Compliment Fishing

They say, "I'm sorry the house is so messy," forcing you to respond, "No, not at all; it's looking beautiful." Actually, a better response would be, "No, not at all; I enjoy a little squalor."

— John Cleese

Let's say you've written something. You know it's good^note because you're such a better writer than us, right? but you still want to attract more feedback and compliments than you'd normally get.^note Although that's still more than we've ever gotten. So, you go out of your way to call attention to how bad it is^note Even though it's nowhere near as bad as this entry, tell everyone why they'd never want to see it, and, in extreme cases, wangst at length about how you're a miserable failure of a writer who deserves to die alone.^note What does that makes us by comparison, then?

Then, just sit back and watch the sympathy and back-pats roll in. Of course, you can disparage the first ones as insincere to really get them rolling.

This is a common tactic of the Shrinking Violet - though in their case, the line between this trope and Chronic Self-Deprecation is often very thin indeed. Subtle Attention Whores also love this trope, as it lets them bask in pity-praise without having to directly toot their own horn. It's also a good strategic move in Passive-Aggressive Kombat and Politeness Judo.

This can backfire very badly for the compliment fisher if people respond by agreeing with them. ("It's OK, we love you even though you're a bad writer.") If someone does that on purpose, it's probably a form of Backhanded Compliment. People with particularly bad cases of self-loathing may even prefer this type of response, confirming and mentally justifying their own negative perception of themself.

It can also set up a very effective Stealth Insult if the target only objects to one of the putdowns the compliment fisher makes, implying they think all the others are valid points. ("I'm a bad writer, I'm ugly, and nobody likes me!" "That's not true; your writing isn't bad.")

A Sub-Trope of Self-Deprecation, and the dishonest, manipulative little sister of the chronic form, though both can result from the same base feeling of self-loathing and can be very hard to distinguish from each other. Compare and contrast Suspiciously Specific Denial. If two people try this at once, it can lead to Outhumbling Each Other.

By the way... You don't have to bother editing this page. I know you don't really want to. It's OK, there are much better pages on the wiki for you to spend your time with, I understand if you think this one is a waste...

Compare Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?, this trope's creepy, Freudian sister.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• In chapter 20 of Boarding School Juliet, Teria offers to teach Romeo to swim, although she obviously isn't good at swimming either, due to her young age. The expectation is that he will refuse and praise her for her compassion ^note Honor Before Reason being heavily glorified in their culture, but instead Romeo took her offer at face value and asked if she was irresponsible. Cut to both of them struggling in the water.
  Romeo: (warmly) Teria... If you can't swim, then don't do it!
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Side Despair: Gundham reassures everyone that his pet bear will only bite high-ranked demons. Sonia, who has a crush on Gundham, indignantly asks if he means that she's a demon of low rank. Of course, since both of them are perfectly human and just like to pretend otherwise, it's clear Gundham didn't mean that and she knows it.
• One Piece: Diamante is constantly fishing for compliments from Doflamingo to a ridiculous extent. Doflamingo goes along with it, possibly to better motivate Diamante.

Fan Works

• The Death God Alliance exaggerates this for comic effect when Bast outright orders Percy to pay her compliments.
• Miraculous Two Weeks: When Marinette admits to Adrien that she had a dream about kissing Chat Noir, he asks if that was the best part.
• MoringMark - TOH Comics: One strip features Hunter faking his death in order to hear what his mourning friends will say about him. Unfortunately for him, Luz catches on and winds up slapping him to expose the ruse.
• Scarlet Lady:
  • While practicing together for the UMS3 tournament in "The Gamer", Adrien compliments Marinette's skills while claiming that they only won thanks to her and that he's 'nothing compared to [her].' Rather than comforting him, Marinette responds that it honestly makes sense that he's not as good at co-op, as he's only ever played by himself and doesn't have any experience working with a partner.
  • In "Simon Says", Scarlet Lady takes advantage of the titular akuma targeting Gabriel to appoint herself as Adrien's "bodyguard". The next day at school, she tries to get Adrien to praise her "heroic" alter ego, only for him to make clear how unimpressed he was.
    Chloé: Adrihoney~! I heard you got visited by the amazing Scarlet Lady.
    Adrien: Ugh, yeah, and I have the eyebags to prove it.
    Chloé: Soooo? Isn't she ultra fab? Don't you just love her?
    Adrien: Ew. No.
    Caption: This answer will be dutifully ignored on the basis that it wasn't the one Chloe wanted to hear.
  • "Evillustrator" has a Plot Parallel to the above moment when Adrien asks Marinette about her latest encounter with Chat Noir. Again, it backfires: Marinette tearfully declares how awful it was due to how Chat Noir forced her to promise to avoid getting involved with any other akumas:
    Adrien: (winking flirtatiously) So, I hear you had another Chat Noir encounter~
    Marinette: (shaking and sobbing) Yeah! It sucked!
    Adrien: Oh god! Why?!
    Marinette: I promised to stay out of akuma fights!
    Adrien: Isn't that a good thing?!
    Marinette: NO cuz now Chat Noir has no one to rely on because Scarlet Lady is the worst!
• At one point in Snape's Worst Memory, Lily asks him "You don't think I'm getting too fat, do you, Sev?" Snape muses to himself that her phrasing makes clear that she's aware that she's gaining weight, wondering why she's bothered to ask him about it.

Films — Live-Action

• In Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, the Grim Reaper of all people starts fishing for compliments, clearly jealous of the praise B&T are heaping on Station, the Martian genius. At one point Death thoroughly Squicks the boys by trying to get them to compliment his ass.
• In the Loop: Karen Clark jokes to Chad "you might be Secretary of State one day, young man!" Chad doesn't realise it's a joke and says "Don't say that if you don't mean it."
• In Mean Girls, Regina mentions at the Plastics' lunch table that she needs to lose a few pounds. She then stares expectantly at Gretchen and Karen, who immediately start complimenting how skinny she is.
• Shattered Glass: Every time Glass pitches one of his exciting but false stories, he inevitably ends by mumbling something along the lines of "I know, it's terrible, I'm probably not gonna do anything about it." People think he's just being modest, but it becomes clear that he's actually doing this.

Literature

• In A Christmas Carol, Mrs. Cratchit is terribly nervous that her Christmas pudding won't be good enough, but her family tells her it's wonderful.
• The Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Vanishing Point features a scene where a deformed-but-still-attractive Ingenue has a heart-to-heart with Fitz, the Doctor's companion and a Chivalrous Pervert. He accuses her of doing this, but she seems to genuinely mean what she's saying about herself:
  'No one would wish to. I am deformed. I am ugly.'
  'Are you fishing, here, by any chance?'
  She laughed at him. 'Fishing?'
  'For compliments, I mean,' Fitz said. 'Look, Vettul, if it helps, you're not ugly... I mean, you're...' He felt himself growing flustered.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Arthur Dent's "It was nothing really" doesn't get the reaction he had been expecting from Zaphod Beeblebrox.
• Huckleberry Finn: "Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was and how ornery and tough the fried chicken was-and all that kind of rot, the way women always do to force out compliments..."
• The Irregular at Magic High School:
  • Miyuki asks Tatsuya if a particular hairpin looks good on her. Being rather socially blunt, Tatsuya obliviously replies that there's a mirror close by.
  • Maya laments that she became too emotional during her Motive Rant, and Hayama comfortingly agrees that she was, but getting a bit overwrought was unavoidable. Maya pouts, implying that this was not what she wanted him to say.
• The Joy Luck Club: A girl brings her oh-so-very American fiancé home to meet her oh-so-very Chinese family. She forgot to brief him on the Chinese-mother tactic of bringing out their best dish garnished with lots of self-depreciation. He protests that her dish is delicious...
  Fiance: It just needs a little sauce! (Pours soy sauce all over the dish)
  Family: (Appalled silence)
• In Squids Will Be Squids, one of the fables has a pigeon doing this.
• In John Ringo's Troy Rising, two characters have a discussion about how their respective cultures handle praise. The character from the USA tells the character from South America that their culture goes too far in praising themselves, deliberately doing things specifically to gain praise. The South American replies that American culture engages in self-deprecation specifically to have their audience provide even more praise, in effect fishing for compliments. Note that these descriptions may or may not apply to cultures in our world.

Live-Action TV

• In the Community episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", the study group are debating why Abed has chosen to give them certain toy characters in his Christmas fantasy dreamworld. Annie, who has been made a clockwork ballerina, suggests that he's just given them random characters, coyly adding that "it's not like I'm that thin and graceful... right?" Much to her dismay, Britta caustically suggests that she's instead been given that role because she's "fragile and tightly wound."
• Father Ted: Mrs Doyle tells Ted his voice is gorgeous, and he plays it down, clearly loving it. When she asks him to sing something else and he obliges with Paris In The Spring, it backfires when she suddenly decides his version was "catastrophic".
• In the Friends episode "The One With Joey's New Girlfriend", Chandler confesses to the other friends that he has feelings for Kathy, and caps it off with, "I'm a horrible person." He then looks at the others expectantly, and upon getting no reaction, adds, "No, you're not, Chandler, we still love you, Chandler".
• In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lwaxana Troi is flirting with an alien scientist and reminisces about how she "sparkled" in her youth. He's too distracted to reply, so she directly tells him what she's doing.
  "You see, that's called 'fishing for a compliment'. You're supposed to tell me I still sparkle."
• Subverted and parodied in The Colbert Report on the "Formidable Opponent" segment (where Steve plays both parties in a debate). One version of him mentions that he needs to lose a few pounds, and his 'opponent' responds "yeah, you kinda do."

Theater

• Blanche tries this on Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire. It doesn't work, though he's not outright rude about it, either: "Your looks are okay."

Video Games

• The Lollipop Chainsaw character Juliet, according to Word of God, enjoys being told she's not fat. Hence her frequently saying that she is.

Web Animation

• In the Jaltoid video "I'm Ugly", the main character posts a picture of herself on Facebook along with comments that she's so ugly in hopes that people will correct her. It works well enough until she decides to deny one person's compliment. Then he concedes to her that she's ugly because she said so herself and he doesn't want to argue, at which point she tries to get him arrested as a "perverted pedophile cyber-bully."

Western Animation

• In the Beetlejuice episode "Beauty And The Beetle," Lydia starts feeling self-conscious after seeing a series of beauty aid commercials on TV. She asks Beetlejuice "Am I ugly?" After skirting the issue with his usual wisecracks, B.J. finally assures Lydia "You're not even pretty ugly!"
• The Patrick Star Show: Parodied in "Host-a-Palooza". GrandPat and Cecil are in a fishing contest, and they throw their fishing lines around randomly around the room. They finally hook each other, leading them to stop their feud and compliment each other. Squidina asks what they were trying to catch; they tell her that they were "fishing for compliments". Squidina groans.

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