Fauxtivational Poster: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{demotivator| no_demotivators_00_6596.jpg | Text in images | The easiest way to make image captions inaccessible to translators and screen readers. }}

 

{{quote|''"I think that communication skills have really improved around here since we all went on that course, and put up that blue poster that says 'Communicate!'"''

 

If you've ever been in an American school or office environment, you've seen them: Posters encouraging the viewers to [[Grasp the Sun|Reach For The Stars]] and to [[The Determinator|Never Give Up]]. Invariably, these lessons are accompanied by a cute picture or a vaguely inspirational stock photo. Are you feeling motivated yet?

[[wikipedia:Successories|Successories]] is probably the most popular brand of Motivational Posters (inspiring many imitators); consequently most parodies follow the same layout that Successories popularized: A stock photo on a black background, with a one-word title in large text below, with a pithy saying or quote beneath that.

 

 

Parodies are often called "Demotivators" or "[[wikipedia:Motivational poster#Parodies and demotivational posters|Demotivational Posters]]", regardless of their content; the name is taken from a series of posters by [http://despair.com/ Despair Inc] with genuinely demotivational themes. You have been warned.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[PS238]]'', the walls of the titular school are adorned with such posters as "Super Strength: If you don't have the power to move mountains, make friends with someone who can."

 

* In ''[[Megamind]]'', upon taking over the city the titular supervillain has posters made of him in the style of the famous "Hope" poster of Barack Obama, except with the caption changed to read "No, You Can't" instead (referring to Obama's famous "Yes, We Can" message).

* On ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'', the "Hang in there" poster is hung on Susan's cell in a pathethic attempt to make her imprisonment more tolerable. It doesn't work. "I want a ''real'' kitten, hanging from a ''real'' tree!"

* In ''[[Igor]]'', Dr. Glickenstein's girlfriend gets him an inspirational poster of a kitten hanging from a tree, but since the movie is set in a [[Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad]] world, the kitten is hanging from a noose. "To remind you to always take time in your day for a little torture."

 

* In ''[[Who Moved My Cheese?]]'', Haw has a habit of drawing (straight) motivational graffiti on the walls, both to motivate Hem and to act as a landmark when searching the maze for New Cheese.

 

* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'': "Fun and Failure start the same way".

* The Doublemeat Palace in season 6 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' has these in its employee break room, and manager's office. It is duly lampshaded:

* ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' has two: In Gnothi Seauton five bad ass resistance fighters have a cute kitten "hang in there baby" in their hideout, which conceals a safe. In Dungeons And Dragons the future resistance have a badass mural of the same theme, except it's a lion jumping out of fire, a Terminator skull in its jaws.

 

* ''[[Counter-Strike]] Source'' has a level set in an office building, with these posters on the walls. The topics are all related to Counterstrike itself, in-jokes for the established community that had played the previous version obsessively for several years. For instance, a picture of a tent, and the slogan "Camping".

* ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'' features motivational posters in certain areas; it would presumably be played straight, except the bright, happy posters with slogans like "Better Living through Science" etc are often seen next to scenes of [[Body Horror]].

** a sinking boat - caption "this is your life"

** a marble with the caption "You are this sharp"

** stick men - caption "Just remember you are an individual, just like everybody else"

 

* The [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad email]] "[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail86.html no loafing]". In addition to the eponymous sign, Strong Bad purchases some more traditional posters, featuring windsurfers and [[Space Whale]]s.

 

* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', the principal of one of the high schools values motivational ''murals'' more than anything else. Those things range from odd to disturbing to hilarious -- [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2002-06-24 "READ or the owl] [http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/?date=2004-07-03 will eat you]", or "[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2004-10-29 Homework rules!]", or "[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2008-07-23 Thespians are neato]" (as [[The Rant]] points out, a play on [[Chivalrous Pervert|Tedd]]'s motto "[[Girl-On-Girl Is Hot|lesbians are neato!]]").

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]:'' [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=73 "READ. It makes you cool. Honest."] [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=186 "Knowledge is power."]

*** And the page is also a [[Genius Bonus|spiffy reference for those who know alchemy]]: it's from the Mutus Liber, a 17th century Huguenot alchemy text, Latin and all.

* ''[[Starslip Crisis]]'' had a [[Story Arc]] (beginning [https://web.archive.org/web/20080625053233/http://www.starslip.com/2005/10/31/starslip-598/ here]) in which curator-snob Vanderbeam sees the "Hang In There" cat poster on Jovia's wall, and becomes obsessed with finding out what a fellow lover of [[True Art]] could [[What Do You Mean It's Not Didactic?|possibly see]] in such a piece of obvious shlock.

* Fauxtivational posters are one of the most popular subjects on the [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49314 twin] [[Remix Comic|art-remix]] [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49479 threads] on the ''[[Erfworld]]'' forum.

* ''[[Concerned]]'' had Frohman make some of these, with slogans like "Being beaten hard, or hardly being beaten?"

** Torg's cousin sends him the Christmas present of an "inspirational calendar" with a picture like a motivational poster for each month, illustrating various captions such as "Inspiration" and "Success" with inspirational pictures... all of which are the same picture of an alligator eating a guy.

{{quote|'''Riff''': "Hey, 'Relationships'! That one works!"}}

* In the ''[[Zodiac (webcomic)|Zodiac]]'' spinoff Quetzalcoatlus, a "demotivational poster" can be seen in Leo's office contaning a picture of a nuclear explosion and the caption "'''Patience''': Don't expect any. Ever."

** Related to the above is a similar poster depicting a lion. Its caption: "'''Humor''': [[Brick Joke|See notes on Patience]]."

 

** And basically every other -chan (''especially'' those with a more... mature focus than 4chan.)

*** And, yes, there are things [[Even Evil Has Standards|Too Spicy]] [[Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth|for 4Chan]].

** On that note, there used to be an anime motivational poster thread (nicknamed /amp/ or /mot/ as a homage to [[Image Boards|something...]]) on Crunchyroll that had about 2000+pages growing at about 8 pages daily. Unfortunately its contents started to live up to its name resulting in its deletion and [[Deader Than Dead|a permanent ban against the creation of any other such threads.]]

* Big Huge Labs has a web-based program for making custom posters. [http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php Go knock yourself out.]

** See also [http://www.geneticanomaly.com/RPG-Motivational/index.html this collection of RPG Motivational Posters].

* ''[[Forum Warz]]'' has a whole minigame dedicated to creating these.

* [http://www.halolz.com/category/motivational/ Halolz.com] also has some of these. While not as bad as the 4chan example above, there's still some [[NSFW]] things there.

* Polish site [http://www.demotywatory.pl Demotywatory.pl].

* In [[The Nostalgia Critic]]'s review of [[The Movie]] of the [[Care Bears]], he produces one of these around [[Memetic Molester|Mr. Cherrywood creepy smile]]. In his later commentary on the episode, Doug explained that he had seen several of the other visuals he had used in his reviews being made into these, and decided to try and save fans the trouble.

 

** It also had, in "And Maggie Makes Three", Homer's ''de''motivational plaque: "Don't forget, you're here forever." Homer used pictures of Maggie to turn it into "Do it for her," in a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]].

* The "Hang in there!" poster also appears in ''Dr. Katz''.

{{quote|''"I will. I '''will''' go get it."''}}

 

* [http://www.allposters.com/-st/Motivational-Posters_c12920_.htm AllPosters.com's top-selling motivators.] - One of the few places where real motivational posters are located.

* The American Library Association (ALA)'s famous [https://web.archive.org/web/20120625052144/http://www.alastore.ala.org/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=160 "READ" posters].

** ...and the inevitable parody (see ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' above).

* A painful example of wildly inappropriate (and probably sadistically ironic) Straight Lesson in the wrong environment would be the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes [you] free) at the entrance of Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps.

 

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[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:Undead Horse Trope]]