History Main / IAmNotPretty

* In the ''Manga/MobPsycho100'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13315535/1/Everyone-Loves-Mob Everyone Loves Mob]]'' Mob(gender swapped) is convinced that she's plain and boring looking despite multiple characters telling her otherwise.

* In the ''Series/PunkyBrewster"" episode "Pretty Ugly," Margaux Kramer laments she's ugly when she finds out that Glomer's facial turned her face into a glomley face. When it wears off, Punky holds a shiny frying pan to Margaux to prove she's normal and pretty again.

* In the ''Series/Punky Brewster"" episode "Pretty Ugly," Margaux Kramer laments she's ugly when she finds out that Glomer's facial turned her face into a glomley face. When it wears off, Punky holds a shiny frying pan to Margaux to prove she's normal and pretty again.

* A curious example appears in Kit Williams' well-known puzzle book [[Literature/KitWilliamsMasquerade Masquerade]]. The Sun is in love with the Moon but doesn't dare speak to her. This is because people always screw their faces up whenever they look at him, which leads him to think he must be very ugly.

** If anything, her younger cousin (and HollywoodNerd) protagonist Devi can feel vulnerable to this, especially when her rival refers to her as an "unfuckable nerd" when they are engaging in SnarkToSnarkCombat which is ridiculous given that Devi looks as good as her portrayer [[https://www.instagram.com/maitreyiramakrishnan/?hl=en Maitreyi Ramakrishnan]].

* Despite his very flashy fashion choices, it turns out that ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'''s prettyboy prosecutor Miles Edgeworth not only doesn't notice the female attention he tends to garner, but is absolutely baffled by the idea that women find him attractive.

Sometimes she might be a standard beauty, but feels unattractive because she's the ''wrong kind'' of beautiful. A girl with RavenHairIvorySkin who's an absolute knockout to anyone with eyes might still feel she's unattractive because she's told the "ideal" is blue-eyed blonde. This one is especially common in the U.S.; the standard of beauty is an ideal that could be considered Northern European (blonde hair, blue eyes, tan complexion,) which leaves a lot of girls in minority groups feeling this way (Music/{{Cher}}, for instance, has said in the past that she grew up feeling like she could never be beautiful because she wasn't blonde.)

* [[http://www.m.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/mental-health-body-dysmorphic-disorder Body Dysmorphic Disorder]] is a mental disorder in which a person obsesses over their flaws, real or imaginary, and do not believe others who tell them they look fine. They often use make up, heavy clothing and plastic surgery to try and disguise or eliminate those flaws. Some experts have speculated that Music/MichaelJackson may have suffered from it due to the multiple plastic surgeries he had on his face.

* Averted and defied by Nobu in ''Manga/{{Ooku}}'': she knows she's rather plain looking (and this is backed up by others noting she's plain-looking as well), but she's also not particularly bothered by it because, as she herself prefers a plainer sort of man rather than {{Bishounen}}, it stands to reason that there will be a man that likes her plainer looks. This so shocks Shogun Tsunayoshi (who was raised to believe her beauty was the most important thing to her) that she ends up laughing, then awarding Nobu land and the masculine name Yoshimune as a reward for the laugh, setting off a chain of events that eventually led to Yoshimune becoming shogun herself.

* [[GhostInTheMachine Kaguya (Ice)]] from ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'' sees herself as "a disgusting person who could never be cute", though she means it in terms of her personality rather than her looks. It makes sense, given that she's meant to be the representation of everything that Kaguya hates about herself.

* Natsumi, in ''LightNovel/DateALive'' honestly believes her true form (a pretty, if messy haired 14 year old) is hideous and no one would want to look at her like that, hence she uses her transformation powers to give herself what she believes is an ideal body. It takes a lot of work, but in the end Shido and the gang manage to get her to accept her true form, and afterwards she becomes [[LovableSexManiac Miku's]] favorite target for sexual harrassment, because she finds her so damn cute. It's later revealed that she thought so little of her looks because [[spoiler:her mother treated her like crap, called her ugly, and did other horrible things to her before her transformation into a spirit]] which completely wrecked her self-image.
* [[MiddleChildSyndrome Miku Nakano]] of ''Manga/TheQuintessentialQuintuplets'' seems to suffer from this, owing to her low self-esteem. Even though she and her sisters are identical quintuplets, she often compares herself unfavorably to her older sisters Ichika and Nino, both of whom are outgoing and popular, while she's withdrawn and doesn't care much for her appearance. During the climax of the Sisters' War arc, Nino angrily tells her that, being quintuplets, Miku is as pretty as the others too.

* A RareMaleExample in the second ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' book: Percy mentions that he doesn't like to think about his appearance, mentioning a few minor flaws that bother him (one of which is just that he's started getting zits). For what it's worth, the official art always depicts him as normal-to-attractive. On the other hand, he says this while his insecurities [[MoreThanMindControl are being heightened]] by [[WickedWitch Circe]], who's using her CompellingVoice to make him accept a "[[BalefulPolymorph makeover]]."

* Sara Crewe in ''Literature/ALittlePrincess'' thinks she must not be pretty because she doesn't mesh with the beauty standards of late-nineteenth-century England, being small, skinny, black-haired, tanned, and green-eyed, comparing herself to another child who is fair-skinned and golden haired. There is some ValuesDissonance at play here -- since Sara doesn't match the Victorian standards of beauty. The narration, however, states that she is definitely prettier than she thinks.

* Creator/DougWalker apologized for having to show his "mug" every day on the site for two months in "The Last Airbender Vlogs". ''Big'' change from the guy who bragged about being a MrFanservice to both genders.

* {{Transgender}} people are ''very'' prone to this. In fact, it can commonly be ''worse'' for a transgender person if they're considered attractive by the standards of the wrong gender.

* A 16-year-old [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Misty]] in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13542622/1/ Tell Me I'm Pretty]]'' gets depressed over the fact that she doesn't get a date for the wedding of her older sister Daisy (on top of being asked to be the flower girl), feeling that she's not pretty enough. She ends up sneaking away and runs into Ash, who after listening to her woes, assures her that he she's not just pretty, but he actually considers her beautiful.