Self-Deprecation: Difference between revisions

* [[Ben Templeton]] appears in the ''[[Wormwood Gentleman Corpse]]'' issue "Segue to Destruction" at the Dead Alley, where Wormwood describes him as "my biographer". ''None'' of the cast have any respect for him at all, and mock his defensively citing his three Eisner nominations: "No idea what those are, but he seems obsessed with them."

* The Black Bomber was likely one of [[DC Comics]]' worst ideas. This was a hero who was once a white man and a bigot, who would turn into a black man with super-powers under stress; with no memory of his other identity while in this state, he would fight crime as the Black Bomber. [[Sarcasm Mode| Great idea]], right? [[Dude, Not Funny| Uhm, wrong]], Comics historian Don Markstein later described the character as "an insult to practically everybody with any point of view at all.” The title was never released, but fortunately a lot of it inspired the creation of groundbreaking character [[Black Lightning]]. Still, DC has made light of this mistake at least once; as [[Dwayne McDuffie]] had a similar character - called the Brown Bomber - try to impress [[Vixen (comics)|Vixen]] in a ''[[Justice League]]'' comic. She wasn’t impressed, brushing him off as a lame joke.

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

* Robert Goldsborough wrote a number of ''[[Nero Wolfe]]'' novels after [[Author Existence Failure|series creator Rex Stout's death]]. The final one features a victim who had [[Continuation|been writing another author's character]]. At one point, Archie Goodwin slams the victim's writing. {{spoiler|The motive for the murder is that said victim plagiarised his last novel.}}

* ''I Am A Cat'', Natsume Soseki's social satire of late Meiji-era Japan, not only features a major character bearing more than a passing resemblance to the author who comes off about as well as any other character in the book (i.e. not at all), but has a passage in which this character and several others directly bash Soseki's other work. (Since none of these characters are at all likable, it may be that we're supposed to disagree with them, which would make this either a [[Take That]] at critics or a roundabout form of self-praise. It's hard to tell.)

* [[Edward Lear]] engages in a few pot-shots directed at himself in his nonsense-filled poetry. At least one of his poems is a spot of Self-Deprecation.

* The loser protagonist of [[A Confederacy of Dunces]] is, when you know his life story, very very clearly based on the author, John Kennedy Toole.

'''Waldorf:''' I don't believe you!

'''Both:''' Doh-ho-ho-ho-ho!}}

 

== [[Radio]] ==

* An optional area in ''[[Epic Battle Fantasy]] 5'' lets you fight monsters from earlier games in the series as a bonus challenge. As expected, monsters from games that were made years earlier look dated and somewhat primitive in design, and the main characters make scathing comments about them during battle. NoLegs' very simplistic early design, eyeball monsters barely having moving parts at all and the Beholder's infamous tentacle rape attack get the most criticism.

* One of the most notoriously bad cases of box art in video game history was what they came up with for the original ''[[Mega Man (Video Game)|Mega Man]]''; the guy on the cover looked more like someone's drunk grandfather in an ill-fitting jumpsuit than the cute robot protagonist, and had a [[Ray Gun]] rather than Mega Man's now-famous [[Arm Cannon]]. (The art was reportedly a rush job for the American release.) Eventually, Capcom would make light of this eyesore by introducing a [[Joke Character]] modeled after it in ''[[Street Fighter X Tekken]]'', calling him [https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Bad_Box_Art_Mega_Man Bad Box Art Mega Man]. Unfortunately, this wound up releasing ''after'' Capcom canceled several ''Mega Man'' projects, making his inclusion come off as more spiteful than funny for a lot of the franchise's fanbase.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

** The show's tongue in cheek disclaimer probably counts too:

{{quote|All characters and events on this show - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated…poorly. The following program contains course language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone.}}

* Find a ''[[Drawn Together]]'' episode in seasons 2 and 3 that doesn't do this. Try.

* ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' frequently takes shots at its own writers. In addition to all the examples listed on [[Who Writes This Crap?]], there are the lyrics for the theme song to the ''[[Wonderful Life]]'' Christmas special: "Our writers aren't gifted!/ [[Stock Parodies|The story has been lifted]]..."

* ''[[Animaniacs]]'' is fond of this, and have one in the opening credits:

** The debut episode of ''[[Freakazoid!]]'' has a similar zinger as they do a theme for the show using the ''Animaniacs'' melody:

* ''[[Family Guy]]''

** Quagmire is starting to become this, pointing the flaws and many things disliked by the fans. It reached its peak in an [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|spectacular]] [[Take That, Scrappy!]] at ''[[Author Avatar|Brian]]'', of all people.

* [[Woody Allen]] uses this throughout his work, most often against himself but occasionally against Jews or New Yorkers generally. For instance, from ''[[Annie Hall]]'':

{{quote|'''Alvy:''' Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I ''live'' here. }}

{{quote|'''Stewart:''' I don't watch it, myself. I find it crass. }}

* Irish humour, when it's not about drinking, fighting, or religious conflict; is all about the Irish predilection for drinking, fighting, and religious conflict.

* No episode of ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' goes without it. Usually he's joking about his hair and/or awkward body.

* In Conan O'Brien's opening song when Conan hosted the Primetime Emmys (a parody of "Trouble" from ''[[The Music Man]]''), one of his examples of NBC's [[Biting the Hand Humor|decline in quality]] was that the Emmys were opening with a song-and-dance number "performed by a host with ''limited musical ability!''" (The chorus then shouted, "He can't sing!")

* [[The Marx Brothers|Groucho Marx]] famously stated, "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."

* Bnet.com's Geoffrey James gives us [http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/the-10-worst-business-books-of-all-time/11814 The 10 Worst Business Books of All Time]. The #5 entry, ''Success Secrets from Silicon Valley'' [[Old Shame|was written by James himself in 1998]].

* [[Hugh Laurie]] once mentioned that the reason he keeps acting is because he hates himself and doesn't believe he deserves to be happy.

* A big part of Icelandic humor, common factors include bad driving habits, cutting in lines, extremely frequent bodily noises and an Icelandic tourist attempting to speak English but constantly peppering his language with Icelandic-exclusive idioms (Venus pronounced as "weenis" and riding on horseback replaced by "fucking".)

** [[Blizzard Entertainment]]. It seems that successful game companies that can afford to push back release dates for the sake of quality have come to use Soon™ as a way of mocking both themselves ''and'' their fans.

** Used by CRS, creators of [[World War II Online]] to the point where it has become a [[Memetic Mutation]].

** When he hosted ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', joked that he would be endorsing John McCain in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election because every candidate he ever supported lost.

** When promoting the film ''[[Gigli]]'', which by that point, was infamous as one of the biggest flops of the decade, he went on ''The Tonight Show'' and read his "favorite" parts of the movie reviews, namely, the most scathing and brutal quips from film reviewers about how bad the movie and Affleck himself were.

** During the commentary for ''[[Mallrats]]'' where he describes himself as desperate and suicidal during the production of the movie, coming home at night with a bag of sleeping pills and preparing to just end it all. It's funnier than it sounds.

* The British channel E4 is mostly composed of British soap operas, American drama and comedy, and reality shows. Its advertising mocks the melodrama of British soaps and American drama, the ridiculousness of American comedy, the stupidity of reality TV and itself for broadcasting them.

** Highlights the national stereotypes of stubbornness, drunkenness and quietness. For example, two men went camping for a week with several bottles of vodka. The last day one of them raised a glass and said: "Cheers!" The other angrily responded: "Did we come here to drink or talk?"

** There's a whole category of jokes starting "A Swede, a Norwegian and a Finn..." that tend to paint the Finn as hardy, if a bit thick in the head. A pair of illustrative examples:

** "My uncle once dropped ten pence; he bent over to pick it up, and it hit him in the back of the head."

** "You may have heard that nasty rumour floating around that copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny."

* [[Kevin Smith]] describes his wife as a man-hating feminist, "which explains why she married the guy with the tiniest dick on the planet."

* Brian Regan uses this in a lot of his comedy acts as well, usually to make him look stupid. The best example is his skit "Stupid in School"

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Abridged Series Tropes]]

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Insult Tropes]]

[[Category:Self-Referential Humor]]