Pothole Magnet

As the title implies, this index is for pages that have been subject to memetic potholing. This has a tendency to happen to tropes that have a Stock Phrase as their title, but it can happen to other tropes as well.

Normally, this is all in good fun, but Pothole Magnetism does, indeed, have its dark side. There have been tropes that have died horrible, painful deaths due to Pothole Magnetism gone mad. In less extreme cases, it can cause a trope to be renamed.

See also: Overdosed Tropes, Tropes of Legend.


 * And I Must Scream
 * And That's Terrible
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: Users put or pothole this to a page whenever something is announced that makes the fandom rejoice. Big Yes and Squee are also used as alternatives to this.


 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
 * Awesome Music (also known as Crowning Music of Awesome)
 * Better Than It Sounds: Frequently potholed as a way of saying that a work is better than what a short summary of its premise would lead one to believe. This is bad because not only is it Gushing About Shows You Like, it's misuse because the page itself is a Just for Fun game where tropers come up with summaries of works that make them sound worse than they actually are.
 * Beyond the Impossible: Used to indicate or exaggerate how "awesome" or "insane" something is. Given that the original definition was "escalating within a series" one could say it succeeded in a horrific way. That plus confusion with Up to Eleven led to a Trope Transplant. The name is now used to refer to events that break internal logic. A wiki clean up is currently underway.
 * Big No
 * Blatant Lies: This article is absolutely, positively, not a common pothole for false statements.
 * Buffy-Speak
 * Captain Obvious: This is used as a pothole for obvious statements.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: Redundant statements are potholed to this article about redundant statements.
 * Did Not Do the Research: Often potholed as a way of pointing out a research mistake in a work.
 * Don't Explain the Joke: A Running Gag on this site is to explain jokes and pothole the explanation to this article. It's often a misuse, because the trope is actually telling you what the punchline means, not merely giving context to the joke.
 * Epic Fail: Often used for things that fail annoyingly in general.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Often potholed when something's name or title is completely self-descriptive.
 * Executive Meddling: Used to pothole executive names to or refer to a certain company's management. Corrupt Corporate Executive and Evil Overlord are also used as alternatives to this.
 * Face Palm
 * From Bad to Worse (also known as It Got Worse)
 * Flat What
 * Fridge Brilliance: Often potholed when an observation is made in a trope. Usually as a result of natter.
 * Funny Moments (also known as Crowning Moment of Funny)
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Despite the article's description defining the trope as puns found lame In-Universe, it continues to be used as a mainstream pothole for puns due to that being the article's original intended purpose. The article was created because tropers were misusing Incredibly Lazy Pun, the former name for Stealth Pun, as a generic pothole for puns. However, the article has now mutated and is now an actual trope. Punderful.
 * I Thought It Meant: Frequently potholed when contrasting two things that sound similar.
 * Justified Trope: Usually potholed to note that the usage of a trope is justified and makes sense. Unfortunately subjected to heavy misuse as many of these “justified” usages are actually Justifying Edits, which are, ironically enough, anything but justified.
 * In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You: In Soviet Russia, Pothole Magnets pothole to YOU.
 * Kill It with Fire: Tropers pothole this when any use of fire as an attack occurs, and even in cases where literal fire wasn't involved, such as when tropers are screaming for an Example Sectionectomy.
 * Love It or Hate It: Tropers would pothole this to indicate that a work had polarizing opinions or as an alternate way of saying Your Mileage May Vary. It's a bad idea to do this outside of YMMV pages unless it's In-Universe.
 * Memetic Mutation: There are over 9000 instances of memes being potholed to this article.
 * Mind Screw: Whenever tropers make screwy statements or point at someone's messed up mind.
 * Moment of Awesome (also known as Crowning Moment of Awesome)
 * Mundane Made Awesome, renamed from "What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?": This is about adding music, lighting or effects to make something normal seem extraordinary.
 * My Friends and Zoidberg
 * Oh Crap
 * Overly Long Gag: This page is a popular pothole target in Self-Demonstrating Articles.
 * Precision F-Strike: Tropers tend to pothole this whenever the F-word is used. Cluster F-Bomb and Atomic F-Bomb are also used as alternatives to this.
 * Rule of Cool
 * Rule of Three: Inevitable pothole for the third use of a Running Gag on a page.
 * Sarcasm Mode: This trope should ALWAYS be potholed, there's never any misuse!
 * Self-Demonstrating Article: If an article self-demonstrates, there's a 99% chance it contains at least one pothole to Self-Demonstrating Article.
 * Squee: Tropers tend to pothole this when it comes to moments that make them overjoyed.
 * Squick: Tropers tend to pothole this when it comes to moments that make them cringe.
 * Take That: A number of insults, both In-Universe and Out, tend to be potholed to this article.
 * This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: Tropers tend to pothole this whenever the word "bitch" is used.
 * This Is Gonna Suck
 * Title Drop: Most trope articles with a Title Drop have a pothole to this article.
 * Trope Namers: Anytime that a Trope Namer is quoted in a trope's description, it will be potholed to this article.
 * Up to Eleven
 * What an Idiot!
 * A Worldwide Punomenon: If a pun isn't potholed to Incredibly Lame Pun, it's most likely potholed to this.
 * Your Mileage May Vary: Unfortunately, a lot of tropers feel the need to pothole this as some kind of bizarre excuse to shoehorn their opinion into an example on the main page. Personal opinions do not belong on the main page, and neither do Your Mileage May Vary potholes. If you come across any instances of this, please remove them.

Former Pothole Magnets that had their wicks cleaned up

 * Understatement: Formerly used by editors to point proudly at their own understatement - or, worse, sinkholed into lines which demonstrated the polar opposite of understatement. Was incorrectly potholed on over 8700 pages before a concerted effort to clean it up was made between August and October 2011. When the clean-up was done, the correct wicks numbered about 600. A second clean-up begain in May 2012 when incorrect potholes began to increase the total wicks above 900 again.

Tropes that have been renamed due to misguided Pothole Magnetism

 * Accidental Nightmare Fuel: Originally, this trope was simply called Nightmare Fuel. This has led an absolutely massive amount of potholes involving things that the Troper who posted them found scary.
 * The "Artistic License - X" tropes were like this because they used to be known as "You Fail X Forever" and "X Does Not Work That Way."
 * Comically Missing the Point: Formerly known as Completely Missing The Point. This caused the trope to be misused as a pothole for any statement that missed the point.
 * The End - or Is It?: Its original title was simply Or Is It?, which attracted misuse as a Stock Phrase and Verbal Tic. The old name is now a deliberate redlink.
 * If You Know What I Mean: Formerly known as Nudge Nudge, and before that, If You Know What I Mean. Because of that, double entendres that pothole to this article were more common than grass. This led to a cleanup effort dedicated to removing these sinkholes.
 * "No. Just... No" Reaction: Formerly known merely as No. Just... No, renamed because it was often potholed for when tropers' responses to something were a strong "NO", when it was supposed to refer to In-Universe instances of the Stock Phrase in reaction to a Squicky moment.
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Was originally named This! Is! SPARTA! Statements. Like. This. Are almost guaranteed to be potholed to this article. Even entries that should have been potholed to the movie 300 were potholed to this trope.
 * Serial Escalation: Originally Beyond The Impossible. It got a Trope Transplant due to massive misuse as a pothole for anything that seemed impossible.
 * Stealth Pun: Originally Incredibly Lazy Pun. The old name saw a lot of misuse as a generic pun pothole, resulting in the trope being renamed and the old name being permanently redlinked.
 * Translation Train Wreck: Formerly known as Do Not Want. The article was cut and moved due to pothole misuse for things tropers found squicky.
 * Unexplained Recovery: Formerly known as I Got Better. The old name attracted a lot of misuse as a pothole for people or things "getting better" in general.
 * Zero Context Example: Formerly known as X, Just...X, after a common format associated with this type of example. This, however, had the unfortunate side effect of having tropers potholing these examples to the page, despite the fact that the article's very purpose was to discourage them. This led to the article being deliberately redlinked, and later, renamed.

Articles that have joined the Permanent Red Link Club due to misguided Pothole Magnetism

 * Do Not Want: The original name of Translation Train Wreck.
 * I Am Not Making This Up: This trope was nuked for being used and abused as a pothole for things that were hard to believe.
 * If You Know What I Mean: Deliberate redlink. The former name for If You Know What I Mean.


 * Incredibly Lazy Pun: Former name of Stealth Pun.
 * No Just No: Deliberate redlink. The old name for "No. Just... No" Reaction.
 * Or Is It: Deliberate redlink. The old name for The End - or Is It?
 * So Yeah: A pothole target that was used as an excuse for lazy writing.
 * This Troper. Deliberate redlink. Was constantly being used as an alternative for "I". The article still exists as a history of the use of "This troper" in articles, but is flagged to discourage potholing.
 * X Just X: Deliberate redlink. The old name for Zero Context Example.