as being a musician in some cases, or having secret superpowers in others).
- They may be a target for one specific bully, rather than an entire school hating them. This essentially means that one popular character has it out for them in particular for reasons, while also justifying why they're not otherwise a "loser" — they were simply singled out.
I do think that a "social outcast" trope or similar, for characters who don't really fit into conventional popularity norms (often due to a distinct lack of caring about popularity and fitting in) may be worth exploring. It definitely is the archetype that stands out the most in this trope's pool of concepts, compared to the examples that are just "Bob is really nice, not ugly, and is often very funny, but Charlie still gives him wedgies every day".
Another trope that might be valid is something for the bully's chosen target, where they may be mean to everyone but tend to pick on one character in particular, not in a Bully Magnet sense but in a more personal "one bully signals out one character to torment" way.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
the Retromancer
The description to me reads like "A character is a Bully Magnet because/despite they are successful and attractive" and not YMMV at all.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
that assumes being attractive and successful disqualify you from being a Bully Magnet which is far from the case (plenty of straight examples of Bully Magnet are of people being bullied by others jealous of their success and attractiveness). If that's what the trope is, then it's redundant with Bully Magnet. But I don't think that's what the trope is going for, tbh.
Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 4th 2023 at 3:26:06 PM
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
Like I pointed out above, this trope isn't even unrealistic because attractive, well-adjusted, "cool" people do end up a target of bullying for the pettiest of reasons.
Granted, in fiction it's definitely expected for a bullying target to "deserve" that status in some way, either for being a massive nerd, a wimp, shy, socially awkward, ugly, poor, etc. But that definitely doesn't mean that not being these things would somehow exempt someone from bullying, especially in more modern works with a more realistic take on bullying.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I'm starting to wonder if this should be taken to Trope Talk because of all the disagreement over the definition. Clocking for now due to the clarity issues (regardless of whether it gets taken to Trope Talk).
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
TBH I think this should go to Trope Talk if clarity issues are afoot.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
I think the biggest hurdle right now is figuring out how we're meant to define "loser", "cool", and the ways these things can be determined (objectively or not).
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
That, and the OP didn't provide any suggestions for courses of action on top of not having much text in general.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Crown Description:
Cool Loser is being renamed and made YMMV (the latter because of this clash between how the work and its audience regard the character), and its definition is being retooled to be for a character who is treated as a loser in-universe, despite having many positive traits and/or averting numerous loser traits. What should Cool Loser's new name be?
A name like Hollywood Unpopular or Hollywood Uncool would get the idea across of attempting to portray uncoolness but failing at it, unless "Hollywood X" is something this website is moving away from.
Wick check:
1. Protagonists
2. Western Animation
3. Loserz
4. Spoof Aesop
Jane: I don't know. Some kind of dumb-ass notion about seeing this through, I guess. Anyway, it's just another two weeks and then we'll be back at school! ...Wait, what's my point?
Daria: That life sucks no matter what, so don't be fooled by location changes.
5. Locke & Key
6. Odd Friendship
7. Gravity Falls Rule 63
%% * Cool Loser
8. Western Animation
9. Total Blended Drama
10. Camp Rock
%%* CoolLoser: Mitchie and Caitlyn
11. The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life
12. Made Myself Sad
13. Hi-Fi RUSH
14. Live-Action TV
15. Hearing Voices
Daria: Fine. I heard a new voice inside my head and Kevin stole a test, so everyone's getting an "F."
Jake: That's great!
Helen: (holds hand over phone) Daria, you were just kidding about the voice, right?
Daria: Relax...we don't have to answer that.
Jane: Is that the voice in my head that tells me to kill and kill again?
Daria: No. Satan's voice is lower and he has an English accent.
16. Lockie Leonard
%% * Cool Losers: Lockie and Egg.
17-19. BoJack Horseman - The Main Group's Social Circles
20. Informed Loner
Compare Cool Loser and Hollywood Dateless.
21.Western Animation
1. School Rumble
2. Falling
3. Gronk
4. Clone High
5. Persona 5: Sumire Yoshizawa
6. World Trigger Tamakoma 2
7. My Mental Choices Are...
8. Soul Eater Spartoi
10. Danny Phantom Others
11. Loser Deity
See also God Is Flawed which can lead to this. Subtrope of Cool Loser, with the "cool" part of being a deity.
1. Lady Bird
2.Drake & Josh
3. Danny Phantom Team Phantom
4. Tall Girl
5. X-Men Film Series: X-Men (New Timeline)
6. The Nostalgia Critic S 12 E 22
7. Tony Zaret
8. Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy
1. PlayStation Access
2. Jon Moxley
3. Freaks' Squeele
1. Literature
2. TruthInTelevision.A To C
3. Rules of Engagement
4-5. Regular Show Main Characters Both examples seem to be "cool" despite their "loser" traits.
6-7. Saved by the Bell: The New Class
8. Turn of the Millennium - Live-Action Films
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 10th 2023 at 5:07:40 AM