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Adorkable

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Nerdy glasses, a huge bow-tie and a goofy grin. That's one cute geography geek.
Adorkable characters are fictional characters whom the audience finds irresistible and cute because of their dorkiness, nerdiness, enthusiasm or vulnerability. Maybe they're socially inept or shy. Maybe they're really clumsy. Maybe they have some really, really conspicuous character tic that tends to earn them weird looks. Maybe they're just so darn sweet, that it borders on embarrassing. Heck, maybe they're just an out-and-out nerd. However, rather than making them an outcast, these quirks give the character an endearing vulnerability.

Societal norms would seem to suggest that this is the opposite of the (Western) ideal man, woman or other; in reality, many fans find these characters appealing: rather than an over-the-top caricature, these characters are enjoyable and relatable because they're not absurd supermen or unattainable supermodels. However, a hardened or attractive character can still be seen as Adorkable by the audience if they display traits like shyness or awkwardness underneath their exterior.

This term has become increasingly common in use, and can nowadays be heard at a higher frequency in movies and on the internet, to the point that it's now appeared in dictionaries.

Note that this is an audience reaction to certain charactersEndearingly Dorky is for when characters within the work find a dorky person endearing, charming, or even attractive. Compare Moe, where an adorable character instills feelings of protectiveness.


Example subpages:

Other examples:

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    Music 
  • Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong. A good chunk of his earlier songs are about puppy-love, and he's cute and dorky in video for "Holiday". The fact that he looks barely over half his age helps, too.
  • David Byrne's stage presence and antics in the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, when not the trademarks of a cloudcuckoolander, can get pretty dorky and adorable.
  • PSY, and him cranking the dorkiness up in his viral hit Gangnam Style.
  • Vitas, especially in this video. He gets pretty animated when on stage in general. Between his flamboyant costumes ranging from colorful space suits to sequined tuxedos and his funky dancing, there is really too much to name.
  • A lot of what makes Eminem endearing is the contrast between his shocking and belligerent lyrics and his innocent, slightly nerdish persona, mannerisms and appearance, reinforcing that he's not just a bully, but a childlike white geek who unleashed his slightly psychopathic side. ("Class clown freshman, dressed like Les Nessman..."). Part of his persona is also how nerdishly fixated he gets on words. He likes to emphasise his dorky cuteness in some of his songs, particularly ones like "Hailie's Song", in which he sings about how much he loves his daughter using notes that do not exist. When clowning around on MTV he tended to tone down his Psychopathic Manchild Slim Shady alter-ego by concentrating on Slim's childlike side, like in the "Just Lose It" Behind The Scenes video where he acts like a slightly contrite grandchild to the old lady who he's about to act out a sexual harassment scene with.

    Podcasts 
  • Though he may be a Corrupt Corporate Executive, Corin Deeth the III of Kakos Industries can be quite the Affably Evil dork whenever he loses his cool. His voice can get pretty high whenever he's nervous, he has no problem practicing his Evil Laugh on the air, and he turns out to be a little ticklish. And if he isn't giving a menacing dark chuckle, his laughter can be surprisingly soft and sweet.
  • Sibylline Sounds:
    • Fluffle the Dragon from this video. He is a big orange dragon with purple hair and beard and wears glasses and a has big goofy smile and talks in a friendly, relaxing, and adorably awkward voice. He remains completely calm even when you, the listener, accidently destroy all his furniture.
    • Another character from the same channel is Calister, a friendly Naga who works at a coffee shop and speaks with an adorable accent and is also kind of awkward.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Mick Foley Mankind's persona went from deranged psychopath to Adorkable in the late 90s. On one hand, he'd shoot off dumb puns and looked awkward and out of place, especially with his physique. But on the other, his determination to succeed and moments like Mr. Socko's funny debut endeared him not only in kayfabe to D-Generation X and The Rock, but in real life as well, not to mention the audience at large. It doesn't hurt that his dorky persona was an amazing contrast to the incredibly punishing bumps he took throughout his career.
  • This trope is part of Daniel Bryan's massive appeal. He's not edgy or larger than life like other wrestlers, and he wasn't snappy on the mic like John Cena, but he's more of an Everyman who just happens to have excellent skills. This trope was exploited during his brief "chick magnet" gimmick with the Bella Twins.
  • Xavier Woods is constantly happy and loves being in the ring. And he has his somewhat cheesy smile.
  • Bayley. Between her gushing to beloved Superstars, love of hugs and sheer excitement at just being there, she has this trope written all over her.
  • Emma, in all her awkward-dancing glory, actually had the trope name invoked for her by announcers. This, of course, was before her Face–Heel Turn (after her move to the main roster didn't pan out).
  • Matt Riddle, now that he's a fixture on the main WWE roster. The scooter he rides everywhere would be enough on its own, but on top of that he turns social awkwardness into an art form.

    Roleplay 
  • Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
    • Vivian, a high-strung and awkward girl who rambles and shouts when she's nervous, has a plethora of geeky merchandise in her room, and a secret love for musicals.
    • Ivy, another shy girl who stutters, wears glasses, likes anime and manga, and tends to rely on her boisterous friend Luna in any social situation. Another girl in her class has a crush on her specifically because her meekness is so charming.
    • Ciro. His lack of social life because of all his time spent working has left him socially awkward and easy to make flustered. He also tries very hard to be the most responsible and morally upright of all the kids, which gives him an endearing quality that no less than four girls have fallen for (naturally, he's clueless about all of them).

    Theatre 
  • Evelyn from Anything Goes. It's his attempts at using American idioms that really seal him as adorable dork.
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto — though not a lot of readers of the manga seem to like main character Angelo, both Taiki Yamazaki and Ryotaro Akazawa gave their portrayals of him this quality in the musical, and made him extremely lovable. Yamazaki, in particular, is tall (almost the tallest in the cast) and awkwardly moves as if to not stand out so much. This works well with Angelo's role in the story — a commoner Scholarship Student who's intelligent and joins in debates even against his social superiors Cesare Borgia (who doesn't try to cut Angelo down, and appreciates his honesty all along) and Giovanni de'Medici (whose bullying towards Angelo is toned down from the manga, but who also comes to appreciate him after Character Development). (Cesare and Giovanni are both played by shorter actors). Add to that Yamazaki's heart-melting smile, and the way he gazes at Cesare like he's in love (including that giddy shoulder lift he does when Cesare looks at him), and you have a thoroughly lovable, adorkable character.
  • College-age Allison from the musical adaptation of Fun Home is a cute dork with her sing-song rambling and adorable behaviour around her roommate, Joan.
  • Freddy Eynsford-Hill from My Fair Lady. He's an aristocrat, but he couldn't help sniggering when he encounters Eliza Doolittle whose "new small talk" he finds absolutely irresistible.
  • Nigel Bottom from Something Rotten! is intelligent, socially awkward, and a Shakespeare fanboy. He's very nerdy and endearing, and ends up falling for the equally adorkable Portia.
  • Malvolio from Twelfth Night. Poor guy gets tricked into thinking that Olivia loves him. He's such a dork when he wears the yellow stockings. He's that guy who enforces the rules without bias. He's so adorable when he's daydreaming. Malvolio's such a dork and he's given false hope by Maria, Sir Toby and a few others.

    Web Animation 
  • Anon: While Connor still has that occasional Martinez roughness to him, he's an adorable, socially awkward and ditzy teenager who gets all the fans "aww"ing in the comments from his goofy one-liners and airhead moments.
  • Helluva Boss: Moxxie is a bit clumsy at times, has freckles and is a cute gentleman to his wife, Millie. Taken further when he gets drunk in Episode three, flopping around in a giggly stupor all while being even more blatantly loving towards his wife.
  • Homestar Runner:
    • Homestar may be a so-called "terrific athlete", but his klutziness and not-so-bright personality has earned him several adorkable moments.
    • Strong Bad has had dorky moments, namely when geeking out over movies, TV shows, video games or his favorite band Limozeen.
    • Marzipan is adorable and dorky when she obsessively gushes over a sandwich Homestar makes her, saying it's too cute to eat, much to Homestar's annoyance.
    • Strong Sad often has his moments of being adorkable, especially when he's talking about his favorite things like art, literature and poetry. The fact that he often gets looked down upon by the other characters, particularly his older brothers, and his gentle voice (when he's not being whiny) also adds to it. He's also very cute when he smiles.
  • Youtuber Joseph JoCat Catallanello certainly fits this category. A freckled and bespeckled nerd who just happens to be the most precious geek on the internet, considering his genuine and wholesome personality (unless, of course, he's playing Jocrap).
  • Skout from Nomad of Nowhere is the naive, awkward, and book smart team member of the team, who speaks with cute Dixie accent.
  • Red vs. Blue:
  • RWBY:
    • When Ruby Rose first arrives in Beacon, she gushes so much over all the new weapons she can see other students carrying that she briefly turns into a cute, floating chibi version of herself with stars for eyes. When Yang later suggests she make her own friends, she begins hugging and caressing her weapon like it's a kitten. Ruby is obsessed with weapons and admits she went overboard when designing her own because of this. She therefore tends to become very nerdy in a very cute, excitable way whenever she has a chance to wax lyrical about them.
    • Jaune Arc is introduced as someone who is full of optimism and wants to make friends and meet cool, quirky girls to talk to, but he also becomes clumsy and over-eager when talking to such girls. While Yang was turned off by him wearing onesie pyjamas, the sheer pride with which he poses in such an embarrassing outfit, when he spots Yang looking at him, made him very endearing to fans.
    • Velvet is a shy, unassuming rabbit Faunus who is an amateur photographer with a strong engineering aptitude. She is always excited to show off her photography to anyone she can, even though most characters think she's bad at it because they don't realise she's photographing weapons instead of people. She also tends to become embarrassed when catching people off-guard when taking photographs, leading to her apologising in a cute and flustered way. Because she has a weapon that has to be used sparingly, she rarely gets to use it in battle and becomes extremely excited whenever given the chance. In the novels, her engineering abilities are explored further, showing that she can be an absolute geek when she's given the opportunity to start talking about the inner workings of her weapon. While it doesn't always impress the characters around her, it helped endear her to the fandom.
    • Penny is a Robot Girl who is extremely cheerful and optimistic, but occasionally hits the wrong social note in an wacky and endearing ways. When she first meets Team RWBY and gets knocked to the ground, she starts greeting them while lying on the ground until they ask her if she's okay. She becomes extremely excited, and latches onto Ruby like a lost puppy, when Ruby calls her "friend" and, during the school ball, she doesn't waltz like the other students, she performs the robot dance in a very gentle, tentative way. As her robotic nature was originally a secret, when she accidentally gets a magnet stuck to her head, she tries wearing an excessively large straw hat to hide it which makes her look both cute and silly at the same time.
    • Marrow is the youngest and newest member of Ace-Ops. He tries so hard to be as cool as the rest of the team that his attempts to mimic Clover's stern, straight-backed, confident walk, making him look extremely dorky. His attempts to be stern or stand-offish tend to fall apart because of his dog tail, which constantly wags and gives away his true feelings; and when he updates a soldier in the background on Ace-Ops' recent mission, the audience can see him enact the entire fight for them in an extremely enthusiastic, slapstick fashion.
  • Shadows of the Past and it's sister series Ain't No Rest for The Wicked:
    • Eieon. Let's check shall we. American Asian,Pacifist,Pop Culture Geek,LARP and it's heavily implied that he "enjoys" furry internet pornography. He's basically like the most relatable guy on the internet.
    • Sage as much as he wants you to believe he isn't. He's been shown to be just as geeky as Eieon, according to Eieon when they were teenagers they used to get into hot pop culture debates such as. "Can a lightsaber slash though Captain Americas shield" "Can the Enterprise be converted into a war vessel in times of galactic conflict" "Who shot first Han or Greedo" and "Sherlock Holmes is a hiding time-lord and has a fog watch some where at 221B Baker Street".
    • Pyro and Blacksun both being an Expy for Sage and Eieon have the same pop cultured riddled conversations like their originals. But instead of the two arguing about science fiction and video games, these two argue about fantasy and books such as The Lord of the Rings and conversations about, "Gandalf vs. Merlin" "Frodo vs Pre-Hobbit Bilbo" "How the hunter who killed Bambi's mother is the only Disney villain who has flat out murdered a character" and "How Sam was the real hero of The Lord of The Rings and without him Frodo would have died". Both are seen playing The Riddle Game with each other during their off time.

    Websites 

    Web Videos 
  • Virtual vlogger Ami Yamato starts out pretty adorkable, appearing quite awkward in front of a camera in her earliest videos. She becomes more confident and polished over time, but is still a big sci-fi nerd, often cosplaying, attending conventions, and talking about (or inserting herself into) Star Wars, Back to the Future, the Marvel Universe, Harry Potter, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and other popular series. Perhaps the epitome of her adorkability is "Bored in Lockdown", where she whiles away her time stuck indoors by making silly noises with her mouth, making tea, going for a rather lonely walk, and finally digging out her old Gameboy to play Tetris.
  • Jane Eyre in a Setting Update webseries adaptation, The Autobiography of Jane Eyre. She is cute as a button, though she's played to be not particularly attractive or drop dead gorgeous, as fits the original novel (Jane Eyre constantly describes herself as plain in the book). In her first video, she presents herself as a geeky and nerdy girl who adores her books and is very studious. She also plays with post-it notes and bowls with an orange and empty coke bottles. Adorable and dorky, QED.
  • Emily Graslie, the cheery, bespectacled writer and host of The Brain Scoop with her million watt smile and passion for the sciency goodness at the museum she works at as well as her work for the museum she used to work at. And dear god, her blooper reels from her lectures to the camera! Fair warning, some may squick at the preparation of museum specimens of earlier installments.
  • Classic Alice: Titular character Alice is very cute and upbeat, especially the first eight books. She loves reading, writing, and all things school. Whenever she makes a major life decision, she creates overly elaborate posters and charts (and once even a board game) to help her make the best decision. A lover of charts, organization, and with the dorkiest smile she can muster, Alice coasts through different novels on her videos.
  • Dad: Part of draw of the series is Dad's adorably awkward aping of a normal suburban father with his childlike mannerisms.
  • Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: This is the reason Dr. Horrible is popular. He's quirky with his science-y gadgets and his evil plans manage to be rather endearing. He crushes on a cute Girl Next Door and tries to hit on her by meeting her by accident in a laundry room. He's played by Neil Patrick Harris, which helps.
  • Simone Giertz, Queen of Shitty Robots, a woman so adorkable that when vlogger Jenna Marbles gave her a Shout-Out, she responded by building a robotic version of Marbles's dog Kermit. After a brief montage showing how the dog basically couldn't walk straight, stand up or do tricks, she commented "There you go, this is how I court friends. Good job, Giertz," and patted herself on the back.note 
  • Noble from Lost Pause. His laugh, cackling voice, goofy attitude and happy personality attribute to this. It’s one of his most mentioned traits by his fans.
  • The Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Lizzie's very lovely and characters find her attractive. However, she can be a bit dorky and nerdish, especially with her costume drama theatre when she makes her vlog. Her younger sister Lydia constantly calls her a nerd and considers her taste in fashion rather poor.
  • Youtube vlogger Jenny Nicholson makes videos in which her dorkiness about sci-fi films (the Star Wars franchise in particular) is at full force, but she also attempts to defuse or talk down the crazier fan theories as politely as she can, while still making a forceful argument. In her viral video "Suicide Squad Sales Pitch" she wears highly adorkable glasses.
  • Resident Evil Abridged:
    • Rebecca is S.T.A.R.S' field medic and their newest recruit. The Abridged portrays her as being meek and soft-spoken, with occasional lapses of Buffy Speak. Her first scene even has her timidly start to apologize to a zombie, until she realizes it's Chris standing behind her:
    Rebecca: "Oh gosh! Um, excuse me, Mr. Zombie...? But now's not a good time t-"
    (looks over her shoulder and sees it's Chris)
    Rebecca: (chipperly) "Oh! you're alive."
  • StinkulousReddous, a cosplayer known for dressing up as Seto Kaiba and appearing at cons featuring LittleKuriboh and other abridgers, who she bakes brownies for. She also wields a briefcase that can instantly knock out anyone.
  • Wayne at pretty much everything he does in Vigilant. When he goes on a first date with Rita, he tells her he loves her and calls her "Mom" when he gets nervous. Everything he does is awkward in a likable way.
  • Why Not Janice? has... Janice. Complete with British Accents, Genki Girl, Fangirl overload, Lovable Coward antics, and an awkward Plucky Girl persona hiding a Stoic Woobie with a desperate need for affection. And British TV series.

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