Basic Trope: A character's embarrassing moment goes viral online, humiliating them.
- Straight: Hal films Melissa being pied in the face, and everyone sees it after it's uploaded online.
- Exaggerated:
- Every character's embarrassing moments go viral online right after they happen.
- Hal films Melissa dancing naked to Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks and uploads it online. It gets more views than there are people on Earth.
- Hal records and uploads a moment that embarrasses every one of the other characters at the same time.
- Hal kidnaps Melissa, starts up a channel in her name, forces her to do many embarrassing things while filming her, and posts her performances to the channel regularly.
- Downplayed:
- The video gets some views but never goes viral.
- The video shows Melissa doing or saying something that isn't that embarrassing.
- Melissa is seen doing a dance which some find hilarious, others endearing, and others impressive.
- Hal films and uploads Melissa doing something mundane with her permission, which becomes viral for people mocking her voice or appearance.
- Justified:
- Truth in Television: The website's algorithm favored the video, or the video was just that hilarious, causing it to spread around fast.
- The video is revenge for a prank Melissa pulled on another character.
- The embarrassing event happened to Melissa while she was a guest/contestant on an episode of Battling Families, which has embraced SpamTube.
- Inverted: Melissa uploads a non-humiliating video of herself, even one that would give her justified pride (e.g., if she did something heroic), and it is seen by no one, or even worse, Melissa soon becomes a complete social pariah because of it.
- Subverted:
- The video gets taken down before anyone could watch it.
- The video gains lots of views fast, but never ends up being viral enough to humiliate her.
- Hal later learns Melissa is already a known Attention Whore online who does a lot of weird stuff for Internet fame. Her video is therefore not that embarrassing.
- Double Subverted:
- But then it is reuploaded and goes viral.
- Until a month later, when it has a million views.
- Except she still looks stupid singing in the video and hates it.
- Parodied: Hal later learns the video went viral only because of a Funny Background Event happening behind Melissa. No one cared about what was being done to her or what she was doing.
- Zig-Zagged:
- The video is alternately popular and never mentioned.
- Hal films Melissa several times in compromising situations and uploads the videos to YouTube, where they get varying numbers of views.
- Melissa's reactions to Hal's videos of her run the gamut of emotions from shame to pride.
- Averted:
- Only a handful of people see the video, or no one at all.
- Hal doesn't film Melissa being pied in the face.
- Lampshaded: "This is the worst day of my life! Now it's gonna be on the web forever!"
- Invoked: Melissa releases a video of herself being pranked to get attention.
- Exploited:
- Alice and Bob do this to their friends to grow their social media pages.
- Melissa believes there is No Such Thing as Bad Publicity, and puts herself out on the web more once it goes viral to become famous.
- Defied:
- Melissa has the video taken down just before it can really go viral.
- Hal doesn't make the video of Melissa public, feeling Curious Qualms of Conscience that make him decide it would be unnecessarily cruel.
- Discussed: "Melissa always gets away with everything! We gotta punish her this time."
- Conversed: "About time that Alpha Bitch get what's coming to her."
- Implied:
- "Hey, Melissa, everyone saw your online debut!" We don't see what's in the video, but every time someone says this, Melissa blushes.
- After getting the "XX" for her last (unspecified) answer, Melissa pleads to Stove Harvest to "Please, let me live this down." to which he replies "Are you kidding me? This is prime SpamTube material!" (implying that the humiliation will come.)
- Deconstructed: It doesn't take long for the humiliation attempt to backfire spectacularly, generating unexpected sympathy for Melissa and potential legal or social consequences for Hal.
- Played for Laughs: Usually is, mainly Cringe Comedy.
- Played for Drama:
- Melissa's relatives see the video and disown her because of some vague family rule according to which she embarrassed them.
- Melissa commits suicide after the video is uploaded, devastating her relatives and friends.
- Played for Horror:
- The video involves Melissa being scared by an almost Deadly Prank, and watching it scares other people too.
- Hal records and uploads a video of Melissa getting seriously and violently injured, thinking it's Bloody Hilarious.
- Melissa commits suicide after the video is uploaded. Her spirit haunts everyone who watched the video.
- Untwisted: Hal films Melissa being pied in the face and posts it to YouTube, where it's shown to get many, many views. Everyone except the people Melissa knows best seems to have seen it... until she thanks Bob and Alice for not watching it, whereupon they tell her that they've each watched and shared it dozens of times and laugh at her for thinking they hadn't.
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