Works can make all sorts of statements or scenarios that act as a Take That! to another work, person or even themselves. However, there are also more specific ways to make potshots as well. Below is an index of tropes that can be utilized as potshots.
Compare Insult Tropes, Does Not Like This Index and Hatred Tropes.
Tropes:
- Amoral Talent Agent: Take That, talent agents!
- Anything but That!: Something mundane, sometimes a work, is seen as a Fate Worse than Death.
- Armed with Canon: Take That, other creator on this franchise!
- Asinine Activist Group: Take That, protest movement!
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: Take That, employers!
- Cable/Satellite Mudslinging: Cable says "Take That, satellite!", satellite says "Take That, cable!"
- Capitalism Is Bad: Take That, capitalism!
- Competing Product Potshot: Take That, competitor!
- Corrupted Character Copy: A stand-in for another work's character who is a far worse person than their inspiration (which isn't always intended as an insult to the original character, but frequently is).
- Creator Career Self-Deprecation: Take That, person with the same career as me!
- Damned By a Fool's Praise: A Take That in the form of an idiot or an unsavory character liking something.
- Damned by Faint Praise: A Take That in the form of giving something the weakest possible praise.
- A Degree in Useless: Take That, people who studied subjects with poor career prospects!
- Dirty Communists: Take That, communism!
- Discontinuity Nod: Take That, despised franchise installment!
- Disco Sucks: Take That, disco!
- The Diss Track: Take That, in song form!
- Evil Lawyer Joke: Take That, lawyers!
- Faux Horrific: Something mundane is made out to be terrifying, usually to imply that it is bad.
- Hapless Self-Help: Take That, self-help!
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Current and future people come to think someone from the past was really bad and treat them as what not to be.
- Hitler Ate Sugar: Take That, trivial activity or thing for being associated with a hated personage!
- Improv Comedy Is Inane: Take That, improv shows!
- Kids' Show Mascot Parody: Take That, Barney and similar shows!
- Knocking the Knockoff: Take That, you ripoff!
- "The Music Industry Sucks" Song: A song in which the artist airs grievances against their record label, producers, managers, or the industry in general.
- Network Sideswipe: Take That, other show airing on the same network!
- Only Useful as Toilet Paper: A work so worthless that it’s best used to wipe one's butt.
- Our Product Sucks: Take That, our own product!
- Place Worse Than Death: A mundane real-world place is painted as irredeemable for comedy.
- Predatory Big Pharma: Take That, Big Pharma!
- Rap Is Crap: Take That, rap!
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: An extended, itemized Take That to somebody else.
- Reel Torture: A work so bad that it is used to torture other characters.
- Religion Rant Song: A song that has the purpose of speaking ill of religion and/or its proponents.
- Scapegoat Ad: Take That, competitor's staff!
- Self-Deprecation: Take That, Me!
- "The Reason I Suck" Speech: An extended, itemized Take That to myself.
- Who Would Want to Watch Us?: Take That, our boring selves!
- Who Writes This Crap!?: Take That, our own writers!
- Shallow Parody: Take That, work we're spoofing that we can't bother to portray accurately!
- Take That, Audience!: Take That, my fans and viewers!
- Take That, Critics!: Take That, reviewers who criticize my work!
- Take That, Scrappy!: Take That, character that the fans dislike!
- "Take That!" Tit-for-Tat: Two works of fiction swapping Take Thats with each other.
- Trashy True Crime: Take That, true crime!
- Write Who You Hate: Take That, dude! I'll create a character in my work just to spite you!
- Writer Revolt: Take Thats are included due to frustration with executives or production issues.
- You Bastard!: The work leans on or breaks the fourth wall to say the reader is horrible for enjoying their work.
- Your Vampires Suck: Take That, different vampires!
