rheikar beniah amorey

[Ranee Wates]

Sometimes a character is shown to be competent, maybe even heroic and badass. But that's not what they're remembered most for. Instead, they become remembered for their supposed "lameness". The fandom flanderizes that one time the character made a stupid mistake or got defeated in a shameful way, to the point that as far as the fandom is concerned they're a complete weakling who cannot defeat an insect.

Maybe a parody version of the character is more well-known than the character themselves to begin with. Maybe the character is weak or unskilled at the beginning of a series, but gains more skills and goes through Character Development later after the character's initial portrayal had already burned its way into most peoples' minds. Or they have moments of triumph and failure, but the failures are remembered better because they are more plot-relevant or otherwise stand out more. However it happened the character's "lameness" undergoes Memetic Mutation and they reach Butt-Monkey status within Fanon. Expect no one to care because it's funny.

In video games, particularly games with fan-tiered characters, this can happen to characters that are perceived as low-tier characters. Going into a multiplayer game with one of these can easily lead to mockery or even getting booted just for picking a character seen as weak, even if you're skilled enough to make excellent use of the character's abilities. Maybe the character is Difficult, but Awesome, but people only focus on the "Difficult" elements because the majority of people who use that character don't quite get a good grip on their potential. Or maybe the character is good and doesn't need hundreds of hours to be good at, but people still think the character is garbage for whatever reason.

Occasionally, the character may also be depicted as The Woobie because people also feel sorry for the character, and may end up as the Fan of Underdog. A Memetic Loser can actually become very popular as a loser if their Fanon characterization is amusing or sympathetic enough.

Contrast Memetic Badass (which, despite being the exact opposite of this trope, can often be applied to the very same characters as an ironic joke, just as a Memetic Badass can themselves be flipped to become a Memetic Loser), Watch It for the Meme (for when it's something bad enough to draw people in). Compare What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway? (which is a possible cause of this trope being in effect), Not Badass Enough for Fans, Butt-Monkey, The Scrappy, Low-Tier Letdown, and Never Live It Down. Super-Trope of Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys.

Advertising

• The "spokespuppet" mascot of the defunct online petshop Pets.com. Due to the store being the most high-profile victim of the dot-com bubble, their mascot is often used as the poster-child for the crash.

Jokes

• Not even superheroes are exempt from this:"Riches, fame, and physical development don't change the fact that you're still a grown man living in his parents' basement, Master Bruce."

Mythology and Religion

• Goliath from The Bible is only remembered as that abnormally large and heavily armored soldier who was easily killed by David, who was roughly half his size, far less experienced, and had practically nothing save for a sling and a rock. And, y'know, literally God's help on his side, but who cares?

Professional Wrestling

• Thanks to a screwjob finish, The Spider Lady became one. Originally managed by the Fabulous Moolah, Moolah would take the Spider Lady's mask after her "charge" failed to defeat Wendi Richter and "won" the belt from Richter herself, after which an incensed Richter, who had kicked out at one, unmasked Moolah. The original Spider Lady faded into obscurity and the gimmick would only be used by jobbers for the next 30 years.
• Unfortunately for the Wildcat Chris Harris of an otherwise well remembered incarnation of America's Most Wanted with James Storm, Braden Walker is largely remembered for his much more stellar career.
• Kevin Nash tends to mostly be remembered for the time he tore his quad on Raw while walking across the ring. He's hardly the only person to have suffered such an injury (Triple H has had multiple quad tears and Vince McMahon managed to tear both his quads in one night), his massive unpopularity with the Smart Marks made sure he never lived it down. Now the fandom is convinced anything he does will cause his quad to tear.
• Sin Cara, after botching one too many times during his tenure, has become synonymous with the word.
• As much as he is both loved and respected by fans, Sting falls here. Between his reputation as "The Dumbest Man in Wrestling"note Because he was betrayed by all of his allies, with Ric Flair double crossing him at least twiceand rarely, if ever, winning any feud he was in, he has been firmly categorized as this.
• Kelly Kelly was, at worst, average in the ring, but fans often focus only on her earlier performances, exaggerated her weaknesses (such as being unable to properly run the ropes) and if you ask these fans why women's wrestling declined at the end of the 2000s, chances are that they blame her for it.
• Ashley Massaro has it even worse than Kelly. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single Smart Mark or diva fan that is a fan of hers and doesn't blame her for kickstarting the decline in women's wrestling (she came along before Kelly, right around the same time that fan favorites Lita and Trish Stratus retired). While she was hardly the only factor, she seems to get a fair share of the blame mostly due to how hard she was pushed and how little training she had been given. Diva Dirt writers loved mocking her. Though opinions on her have likely softened in light of her suicide in 2019.
• Becky Lynch. Not with her ring ability, but rather just her downright terrible luck with allies. Becky is infamous over the fact that the poor woman cannot keep a friend to save her life leading to her being compared to Sting with the amount of unfair backstabbing she is going through. Then La Luchadora (the Luchador Becky disguised herself on to fight Alexa Bliss) is impersonated by an unknown person (later revealed to be Mickie James) and distracts Becky to cause her to lose against Alexa Bliss, which basically means Becky was betrayed technically by herself.
• Rosa Mendes is universally agreed to have been the most useless Diva on WWE's roster, especially since she was employed for nine years (eleven if you count her time in developmental). She was used as a jobber, only receiving one televised win and that was via DQ. Based on this information, it isn't really "memetic" though.
• Marty Jannetty. Despite once being half of one of the greatest tag teams of all time, along with being a former Intercontinental and Tag Team Champion, Jannetty will be forever known as being "the untalented guy who was completely overshadowed by his former partner and fell into obscurity after the team broke up." Any wrestler who ends up on the bad side of a Breakup Breakout is dubbed "The Jannetty" of the group by the fandom.
• Mike Jones, better known as Virgil or Vincent, is probably the Butt-Monkey of professional wrestling. He was the bodyguard of both Ted DiBiase and the New World Order and provided about as much protection as a broken condom. He's also not very popular with fans, with there even being photos of him alone at wrestling conventions.
• Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake was once a fairly over midcarder in the WWF, until he got injured parasailing. Then he went to WCW and underwent so many gimmick changes that it became impossible to take him seriously. Not helping matters is that his best friend is none other than Hulk Hogan, so it's not uncommon for people to (understandably and not without justification) accuse Beefcake of riding Hogan's coattails. Nowadays he's commonly referred to as Brutus "the Fucking Barber" Beefcake in a derisive tone, thanks in no part to Ric Flair's son-in-law Conrad Thompson coining the term on his podcasts.
• As a general rule, Professional Wrestlers are this in comparison to players of Professional Sports, almost entirely due to the scripted nature of the Business. When you think about it, they have to have a more varied set of physical skills than most, they don't get an off season or time off so often have to perform injured unless the writers have nothing for them at the time for which they often don't get paid (which is its own can of worms), things that Pro Sports players take for granted. Not to mention particulars nowadays a lot of Pro Wrestlers do have legitimate fighting skills so you wouldn't want to call them this to their face in case they rearrange yours.

Tabletop Games

• Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded from Magic: The Gathering was clearly intended to a terrifying villain, being a dimension-traveling half-demon man driven only by his joy in inflicting pain on others. However, this bloodcurdling concept didn't carry over to his extremely mediocre actual card as it can be easily ran over and takes ages to set up his good effects that are not worth the ridiculous amount of effort. It didn't do Tibalt any favors that his card was packaged in a Duel Deck set in which he is pitted against Sorin Markov; because Tibalt's story appearances were zilch afterwards, fans speculated that Sorin killed Tibalt in their fight that presumably lasted seconds before Word of God stated that he is still alive but elsewhere. This reputation has lessened in recent years as people have come to be distanced from his bad first card, allowing them to appreciate Tibalt's character in itself, culminating with an appearance in Kaldheim where he imprisons a god, steals their identity, and starts a short-lived war on the plane.
• Warhammer 40,000:
• Abbadon the Despoiler, or, as fans like to call him, Failbaddon the Armless. Though the character canonically is a very badass and dangerous villain and is one of the most dangerous units in hand-to-hand in gameplay, the fact that he led no less than thirteen crusades against the Imperium and still failed to destroy it led to the development of his fanon portrayal as a General Failure. Even after the Gathering Storm books started to turn things in his favor (and even then, it's a Pyrrhic Victory), he hasn't quite shed his Failbaddon reputation. (As for the "armless" thing, it's because the arms on his old resin figurine fell off quite easily.) Note that most of this doesn't line up with the lore at all; the earliest Chaos material listed off exactly what the first twelve Black Crusades were for, none of which were "destroy the Imperium" and all of which succeeded at their actual goals.
• While the Imperial Guard is acknowledged to be full of hardcore individuals, as a whole they will never escape their reputation as useless and squishy, losing horribly to anything the galaxy can throw at them. However this is mostly a reputation crafted by their fans, who love the idea of them suffering horribly but still getting back up. The Gathering Storm event mentioned above helped them get points in badass because even to the very end, Cadia didn't fall. The planet tore itself apart from a Negative Space Wedgie, sure, but in terms of "the Guard was defeated and Chaos conquered the planet", no, it didn't fall.
• And then you have the Planetary Defense Forces, who are seen as this by fans and by the Imperial Guard in-universe. It's not exactly their fault, since the PDF tends to be made up of anyone who didn't meet the IG's recruitment standards, has Armchair Military superiors at best (and outright traitorous Chaos-worshipping seditious nobles/ Tyranid catspaws at worst), have equipment the IG finds laughable (and IG equipment is often compared to T-shirt and flashlight in comparison to the stupidly powerful standard weaponry the other factions have), and more often than not their planet is taken completely unawares by the threat of the day.
• Very, very few players still take the Avatars of Khaine seriously. They're supposed to be fragments of a War God, embodied in a giant statue of pure, mobilized rage, but in terms of storyline they're usually just heavily crapped on by anyone the GW writers want to look good. Khaine himself ends up taking a bit of splash damage from it too, though he's too fragmented to be much of a character anyways.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
• Rainbow Dragon, thanks to being a "boss monster" that even in its own archetype is vastly outshined by other options the archetype has, note Crystal Beast are more known for their ability to get Rank 4 Xyzs out on the field, or back in the day, being able to summon Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder and generally having lackluster effects for the amount of trouble needed to go through in order to summon him.
• Sangan quickly became this thanks to a series of cards showing his trip to where banned cards go and his terrible luck along the way, along with shades of being The Woobie.

90f70e40cf