History Main / FutureLoser

* Every future ''[[TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'' episode has Bart as an aimless but upbeat FutureLoser, though Lisa's Wedding (which looks furthest into the future[[note]]August 1, 2010...wait a minute!![[/note]]) intentionally subvert this by portraying Bart as a wrecking ball operator working his way through law school.

** Robin herself used to be a (Canadian) rock star; she is now a early morning news reporter.

* Extremely sad version in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''. [[spoiler: Simon Petrikov]] was a certified badass when he was human, but centuries of being mentally warped by an ArtifactOfDoom have left him a rather pathetic, crazy old man. It's pretty obviously meant to parallel dementia.

* A similar case in ''Series/{{Friends}}'', where Monica got a chance to date [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys a bad boy]] she had known from high school. When she does date him, she realizes that he is immature, lives with his parents and never grew up from his high school days.

** In the episode "Spiders", this is both played straight and subverted. A gorgeous blond girl who was devoted to a white supremacist leader was seen years later as overweight in the present; on the other hand she's overcome her racism (admitting that she had done "stupid things" and has had children with a black man

* ''Franchise/Back to the Future'':

* Biff in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' has gone from George [=McFly=]'s bullying supervisor to waxing George's car, after Marty goes back in time and teaches his dad to stand up to Biff. It sort of works out for everyone, since Biff now has a little humility ''and'' runs his own detailing business. Of course he isn't fantastically rich, but at least he doesn't own the world.

**** They also mention in the ''Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy'' featurette that the chest pains and collapse he goes through after returning to 2015 are the result of Lorraine shooting him dead sometime in the early '90s - either because she was sick of his abuse or she found out that he murdered George.
** Marty actually showed some GenreSavvy about this trope. His first fear when Doc appears at the end of the first film, insisting that he come to the future and fix things? That he and Jennifer will grow up to be, if not losers, then at least assholes.
*** That turns out to be the truth (at least until they fix things). Marty agreed to a car race which resulted in him hitting another car. The owner sued, Marty broke his hand, he had to give up on his music and Jennifer only married him out of pity. By 2015 he either ends up with both kids in jail or he gets fired.
* Disney's ''[[Film/TheKid2000 The Kid]]'' has a young boy encounter his future self. After running through everything his future self got wrong, the boy shouts, "I grow up to be ''a loser!''" Played for irony, since the future self is wealthy, successful and respected (and a huge asshole), while the kid is chubby and unpopular with low self-esteem. The joke is that his priorities as an adult were very different from what they were as a child.
* Played with in the film ''AngerManagement''. The schoolyard bully that made Creator/AdamSandler's character's life miserable grew up to be... a Buddhist monk. Who, despite being a monk, still thinks that Adam Sandler's childhood humiliation was hilarious. Adam Sandler ends up getting his revenge the old fashioned way - by beating the crap out of the former schoolyard bully.
* ''[[Film/ThirteenGoingOnThirty 13 Going On 30]]'': After she body-switches to the future, the 13-year-old main character discovers that the super hunky jock she desperately wanted to date in the past is now a fat, balding taxi driver. "Call me!"

* At the end of ''Can't Hardly Wait'' it is revealed Mike Dexter's future includes losing his football scholarship after drinking too much, being forty pounds overweight, and losing his job at a car wash when incriminating Polaroids surface.
* Happens repeatedly in ''RomyAndMichelesHighSchoolReunion'', but Billy Christiansen takes the gold: going from popular hunky jock dating the popular girl in school, to a slobby failure who nails drywall for a living and whose wife is pregnant with (he suspects) another man's kid. And he still thinks he can bed Romy since she had a thing for him back in the day, even though the last time they saw each other he publicly humiliated her for a laugh.

* ''SavedByTheBell'' had this happen as a dream to Slater (not a jerk, but definitely a jock), seeing himself as a beer bellied drunk in a class reunion, forcing him to rethink his life and his "comfort zone" as a jock.

* Lindsay Lohan's recent character on ''UglyBetty'' is a down-on-her-luck former AlphaBitch whom Betty knew in HighSchool.

* The short-lived ''MyGeneration'' had this as one of its premises. Ten years after the class of 2000 graduated their lives are not where they expected them to be.

* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', Sam returns to an old school where, after multiple encounters, he laid a beat down on the school bully. Years later, Sam discovers how lousy his life was and how after being beaten, he was bullied even worse, eventually dying from drug addiction. Sam feels guilty, although most wouldn't, as the bully made life for one student so hard that he committed suicide.

* Let us also remember [[MarriedWithChildren Al Bundy]], whose proudest moment in his life is scoring four touchdowns in a single game while in high school.

* On ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tapestry_%28episode%29 Picard dies during an operation due to an old injury from an incident from his rebellious youth of counter-cheating in sports ending in a stab to the heart]]. [[JerkassGods Q]] offers him a second chance if he can avoid said incident by reliving that period of his life. After he succeeds (backing out or whatever of cheating at sports and fighting, and having alienating sex with one of his friends) Q sends him back to the point in his life where the injury would have killed him only to discover that [[spoiler:he is a Lieutenant junior grade (between Ensign and Lieutenant) instead of a famous starship captain. Q explains that the injury gave Picard a sense of his own mortality which, possibly unknown to Picard himself, motivated him to make his mark on the Universe. The alternate Picard never lived that experience, and as such drifted thought his career, never getting noticed by anyone. Picard then begs Q that [[BeYourself he has learned his lesson]], is given a second second chance, condemns himself to death after a worthy life... and awakens from his death to discover that Q was just jerking his chain again (or might have actually saved his life)]].
** With Q, you never know if it was really AllJustADream or if he actually sent you back in time.
* Lindsay Lohan's recent character on ''UglyBetty'' is a down-on-her-luck former AlphaBitch whom Betty knew in HighSchool. (Based on recent developments, it seems Lohan [[HarsherInHindsight is playing]] a FutureLoser in RealLife as well.)

*** AllTheMyriadWays?

* Dash of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' seems to know what the future has in store for him and has even lampshaded it a few times. Who knew a guy with poor grades could be so GenreSavvy?

* ''BreakingBad'': [[spoiler: Season 5 opens with a flash forward to Walt's fifty-second birthday. He's clearly suffering, completely out of it when he talks, living under a different name and alone on his birthday, eating breakfast at Denny's.]]

**** They also mention in the ''Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy'' featurette that the chest pains and collapse he goes through after returning to 2015 are the result of Lorraine shooting him dead sometime in the early '90s ([[FridgeLogic

*** That turns out to be the truth (at least until they fix things). Marty agreed to a car race which resulted in him hitting another car. The owner sued, Marty broke his hand, had to give up on his music and Jennifer only married him out of pity. By 2015 he either ends up with both kids in jail or he gets fired.

**** They also mention in the ''Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy'' featurette that the chest pains and collapse he goes through after returning to 2015 are the result of Lorraine shooting him dead sometime in the early '90s ([[FridgeLogic which would explain why Marty didn't find him sprawled next to the car when he got back]]).

** Mainly because, as is par for the course with ''LICD'', [[JerkSue Rayne is rich, successful, happy, and still treats his friends like crap]].

* Dash of ''DannyPhantom'' seems to know what the future has in store for him and has even lampshaded it a few times. Who knew a guy with poor grades could be so GenreSavvy?

* Disney's ''The Kid''[[note]][[IThoughtItMeant not the Chaplin one]][[/note]] has a young boy encounter his future self. After running through everything his future self got wrong, the boy shouts, "I grow up to be ''a loser!''"
** Played for irony, since the future self is wealthy, successful and respected (and a huge asshole), while the kid is chubby and unpopular with low self-esteem. The joke is that his priorities as an adult were very different from what they were as a child.

* In ''TheWorldsEnd'', Gary King, the self-professed king of his hometown, grew up into an aimless alcoholic who his friends find irritating. Unusually for this trope, he's the protagonist of the film.

* Disney's ''The Kid''[[hottip:*: IThoughtItMeant not the Chaplin one]] has a young boy encounter his future self. After running through everything his future self got wrong, the boy shouts, "I grow up to be ''a loser!''"

* Every future ''[[TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'' episode has Bart as an aimless but upbeat FutureLoser, though Lisa's Wedding (which looks furthest into the future[[hottip:*:August 1, 2010...wait a minute!!]]) intentionally subvert this by portraying Bart as a wrecking ball operator working his way through law school.

* Bill Dauterive from ''KingOfTheHill'' he was once a tall muscular athlete with long flowing hair who was very popular and quite the ladies man, once his wife Lenore divorced him he became depressed and became a fat balding slob who spends most of his time loafing around on the couch and drinking beer.

The JerkJock and all-around popular guy who makes the hero's life impossible (while idolizing his secret identity) presumes that his popularity and success in the academic world will translate into [[CorruptCorporateExecutive success in business]], sports, and politics, and the protagonist will be there to lick his boots. [[IronicInversion Irony says otherwise.]] Through the magical agency of TimeTravel, [[AllJustADream prophetic dreams]], or a nearby example of {{Retirony}}, we (and occasionally he) find out they'll become [[ICouldaBeenAContender a broken shell of a man]] whose life has been reduced to menial jobs and is the target of constant derision or, worse, ''being forgotten''. Often he endlessly laments his GloryDays because, for once, high school really was the BestYearsOfYourLife.