Never Live It Down/Other Media

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Advertising

  • Orangina is definitely known for that beach party known as a "furry orgy", which is true. However, lots of people like to associate the brand from that sole commercial, even though the commercials after that have been mellow and less revealing.

Fan Works

  • HELICOPTER CRASH KILLS 25 HOSTAGES (...And a dude who slept with his stepmom!)
  • If you're feeling unkind, fanfiction in general is this trope, since Sturgeon's Law dictates that the bulk of fans even inclined to write fanfiction at all are abominably shitty writers.
  • Sergeant Sprinkles will forever be known as the guy who wrote the very gorny My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan fic known as Cupcakes.
  • Blaze, the author of The Conversion Bureau, will never be able to shake his reputation as an absolute misanthrope that this story gave him.
    • Likewise, the misanthropy-laced first chapter is widely mistaken as being emblematic of the fic (and the entire 'verse) as a whole.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series, Mako Tsunami once threw a harpoon at someone. This got him the permanent moniker "Freaky Fish Guy." In his second appearance he harpoons two more, but at least Joey seems to have talked him out of doing it again.
    • Kaiba is also known as the guy who says "Screw the Rules, I Have Money!" In entirety, Kaiba said that in episode 1. He used variants on many episodes ("Screw the rules, I have green hair!" and such), but does not use the catchphrase on every single episode as some would say.
      • Lampshaded in Episode 44 - After Ishizu calls out various characters for being vessels for catchphrases, Kaiba for the aforementioned one, he responds "Haven't said that in years".
  • Nephlite from Sailor Moon Abridged fell victim to this in-universe. No one seems to remember anything about him other than the fact he became Molly's boyfriend, then died. They don't even seem to remember his real name, instead calling him, "your dead boyfriend."

Jokes

Professional Wrestling

  • To the Canadian Professional Wrestling fans, Shawn Michaels is forever known as the guy that screwed Bret Hart out of the WWF Championship. To this day, whenever Michaels or former WWE and current TNA referee Earl Hebner appear in Canada, the fans would chant "YOU SCREWED BRET!" at them.
    • Likewise, Bret Hart is remembered by casual (or non-wrestling) fans as that guy who got screwed out of the title, and the fact that he cannot get over it.
  • Amy "Lita" Dumas' career was never the same again in 2005 after cheating on Matt Hardy with Adam "Edge" Copeland. She was on the verge of a mental breakdown due to the constant chants of "Slut" (among many others), and retired. Edge did get flack also, being one of Hardy's closet friends, but it actually helped him because he was already one of the WWE's top heels at the time, and the success he's had since surpassed what anyone would have predicted during the previous seven years of his career.
  • While Vince Russo is the worst thing to ever happen to wrestling, in his defense, many casual fans are under the impression that he regularly had wrestlers lay down in the ring for him, and held the World Heavyweight Championship for an absurd period of time. In reality, he routinely allowed guys like Ric Flair to use him as a punching bag. And his WHC win? He was on the losing end of that Cage Match, when Goldberg "accidentally" speared him through the side of the cage, causing him to win by default. He vacated the title two days later.
  • Most of the people who were involved in the creative side of WCW within the last year or so of its run in some way (Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo, Kevin Nash, etc) will probably never live down the stigma that they killed WCW.
  • In wrestling circles, Kevin Sullivan is notable for "booking his own divorce". And you know the rest...
    • ...and just in case you don't, his ex-wife would later marry Chris Benoit...
  • In a more awesome fashion, Mick Foley will forever be known as the guy who took a headfirst bump off the top of the Cell during his Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker, as well as getting chokeslammed through the top of the Cell. Foley even remarked that the bumps nearly wiped out everything he had done in his career prior, and he was pretty much unable to ever top himself in the eyes of the casual fans (despite having had some of the all-time most brutal hardcore matches ever later on). As a side note, Foley doesn't actually remember the match, due to a concussion he suffered from that headfirst bump. When writing about it in his autobiography, he had to go back and watch the tape to remind him what happened.
  • And speaking of Chris Benoit, the fact that he was an excellent technical wrestler for decades has been completely and utterly overshadowed by his murder of his wife and child and subsequent suicide. Not that it wasn't a horrible situation, but there was more to his life than "he was a wrestler, then he flipped his lid and murdered his wife and son."
  • James Hellwig worked for WWE as the Ultimate Warrior and was so adored by fans that he rivaled freaking Hulk Hogan in popularity! So it's too bad that he felt compelled to tarnish that legacy with the horrible One Warrior Nation angle and the bizarre feud with Hogan in WCW and uttering a homophobic remark at the University of Connecticut while making the rounds as a political speaker. At some point along the line, he apparently went completely insane; he legally changed his name to "Warrior" and his kids are saddled with "Warrior" as surnames.
  • Matt Hardy will always be fat, even after dropping the weight before heading to TNA. Granted, when explaining why you have weight problems (even if it was something serious such as abdominal muscle tears and digestive problems), it's usually not a good idea to claim you're not fat while stuffing your face full of grapes.
  • Erik Watts will always be remembered for a particular dropkick he did while in the WCW. Starrcade 1992 to be precise. Relive the misery here.
  • "Dr. D" David Schultz, prior to 1984, was known as a tough, hard-edged, no nonsense wrestler (in fact, his persona was very similar to Stone Cold Steve Austin's). After 84, he was only known as the guy who punched out John Stossel.
  • Regardless of his quality (and the memorability over time) of his matches, Triple H will always be accused of playing politics to hold back wrestlers he perceived as a threat to his position. A typical Smart Mark reaction towards a Triple H victory will be "OMG, TRIPLE H BERRIES HIS OPPONENT, LULZ!"

Roleplay

Tabletop Games

  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • It seems that some people seem to have taken the Clap Your Hands If You Believe element of Orky technology to mean that ALL of it runs simply because the Orks believe it does. No, a stick will not fire bullets if you convince an Ork that it can, goddamnit! Being hit with a severe case of Depending on the Writer makes it even worse.
    • Some have the impression that all the Imperium knows how to do is blindly throw men into the grinder, shoot them for cowardice, and subject planets to Exterminatus at the slightest sign of Chaos corruption.
  • Many Magic: The Gathering sets suffer from this.
    • Legends for the vanilla legends, but it's still known as a good set, despite them.
    • The Dark for Sorrow's Path, considered the worst card in Magic.
    • Fallen Empires may have given us Hymn to Tourach, but it also gave us the ability to pay life to put a creature in play to put counters on that we could sacrifice to gain life equal to the number of counters. Guess which one got remembered more.
    • Homelands for, well, everything.
    • Mercadian Masques for the Power Seep.
    • Kamigawa for the awkward "splice onto arcane" mechanic.

Theater

  • Hamlet is well-known for being indecisive and angsty, spending scenes contemplating his navel instead of doing something. It's gotten to the point where "he's a Hamlet" means "he's indecisive." But in the actual play, Hamlet acts stupidly rash just as often as he acts stupidly timid, most notably when he kills Polonius. Which means...

Web Comics

  • Shortpacked! Happens to Robin in-universe. She's a decorated war hero, and served two terms as her district's congresswoman, having ran actively for a third term, and having been key an a great deal of landmark legislation, including one bill that resulted in a month of world peace. All people remember her from is that one sex tape.
  • Monette in Something*Positive has since been adopted by the MacIntyres and become a successful actress. But, despite now being in a committed lesbian relationship, she'll be remembered as the most man-loving lesbian ever...who'd rather do animals than women.
  • Ctrl+Alt+Del‍'‍s Hatedom used to have a lot of reasons to hate CAD. All of them have since been replaced by the miscarriage arc.
    • The comic has had several other Never Live It Down moments (Abbygate, "Black Zeke", Lucas' date with Kate), but chances are that the miscarriage is the one that even people who don't read webcomics will know about.
  • In Sidekick Girl, Illumina has a reputation for being a death magnet to her sidekicks (Part of the reason Type IV immortal Val was assigned to her). Only one, Val's immediate predecessor, actually died. Of her other long-term sidekicks, one quit on her in the middle of a fight and the other went insane from the stress of being an eternal twelve-year-old.
  • Head Trip has this invoked.
  • Bug Martini provides us with this example.
  • El Goonish Shive has an in-universe example with Abraham's creation of the Dewitchery Diamond. "But You Screw Up One Enchantment..." Every properly trained wizard has heard of him.
  • A somewhat meta-example in Gunnerkrigg Court: In one page the readers didn't recognize Eglamore, so whenever he now appears, Tom will always point out to them that it's Eglamore.
  • In-world example: One fan-based World of Warcraft comic included a troll with a nickname he absolutely despised. It was just the one time on a dare, but nobody ever lets it go. They just keep calling him "Baby-Eater".

Web Original

  • Homestar Runner: 1-up (Homestar's 20X6 counterpart) loves pudding, due to one line in a cartoon saying "I want pudding!" after Stinkoman offered to share a pile of pudding he found.
  • Somewhat toeing the line between this and Flanderization is Open Blue‍'‍s Espartano unit. Originally, it was supposed to be of all ages and both genders, but due to the fact that one RPer kept on cranking out badass lolitas, the idea that it is an Amazon Brigade has stuck to the other regulars. Consequently, this has resulted in one regular creating an entire squad of them, as opposed to the usual single independent operatives. The line blurs between this and Flanderization because each new character/group of characters added technically counts as canon unless declared otherwise.
  • Bad Movie Beatdown: Film Brain will never live down criticizing Equilibrium.
    • In lighter fangirlier shallower examples, even though she's been knocked unconscious more often, The Nostalgia Chick will always be known for chloroforming the Critic and the Critic himself will never be able to forget wearing Guyliner.
    • Also, for Doug, Melvin, Melvin, Brother of The Joker, Melvin, Melvin, Brother of The Joker, Melvin, Melvin, Brother of The Joker.
    • The Critic's panning of Mako in TMNT. He even invented a running gag out of it.
    • Nor his leaving Optimus Prime's death off the list of 10 saddest moments.
    • Doug really dislikes the "Bat Credit Card" for three main reasons: 1) It shorts out his voice. 2) He didn't feel like the Batman and Robin review was all that good. And 3) certain fans expect him to do it constantly.
    • There are people out there that will never forgive The Nostalgia Chick for her negative review of David Lynch's Dune.
      • Nor "Rapping About Rape", even though she's told people she knows how bad it went down and can they shut the hell up.
    • Angry Joe has his embarrassing interview with Geoff Keighly at the Spike Video Game Awards.
    • A bit early to tell, but it looks like The Cinema Snob won't live down punching Obscurus Lupa in the face. The other reviewers probably wouldn't be making so many jokes about it if Brad's shot hadn't actually hit Allison during filming.
  • In Slate Magazine's Culture Gabfest podcast, the Enforced Plug(s) for sponsor Carbonite.com almost always involve a reference to movie critic Dana Stevens spilling chai or coffee on someone's laptop.
  • Proton Jon: MOVE!! FASTER!! POKEY!! Proton Jon, one of many famous lets players only said this catchphrase all of once. Look around the internet and This Very Wiki and you'd think he shouted it out all the time. Even he's gotten a bit tired of it.
    • Similarly, Chuggaaconroy has regretted bringing Steve the Trooper into the world since the fans decided to make a Facebook fan page for him. He had originally only singled out Steve as "the one we were not going to like", only calling him a trooper once in a later episode.
  • The Bugle: Andy Zaltzman, Chris, Tom, and... let's say everyone on earth will never let John Oliver forget that he was in The Love Guru.
  • No matter how "original" he tries to be, there will always be someone to remind The Irate Gamer that he outright stole from the AVGN.
  • Noah of Tribe Twelve fame is known for stabbing bushes. He did it exactly once, for approximately two seconds of screentime.
  • Miasma of the Whateley Universe is only known for having horrible gas. It's his only superpower.

Miasma: You burn a hole through one stinking couch, and do they ever let you forget it? No!

  • From The Onion News Network: "Man Who Shit Pants In Grade School Awarded Purple Heart"
  • "The Trololo Guy" (Eduard Khil) says "trololo" once in a song that lasts almost three minutes - this is because he first gained his popularity from the short, cut-out clip featuring that phrase.
  • But you shove one remote up your ass...