I Hate Past Me

"PAST ME IS ALWAYS SO TERRIBLE, EVEN WHEN I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED BEING HIM."

— Karkat Vantas, Homestuck

The inverse of Future Me Scares Me, where a character sees the past and either meets or somehow witnesses the actions of their past self, and just can't stand them. Maybe they were once a villain, and now that they've reformed dislike how evil they once were, or, inversely, they're more evil and show disdain for how "weak" their past self is. Maybe they were extremely selfish as a child, and regret their indifference to the needs and feelings of others. Maybe they're just more experienced, and are annoyed with how inexperienced and impulsive they were in the past. In any case, they're constantly ticked off by their past.

See also Future Me Scares Me, so for this from the point of view from the past self, go there. Compare Old Shame, a more mundane version of this trope, and Amnesiac Dissonance, where something similar happens as a result of previously-hidden memories being recovered. Contrast Other Me Annoys Me. See also I Was Quite a Fashion Victim and Former Teen Rebel.

This is very much Truth in Television, as most of us would certainly be quite embarrassed by our own past personality quirks and antics. Fortunately, we can't go back in time and meet our younger selves... yet.

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Example subpages:

• Fan Works
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Advertising

• This commercial from NerdWallet involves a bunch of old people who hate their young selves because they were not smart with their money and ended up in a Bad Future as a result.

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In Chapter 48, Karane takes a drug that removes her Tsundere personality traits. While the other girls are enthralled by her new friendly attitude, they soon agree that her old self was still likable. Karane, however, refuses to reverse the process until Rentarou explains that he's willing to accept her change if this is what she wants, but not if it's because she hates who she used to be.
• Cross Ange: Angelise Ikaruga Misurugi, previously a princess and heir to the throne, used to espouse positive things like friendship and trust. Then she was outed as a Norma and treated as lower than trash by the Mana-using people that respected her before and then exiled. Then she came back anyway to save her sister Sylvia, only for her to betray Ange, whip her in public, and said public continued to jeer on her and want her executed for existing as a Norma. Once she got out of there, Ange exclaimed that she was a complete fool for espousing such positive things for rotten people like the Mana community, and if anything, she feels like punching herself in the face when she remembered that past.
• Volume 8 of The Dangers in My Heart contains a reprint of the manga's first chapter with commentary from Ichikawa and Yamada as they were at the end of that volume (i.e. right after becoming a couple). Ichikawa spends the first few pages feeling thankful that Yamada can't read his past self's internal monologue as he cringes at his murderous fantasies from back then.
• In Dragon Ball Super (specifically the manga), Vegeta at one point saves a Namekian boy from Moro, stating that he won’t allow any Namekian to be killed when he can stop it. Vegeta confirms this is out of guilt and shame for massacring dozens of Namekians when he was younger and evil during the Namek Saga.
• In a Fairy Tail OVA, when Natsu meets his child self via time travel, he angrily beats him up for being so weak and losing a fight to Gray. He also calls his child self stupid for not recognizing him and thinking he's a monster.
• During Part 3 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Noriaki Kakyoin comments on how the person he was before the Crusaders entered his life was a "pathetic lurker". His hatred for his past self is what motivated him to join the group, thinking of becoming a better person.
• I Want Your Mother To Be With Me!: In Chapter 15, Haruka and Ryo pass a wedding store at the mall, and Ryo is shamefully reminded of his past actions from the first chapter (asking out Yuzuki with Condescending Compassion and generally being a self-centered jerkass).
• Kaguya from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is deeply ashamed by her past as an Ice Queen, referring to herself as having been "a terrible woman with a twisted, disfigured heart." It also puts her square in Insecure Love Interest territory, as it makes her feel unworthy of being loved by a Nice Guy like Shirogane.
• Yanagi of Last Game is really ashamed of what a spoiled, entitled brat he was ten years before.
• Maria no Danzai: When Maria Akeboshi sees her reflection as Mari Nagare, not only does Maria see Mari as dead, but as a coward. This is a tragic example of how far gone she is to the point of having a negative opinion on her past self, the same person whom her son loves.
  Maria: ...Begone, coward.
• Mirai of the Future has an amusing moment where Future-Kun tries to tell Kun that not wearing his favorite pants isn't the end of the world and he should instead appreciate being able to make happy memories with his family. When Kun disagrees, he is so flabbergasted that the two end up in a childish argument befitting Kun, but not Future-Kun.
• Naruto, after the Time Skip in Shipuuden, does an omake with his past self. He is shocked by the fact that he was a very annoying, obnoxious loudmouth before the Time Skip.
  • Similarly, in Boruto, when Sasuke goes back in time to Part 1, he’s quite ashamed of his younger self who betrayed the village and is noticeably tight-lipped over it when Boruto questions why he left the village and his friends. Future Sasuke also strives to protect young Naruto and especially young Sakura due to how much he hurt them both when he was young.
• In Noein, Karasu condemns his past self for being an utter coward. Considering what he's trying to do, not an entirely unreasonable attitude. And then the titular Noein turns out to be yet another future Yuu, who hates both Yuu and Karasu.
• Haru of Ojojojo has always been disgusted with how she used to act before she met Kawayanagi and Akane. It just takes her a while to say it out loud.
• One Piece:
  • Rebel Leader Kohza gets annoyed at Kappa, the little boy who adamantly wants to join the rebellion — but is refused. Kohza soon after reveals to his subordinates that the kid reminded him of himself when was younger and full of spirit, which unsettled him.
  • Jinbei is somewhat ashamed of his past as a brutal Human-hating Pirate, and he especially regretted all the trouble he caused for Queen Otohime. When Nami forgives him for letting Arlong loose on the East Blue despite all the pain it caused, Jinbei burst into tears.
  • Downplayed, but Sanji is quite callous when regarding his younger and weaker self; he states to his Arch Nemesis Dad Judge that as far as he’s concerned, “Vinsmoke Sanji” died at sea.
• Two of the Nakano sisters in The Quintessential Quintuplets deal with this, albeit in different ways:
  • Nino was initially the most hostile towards Fuutarou for no other reason than "he's an intruder in our home", outright trying to sabotage his efforts to get them to study, with no consideration whatsoever for his situation (he needs the money from his work as a tutor to help support his family). After she falls in love with him, she's deeply ashamed of the way she treated him and resolves to be as nice to him as possible.
  • As the flashbacks reveal, Yotsuba used to be the most selfish and competitive out of her sisters, wanting to stand out and be the best out of them. When she started failing in academics, she turned to sport clubs, but her grades suffered for it and she was expelled from their school. Her sisters pretended to have cheated in their own exams to be expelled along with her so they could stick together, and this sacrifice made Yotsuba decide to prioritize her sisters' happiness, even in detriment of her own.
• In the extended ending of Shaman King, it's revealed Horo Horo hates being called by his real name (Horokeu Usui). A flashback then follows young Horokeu, an unpopular kid in his elementary school, pushing away his only friend, a girl nicknamed Damko, due to his nature as an Ainu shaman and the girl's father being generally unpopular among his tribe: trying to follow him after the event, the girl got lost in the mountains and froze to death. Devastated by the incident, Horokeu blamed himself and gave up his own name, angrily shouting that it's the name of the one who killed the only girl he ever loved.
• In A Silent Voice, when Shouya Ishida reflects on the misery caused by his younger self's bullying, he's so ashamed of what he did that he has an Imagine Spot of his current self stabbing his younger self, with the younger self maintaining a feckless grin the entire time. Subverted in the anime, Shouya is actually more sympathetic to his troubled younger self as brilliantly shown in the scene where he’s comforting young Yuzuru while she wears the shoes he wore as a kid, his consoling words to Yuzuru while she’s covered by the umbrella are symbolically framed as him talking to his elementary school self.
• A non-time travel variant is a major element in Tokyo Ghoul :Re. Amnesiac Hero Haise Sasaki is haunted by visions of his past self and states he knows that's exactly who it is. He confesses to being afraid of regaining his memories, because of who he might have been and the thought that his current self will "die". Notably, this Enemy Within is actually a twisted version of his past self, rather than an accurate reflection of who he used to be. Hinami putting herself in harm's way to save him due to her bond with his past self convinces him that the person he was must have been a good person. The next time he sees his past self, "Ken" looks like a scared and crying boy who begs Sasaki to save Hinami. Sasaki still clings to his current identity, but he no longer hates or fears Ken.
• Tokyo Revengers: Takemichi has the ability to Mental Time Travel exactly twelve years into the past, but doesn't retain any memory of the changes in the timeline resulting from his actions. Due to the complete 180 his personality took over the course of his life, going from a cocky, violent brat to a meek Reluctant Warrior, whenever he travels back he's forced to contend with decisions his alternate self made that he doesn't even remember doing such as attempting to cheat on his girlfriend Hina.
• In one chapter/episode of Urusei Yatsura, Shutaro Mendō travels back in time and very literally scares his younger self — the child Mendō acts like such an obnoxious brat to his future self that he provokes the latter into attacking him with a sword. The young Mendō hides in a jar until the older Mendō returns to his own time, but that experience was what gave him his claustrophobia and fear of the dark. What's more, the reason he travels back in time in the first place is to prevent himself from getting that claustrophobia and fear of the dark.

Comedy

• The Firesign Theatre radio parody "Nick Danger" has the characters all transported by time machine to twenty years earlier where they meet their past selves. They all get into an angry brawl with each other, except for the aged butler Catherwoods who enjoy having someone their own age to be around.

Comic Books

• Atomic Robo: During each of Robo's fights with The Shadow From Beyond Time, he gets pulled into a pocket dimension within The Shadow where everything exists simultaneously outside of linear time. Because he fights this thing four times over a span of about 80 years, this results in four different versions of Robo being in the same place at the same time. While the 1957, 1971, and 2009 Robos all get along well, having each done this at least once before and knowing exactly what to do, they are mutually derisive of the 1926 Robo, who is the youngest and least experienced of them.
• The Avengers: Kang the Conqueror is a mix of this trope and Future Me Scares Me, with the Continuity Snarl that is his publication history resulting in him being locked into an eternal war with past and future versions of himself. Avengers Forever is devoted just to trying to unravel the whole mess.
• Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics): During Genis-Vell's omnipotent madman phase, he brought Rick Jones' teenage self to the present — that is, Rick from before the Gamma Bomb accident that created the Hulk, when Rick was forced to grow up and start taking responsibility for his actions. Naturally, present-day Rick can't stand him.
• The Crossing: In order to stop a Tony Stark turned evil by Kang, the Avengers go back in time and bring in a Teen!Tony. Present!Tony doesn't care much for this development and promptly runs his arm through the boy's chest.
• Doctor Strange: Doctor Strange's villains occasionally attempt mind-games like showing him his life as an arrogant young surgeon. He's never once been tempted to go back.
• Marvel 2099: Doom 2099 travels back to the present day, in order to get his younger self to work on an antidote to a plague that's killing everyone in 2099. Present-day Doom goes into one of his bombastic, self-referential rants, to which Doom 2099 responds with "Stop posturing and pay attention! Gad! Was I really such a boor?"
• MediEvil: Fate's Arrow: Sir Dan travels back in time to just before the Battle of Gallowmere and sees himself when he was still alive. He's almost unable to recognize his past self, who was nothing more than a cowardly, overly pampered Spoiled Brat.
• The Mighty Thor: In Thor: God of Thunder (2012), Old King Thor wastes little time expressing his dislike for the two versions of his younger and beardless self Avenger Thor (the present day one) and young Thor (who is seriously lacking the Character Development after being banished to Earth) calling them both idiots and whelps and generally looking down upon them. Subverted though as King Thor is actually invigorated by his younger selves and is motivated to kick ass again after spending thousands of years as a Death Seeker tormented by Gorr. The reason he treats his younger selves so harshly on the surface is likely out of sadness given he has lost almost all his friends and family. On the flip side, the younger Thors are both equally appalled at the prospect that in the future they will turn out exactly like their father Odin.
• Savage Dragon: Savage Dragon himself hates and fears his past self Emperor Kurr. Not really surprising since Emperor Kurr is a genocidal warmonger who pretty much wipes out humanity and killed the kids he sired as Dragon with no remorse.
• Spider-Man: A common theme is how Peter Parker is truly ashamed of his younger teenage self for his selfishness and especially the Bystander Syndrome which taught him responsibility. This is frequently seen in Straczynski’s run, where Spidey flashbacks to his school days and the mistakes he made, and the narration boxes detail how much Peter laments his attempts to go with the popular crowd instead of trying to help his friend Charlie Weiderman.
  • Averted when present-day Spider-Man meets his old wheelchair-bound future self in a Spider-Man/Deadpool #26, as they got on very well.
  • During the Spider-Verse tie-in, Peter finds himself forced to work with his time-displaced past self, the Superior Spider-Man, the two of them coming to blows a few times over leadership of the Spider-Army. For a time, Peter is able to exploit Otto's arrogance to convince him that he (Peter) is the past self, SpOck being unable to conceive that he would return Peter's body to him, but the truth eventually comes out and the doc doesn't take it very well.
• Supergirl:
  • In the Post-Crisis universe, Power Girl didn't get along with Supergirl for a long while because Kara's behavior left much to be desired when she first met her younger counterpart in Girl Power. Even though Supergirl apologized after getting her head together, Power Girl turned her down and stated she couldn't trust her.
  • In a New 52 issue, Power Girl gets mad with the eponymous heroine because Supergirl called her "old". Supergirl apologizes, explaining she didn't meant anything by it, but she is prone to say stupid things when she gets upset. Power Girl admits that she used to be like that, too.
• Thanos: In Donny Cates’s run, this happens between Thanos and his future self when they’re forced to work together. Future Thanos sees Present Thanos as an obnoxious, hotheaded Psychopathic Man Child who really needs to grow up and constantly reminds him of it. The hate is mutual; Present Thanos sees Future Thanos as a broken-down loser who’s let himself become a slave to Death’s affections again.
• Thunderbolts: The time-travelling arc during the Jeff Parker took this to an extreme as the current team, consisting of some of the fully redeemed members of the old team, ended up meeting the first set of Thunderbolts while the con was still on. The Fixer ended up talking to his past self, who was the same morals-less hothead who couldn't believe that his current self had "gone soft." However, the Fixer wasn't known for his infinite patience then or now, so he immolates himself. The temporal ramifications are immediately dealt with, and the Fixer has to enter a Stable Time Loop where he poses as his past self in order to keep the timeline from unwinding.
• Venom (2021):
  • All over the place thanks to time travel. Each of the future Kings in Black Eddie meets at the Garden of Time despises the one before them. Then it turns out they're all future versions of Eddie, and Meridius despises all of them.
  • In issue #25, due to time travel Doctor Doom meets himself from the Stan and Jack days; a Doom without even the mild Character Development Vic's gotten over the years. Modern Doom is irritated by the child in front of him who has done so much less than he.
• X-Men:
  • In Jean Grey (2017), time-displaced teen Jean Grey meets her adult self's ghost. Her future, deceased self seems to regard her as an immature, whiny brat who can't deal with the fact her life wasn't a painless fairy tale.
    Teen Jean: Stop acting like it's so embarrassing you used to be me.
  • Similarly, Cyclops isn't too impressed with his younger naive self and admonishes young Scott for being with him and not with his friends. This overlaps with just plain old self-hatred as he's reminded of what a good kid he used to be and is depressed over how his life turned out.
  • Old Man Logan gets a chance to meet his younger self in Dead Man Logan, and reveals in his thought bubbles that he’s been dreading an encounter like this. Old Logan notably disparages his young self for making him sound like a “jackass” and he also spites the I Work Alone mentality of his past self, saying he should go back to the X-Men as soon as possible and treasure them. Though Old Logan also tells his younger self to never lose his Determinator attitude like he did.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes: When Calvin travels to the (very near) future to get his completed homework from his future self, three different versions of him end up fighting over which of them should have done the homework. Averted with Hobbes in the same story, as his egotism is of a sort that gets along with itself. "You're right, as always, Hobbes."
• Twisted Toyfare Theatre:
  • In one strip, Future Hulk (Maestro) couldn't believe how stupid his younger counterpart is.
  • In another strip, Doctor Doom travels back in time to try and get his younger, pre-scarred self to help him prevent the Fantastic Four from ever forming. He can't stand how insolent young Doom is to his elders and ultimately strangles him, wiping himself from history as a result.

Films — Animation

• Another non-time travel variant happens in the first Cars movie. When Lightning McQueen first arrives at Radiator Springs, Doc Hudson utterly despises him at first because the younger runner's cocky, boastful attitude brings Doc lots of awful reminders of his time as a racer himself. Even after Lightning gets some Character Development and learns to be a better car, Doc still can't stand him and gets rid of him by telling the media and the authorities McQueen's location so they can take him back. Realizing he made a mistake, Doc and his friends show up at the decisive Piston Coup race to help Lightning.
• Coco: Héctor loudly and repeatedly proclaims disdain for musicians, but it quickly becomes apparent that he was once a musician himself. Then it comes to light that he was the musician from Miguel's family who left home and never returned, sparking the generations-long music ban. Héctor regrets what happened so much he's actively turned the hatred onto himself and his former passion. It's later shown in the epilogue that not only has he reconnected with his family, but he has also reconnected with his passion for music when he is (unbeknownst to the living) seen playing guitar while Miguel is performing "Proud Corazon".
• DC Showcase – Batman: Death in the Family sees one of the Red Robin paths with Jason (after Tim makes Jason have a Heel Realization and Jason decides to spare Two-Face) reflect on his earlier comment about "Evil can't be cured; only killed," and states "Whoever said that is a jackass."
• An odd example in The Emperor's New Groove—there's an Interactive Narrator version of Kuzco who represents his attitude at the beginning of the story, claiming that his misfortune is everybody else's fault. By the midpoint of the story, however, the "real" Kuzco has undergone enough Character Development to tell him off.
• Downplayed in Frozen II, Elsa winces upon seeing an apparition of her past self singing "Let It Go."
• Mixing with Future Me Scares Me in The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, Rex Dangervest is revealed to be an embittered Emmet from the future, seeking to ruin his past self's life to turn him into Rex. When Emmet reacts in horror to his plan, Rex can only huff "I am so disappointed in myself" before strapping Emmet to a slingshot and forcibly throwing him under the dryer to set him on the path to becoming Rex.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: When Sunset Shimmer refers to her past self (and in particular, the "raging she-demon"), it is always with disgust. Her Image Song, "My Past Is Not Today" is about how she's not that person anymore and shows her taking her three "Fall Formal Princess" pictures off the school's wall and throwing them in the trash.
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: While meeting with his lost lives in the Cave of Lost Souls, Puss is initially overjoyed by their stroking of his ego. However, when they mock him over the Character Development he's had through the movie (actually caring about his friends more than his legendary status as a hero), he declares that they're all jerks and that he's got mixed feelings about that.
• A non-Time Travel variant: In Toy Story 2, as Buzz Lightyear encounters a fresh-out-of-the-box Buzz Lightyear who's acting much like Buzz from the first film, Buzz moans, "Tell me I wasn't this deluded..."

Films — Live-Action

• In Back to the Future Part II, Old Biff doesn't particularly like Young Biff, thinking of him as an ignorant macho idiot (like his grandson), but is willing to give him the secret to infinite wealth since it will make himself rich in the future. Unfortunately, the end result is a Biff much more diabolical than either of them. Young Biff didn't care much for Old Biff either, thinking he was some crazy old coot even when Old Biff showed him his plan to make him/them rich was legit. So... I Hate Future Me?
• In The Flash, Prime Barry Allen finds the alternate Barry Allen who grew up with his mother still alive a bit too idiotic/cringey for his taste.
• A non-Time Travel example in the original Total Recall (1990). Quaid learns that he was originally Hauser, one of Big Bad Cohaagen's agents who volunteered to have his memory erased and replaced with Quaid's personality, and doesn't particularly agree when Hauser's pre-made recordings start taunting and screwing with him. When Cohaagen tries to reprogram him as Hauser:
  Cohaagen: You'll like being Hauser.
  Quaid: The guy's a fucking asshole!
• The Butcher Boy: Upon seeing his decisions from an observer's point of view, Francie eventually has little but large amounts of disdain for the choices his past self made, occasionally berating him despite knowing he can't hear. He still retains his hatred for Mrs Nugent though.
• Star Wars:
  • Darth Vader for the most part loathes his past self as Anakin Skywalker. Somewhat due to the regret and sadness over how his life turned out, but mainly due to him perceiving Anakin as a pathetic weakling who lacked the immoral Sith beliefs. When his son Luke and others from his past refer to him as Anakin, Vader dismisses it since "Annie" is dead as far he's concerned. There's also a good chunk of the fanbase who actually agree with Vader's sentiment, even though his last moment in Return of the Jedi was him choosing to die as Anakin.
    Darth Vader: (in Star Wars Rebels to Ahsoka Tano) Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him.
  • On the flip side, Anakin's glimpses into the future as seen in Star Wars: Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) where he can meet Vader in person have all terrified Anakin and caused him to go through a Heroic BSoD at seeing what he'll become.
  • Luke in The Last Jedi has real troubles in regards to his younger self and is annoyed at Rey treating him like the legend he is and even throws his (and his father)'s lightsaber away when Rey hands it to him. This is likely due to Luke's shame at the new Jedi Order he created being destroyed by his nephew Ben and him failing to stop it and save Ben from succumbing to The Dark Side as well as contemplating killing Ben to prevent it all happening. On the other hand Luke sneaks into the Millennium Falcon while Rey and Chewy are sleeping implying he does miss the old days and hates how things turn out, when R2-D2 puts on Leia’s holographic message from A New Hope, Luke complains "That's unfair". Luke redeems himself in the climax saving what's left of the Rebellion by tapping into the Force once again.
• Disney's The Kid: The main character, Russ, meets himself as a child, Rusty. All he sees in his past are a bunch of bad memories.
• Zathura has The Astronaut, who doesn't exactly hate his past self, but since he knows his own callousness led to the loss of his brother and being stuck in the game, is fairly hard on him. However, this does eventually turn into him being very proud that the current Walter didn't make the same mistakes he did.
• The film Christmas on My Mind opens with Lucy Lovett suffering amnesia of the past two years of her life and learning that, in that time, she broke off her engagement (her memory ends a week before her originally planned wedding), moved to Portland, and is now engaged to someone else. On top of that, she learns that she never set up the arts program she wanted to create in Portland and finds herself more focused on work than helping children, disturbed at the change in her personality, such as reading an interview where she said “Art is a business like any other”.
• In Triangle, a woman who's been caught in a series of time loops has gone completely over the edge and when she finds herself transported to the start of the day, she sees her past self yelling angrily at her son. Her response? Ambush her past self and beat her to death. Somehow this does not erase her from existence.
• Bill and Ted think this is what's happening in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey when their future selves are rude to them ("I'll have to remember to be nicer to myself when I become him!"), only to discover that the "future selves" are actually Killer Robots.
• In Timecop, Senator McComb travels from 2004 to 1994 to kill his then-business partner and meets his past self in the process. He remarks that he "remembers having bigger balls", tells his past self to "lay off the fucking candy bars" and punches him in the face.
• Boris the Animal from Men in Black 3 despises his younger self, seeing in him the cocky idiot who cost him his arm. The younger Boris, however, sees his older self the exact same way, as a fool who made mistakes that he himself has yet to suffer.
• In Looper, Old Joe has very little patience for his past self, a junkie killer who's too in love with his hedonistic lifestyle to think about the future.
• In The Long Kiss Goodnight, Charli has little but contempt for Samantha, her amnesiac personality who decided to have The Dragon's baby. She eventually realizes she cares more than she thought, and their personalities kind of merge.
• Tom Stahl in A History of Violence, an extremely mild-mannered diner owner, is a non-time travel example. Stahl is in fact Joey Cusack, a man too violent even for the Philadelphia Mafia. He disappeared, "killed" Joey, emerged as Tom, and years later has to reconcile the two as his circumstances force Joey to re-emerge.
• In Lost in Space Future Smith manhandles his past self, utterly disgusted with his petty ambitions, and tosses him away, apparently killing him. His past self is terrified of him since he's mutated into a giant alien spider monster courtesy of a bite he received earlier in the film.
  Future Smith: I never liked me much anyway.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Right before Wolverine goes back in time in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Magneto expresses doubts about the mission success—not because of a lack of faith in Wolverine, but how his and Professor X's younger selves were. Given the actions his younger self takes to prevent the Bad Future, he was right to worry.
  • The Stinger for Deadpool 2 features this mixing with Self-Deprecation on Ryan Reynolds's part: Deadpool goes back in time to kill Barakapool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and then goes to kill Reynolds before he could star in Green Lantern (2011).
• Avengers: Endgame:
  • A minor example where Bruce facepalmed at seeing the out-of-control Hulk throwing a tantrum at a car. At that time, he is now conscious when he's the Hulk, and seeing his past incarnation smashing a car as if he were a child greatly disappoints him.
  • Steve is quite annoyed being on the receiving end of his own stubborn righteousness for a change.
    Cap: You got to be shitting me!
    2012 Cap: I could do this all day!
    Cap: (sighing) Yeah I know, I know.
  • Nebula pities her younger and evil self while the latter tortures her as well as being disgusted over her own cruelty. Though future Nebula had no qualms about shooting her past self (don’t worry, she doesn’t fade away) to save Gamora.
• The Adam Project, big time. Mostly Adam thinking the worst of his kid self, but Maya Sorian locks horns with her younger adult self too.

Literature

• In his book Complete Guide to Money, Dave Ramsey said that if 1980s him were to call the radio show today, he would be chewed out for being so stupid.
• In Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Wei Wuxian uses Empathy to view Nie Mingjue's memories while investigating his murder and cringes over the deceased's memory of an encounter with Wei Wuxian as an edgy teenager.
• In the Mistborn novel The Alloy of Law, Miles burning gold sees two possible "pasts" of himself, and both hate each other. This is a common effect of burning gold, actually, since it shows you either your past or a possible past (it's rather unclear- gold is probably the least understood of the core allomantic metals, since burning it is often a disturbing experience). Vin, the heroine of Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, is also extremely uncomfortable with seeing her pre-Character Development Broken Bird self while burning gold, and never does it again.
• A Christmas Carol: Upon seeing his decisions from an observer's point of view, Ebenezer Scrooge eventually has little but large amounts of disdain for the choices his past self made, occasionally berating him despite knowing he can't hear.
• Artemis Fowl is shocked at how ruthless he used to be upon meeting his younger self in The Time Paradox, as well as exasperated at his smug dramatics.
• In Jonathan Carroll's novel The Wooden Sea, the narrator, Frannie, who is a cop, meets his past self, a troubled teenage bully. However, he eventually does come to see that he really was a good kid and manages to help patch things up with his (teenage Frannie's) father in the past.
• Downplayed in Night Watch Discworld. Sam Vimes has a more sympathetic reaction to the fact that his young self is a "twerp". As much as he's annoyed at the youth's naivety, he also displays a degree of sadness for his lost innocence and turns down the invitation to see his dearly departed mother again for fear of retreading the grief of her death.
• In Stephen Baxter's novel The Time Ships, when Moses meets his past self he initially doesn't like his trousers, his waistcoat, his attitude, or him. Damn young turk!
• In the "Q-Continuum" series of Star Trek novels, Q takes Picard on a trip through his past to show him why breaching the galactic barrier would be a bad idea. Throughout the trip, Q laments his past self's actions. Understandable, since he did grant a sadistic Eldritch Abomination and its equally monstrous cronies entrance to our galaxy which led to the destruction of an entire civilization that had actually earned Q's respect.
• In Time Enough for Love Lazarus Long goes back to when he was about four years old and visits his family in disguise. He finds his past self to be an annoying little smart-aleck and remarks that he was tempted to wring his own neck.
• In Scott Meyer's Spell or Highwater, the city of Atlantis is ruled by a triumvirate of sorceresses. Two of them are actually the same person at different times. To distinguish themselves, they are called Brit the Younger and Brit the Elder (although, physically, they are identical, since all time travelers are The Ageless). Brit the Younger is constantly annoyed by her future self's patronizing attitude and the fact that she lays claim to all the things Brit the Younger does. However, when asked, Brit the Elder admits that she treats Brit the Younger like a child because she's constantly embarrassed by her younger self's words and actions, as she's experiencing them again with no ability to change anything. In fact, both of them are looking forward to a time in several decades when Brit the Younger will go back in time to create the city of Atlantis in the first place (thus becoming Brit the Elder). In fact, most of the resentment comes from Brit the Younger, since Brit the Elder constantly keeps information secret until after it would have been useful since this is how she remembers it.
• In the third Takeshi Kovacs novel the antagonists sleeve a copy of Kovacs from when he was still in the Envoy corps to hunt him down. The Kovacs with roughly a subjective century more experience finds him an annoying punk.
• The antagonism between the two Rimmers in Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is presented like this. (There's hints of it in the episode, but the book states it explicitly.) The duplicate Rimmer is essentially his past self from before the accident, whereas the original Rimmer has mellowed slightly through his post-resurrection experiences.
• In the Imperial Radch trilogy, Tisarwat gets this twice over after experiencing Death of Personality from being temporarily assimilated into Anaander Mianaai's mental gestalt. She remembers being both a fatuous teenager and an ancient, callous dictator and feels each residual personality's disdain for the other's past.
• The Old Kingdom novel Goldenhand Inverts this: Chlorr's Soul Jar is the part of her spirit that didn't fall to Free Magic corruption when she was the young, living woman Clariel. When Clariel is awoken from slumber and gains access to Chlorr's Ghost Memories, she starts weeping in horror at the monster she went on to become. She also helps defeat Chlorr for good.
• In As One Star Sets Another Rises, an extremely elderly Japanese man testifies to his as-yet-unrepentant self's war crimes.
• In Don't Look Back, Sam utterly hates what she finds out about her past self's personality prior to losing her memories and is nothing but ashamed of it. Considering that she used to be a total Alpha Bitch, it's completely justified.
• Played with in The Rise of Kyoshi and The Shadow of Kyoshi: Kyoshi, the current Avatar, thinks rather poorly of her previous incarnation, Kuruk, who seemingly cared more about a life of hedonism than his duties to the world. She warms up to him after learning about the less public challenges that he had to face during his era.

Music

• The Garfunkel and Oates song "29/31". It follows a woman at the ages of 29 and 31; her 29-year-old self is an idealistic Naïve Everygirl while her 31-year-old self is a cynical Deadpan Snarker, having realized her life didn't go as well as she expected it to. Her older self (played by Riki) is annoyed by her younger self (played by Kate), while her younger self is horrified by what she has become.
• Plenty of country music songs about regretting one's wilder days abound. Prominent examples include "Choices" by George Jones and "Yesterday When I Was Young" by Roy Clark. The point is that, now older and wiser, the singer is filled with regret for their past mistakes and they wished they had never done what they did.
• Relient K's song "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been."
  "I'm sorry for the person I became
  I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change
  I'm ready to be sure I never become that way again
  'Cause who I am hates who I've been
  Who I am hates who I've been."
• Taken from the other perspective in the song "Future Me Hates Me" by The Beths
  Future heartbreak, future headaches
  Wide eyed nights late lying awake
  With future cold shakes from stupid mistakes
  Future me hates me for, hates me for

Pro Wrestling

• John Morrison's attitude on The Palace of Wisdom after he traveled back in time to meet Johnny Nitro.

Radio

• Dead Ringers: Reunion counts on this happening with Germaine Greer of 2018 meeting Germaine Greer of The '60s. Sure enough, the elder Greer mocks her younger, proudly feminist self as a hippie who needs to get laid. Conversely, '60s Greer is horrified and disgusted at her older self's sexism, and storms out of the show.

Tabletop Games

• This is how Omnitron-X feels about his previous iterations in Sentinels of the Multiverse. After constantly failing to defeat heroes, Omnitron, a Self-Aware Robotics Factory intently studied his previous battles, and realized that the heroes were fighting at increased capacity when people were in danger, so to be more powerful, he built himself a Morality Chip to tap into that surge of strength... Resulting in him becoming The Atoner and using Time Travel to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. In a nice example of Gameplay and Story Integration, the game tags Omnitron and Omnitron-X as Arch-Enemies.
  • Characters in the videogame adaptation sometimes have unique game-start dialogue, and the reformed villains from the OblivAeon expansion get this with their villainous equivalents, even if they're not actually archenemies. In particular, Luminary - the Enemy Mine version of Baron Blade - constantly talks shit about his past versions.

Visual Novels

• Fate/stay night:
  • This is how Archer feels about Shirou Emiya. He hates Shirou for being so weak, naive, and idealistic. He's willing to kill Shirou, even though this would presumably erase him from existence because his past choices and mistakes made his life completely miserable and he wants to be free of it. Saber warns Archer that since Heroic Spirits exist outside of time, killing Shirou will not erase him, but he roars that if there's the slightest chance it will work and undo all his pain he will do it, and even if it doesn't work, he will at least rid the world of Shirou Emiya the screwup. Depending on the route, Shirou addresses his flaws in various ways, but nonetheless, Archer eventually dies peacefully trusting that Shirou will not become like him.
  • There's a hilarious scene where Shirou sees Rin's memories. He does not recognize his own child self and says the boy looks like a total moron.
• In Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, this is a possible reaction of the protagonist to finding out that they are indirectly responsible for all of the violent spirits that had been plaguing the region. In his original identity, Masamune Kujou, he became aware that the sacred statue suppressing the power of an evil cursed doll was weakening. To restore the statue's power, he removed it from the doll and placed it inside a shrine to purify it, but this purification would take a month to complete. As a result, the doll was free to spread its evil for a month, striking Masamune with a curse that rendered him an amnesiac, killing Masamune's sister, and creating vengeful spirits that killed numerous innocents. Upon recovering his memories, the protagonist has a choice of either seeing the consequences of his actions as a horrible but necessary step to re-sealing the evil doll or despising his past self for the death and suffering.
• In the [RE]turn mode of Sunrider Liberation Day, Kayto quickly grows exasperated with how his past self stubbornly refuses to even consider the possibility that his love interest Chigara is a Prototype spy and is going to kill everyone at the Liberation Day ceremony and writes off all evidence to the contrary as part of an enemy plot to drive a wedge between the members of the Sunrider’s crew. Kayto even ends up sympathizing with his Number Two Ava for having to put up with his past bullheadedness,^note as she’d spent the better part of a month trying to convince him of the possibility in the main story, only for Kayto to lash out and accuse her of being jealous of his relationship with Chigara, and gives her a heartfelt apology during her route.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue: Singularity shows that Agent Carolina feels like this with regards to her time in Project Freelancer, to the point where her Labyrinth Illusion is herself from that era. When she meets Illusion!Carolina, she yells at her past self for being so obsessed with gaining her father's affection that she ignored the people who actually cared about her as well as being utterly callous to others such as Mark Temple, thus having them haunt her years later, all the while her father would never give her the time of day as he couldn't let go of his wife's memory.
• RWBY: An episode from the fifth volume features the characters discussing how they have grown since the fall of Beacon. While they don't exactly hate how they were prior to that monumental event, they are embarrassed by how they have acted since then. Examples include Ruby going against a Nevermore on her own, Weiss being cold towards everyone, and Yang recklessly charging in situations without giving a second thought to the aftermath.
• This happens with several VTubers who watch their debut streams after being active for a long time (usually a year or so), causing them to cringe and roast their debut selves.

Webcomics

• A non-Time Travel example occurs in The Dragon Doctors when Kili and Greg go to part of the Spirit World where a person's past self resides. Kili, a kind, sensitive shaman, is confronted by her bratty teenage self and Greg, a mellow writer, is distraught when he sees his Totally Radical headbanger self.
• In The Rant of El Goonish Shive, Dan sometimes berates his past self for his decisions like making Grace cry. That said, he also recognizes the futility of this.
  Dan: Granted, not a lot is accomplished by being mad at one’s past self. The healthiest thing is to accept one’s past mistakes and move on. Of course, I’m an artist and get to see a visual record of such things, SO I WILL NEVER MOVE ON. EVER.
• A book 4 arc of Fans! pits the science fiction club against their book 1 versions, and nearly all of them have this reaction.
• Future Stein appears to feel this way about his younger counterpart in Frankie and Stein.
• In one arc of Full Frontal Nerdity, Frank has Nelson, Lewis and Shawn retire their successful player characters and make up new ones. Their new characters meet their old characters as non-player characters. Frank insists on role-playing them all in character as ruthlessly ambitious Munchkins, much to Nelson, Lewis, and Shawn's dismay.
• Goblins: Minmax obtains a sword composed of oblivion. The sword is unaffected by time when Minmax isn't holding it, so retrieving it involves Minmax's hand opening a hole through time, which briefly allows passage of sound. This leads to Minmax yelling in frustration at his future self for being unable to throw the weapon to someone else, then that same yelling blowing his stealth cover when trying to quietly draw the sword later. Minmax then humorously invokes this trope.
  Minmax: Alright, that's it. I don't like future Minmax... and I don't like past Minmax. I only like right now Minmax.
• In The God of High School, Mo-Ri thinks this of himself after regaining his memories as the Monkey King. He reflects on the kind of Leeroy Jenkins and Jerkass he was and resolves to become better for it.
• In The Greatest Gift, Hazel Lulamoon is actively afraid of the mare she used to be before her Heel–Face Turn, having a nightmare about past Hazel and calling her a monster.
• Homestuck:
  • Karkat gets into arguments with his past and future selves so often that it's practically become a Running Gag. In one instance, he posts a cross-time memo and is immediately responded to by himself 10 minutes in the future. They proceed to spend that entire time arguing, so that mere moments after the argument ends, he sees his past self posting the memo and responds as the other side of the argument. As the ridiculously small time periods involved indicate, it's not so much that he hates the reminder of "who he used to be", he just hates who he is.
  • Jade gets sick of Jadesprite's sobbing pretty quickly. When she refuses to do the one thing that could probably accomplish her goal of going back to being dead, present Jade loses it and starts smacking sense into her, literally. It gets stranger: since Dream Jade went back in time 13 years after dying, Jadesprite is technically older than Jade, but her personality is noticeably more flawed.
  • Vriska is soured on her former Attention Whore Glory Hound behavior when she witnesses Aranea, the alternate universe version of Vriska's ancestor, cause a lot of trouble with her Attention Whore Glory Hound antics. Vriska's brushes with this trope get even worse later when she meets the Retcon version of herself who never died and went through the Character Development she experienced and is thus still a borderline sociopathic jerk. Said version proceeds to insult and bully Vriska for not being a jerk anymore (she claims that Vriska has become a loser), and is so incredibly vicious and cruel that Vriska actually cries.
  • Aradia is a little disturbed by how eager the ghosts of her alternate timeline selves are for violence...and by how many of them are being courted by Equius all at once.
  • Nearly every character who interacts with their own past/future self (which is pretty much all of them) finds said past/future self to be hopelessly stupid/unbelievably arrogant. Dave is the one notable exception; he seems to find his past and future selves to be pretty chill dudes... luckily for him, since as the Hero of Time for his session, he runs into himself a lot.
• In Kill Six Billion Demons, Cio used to be a powerful and tyrannical ebon devil named Yabalchoath, who was feared by everyone for being The Caligula. Eventually, the angels and her own abused slaves rose up and killed her, causing her to reincarnate into a harmless blue devil. Now Older and Wiser, Cio despises Yabalchoath and feels tremendous guilt for her behavior, speaking of her past life with nothing but scorn. It's noted that she could potentially regain her ebon devil powers, but she refuses to do so expressly because she's scared of being Yabalchoath again.
• Subverted in The Last Days of FOXHOUND when the Sorrow shows the amnesiac Liquid his past in order to show him how, violent, cruel and indifferent to humanity he was. Liquid, of course, completely misses the point and starts gushing over how much of a badass he was instead.
• Magical 12th Graders: The Yeorum from the future is well aware that pretty much everything bad that ever happened to Gyeowul, and most of the bad stuff happening now, is Yeorum's fault. She finds her disgusting.
• In Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, the Commander fulfills a Stable Time Loop by going back about a minute to beat up his past self and steal his coffee. As he leaves, he tells his past self not to be such a "candy-ass" so that this won't happen again.
• From Narbonic, Dave to Dave Prime:
  Dave: I'm your future, and I hate you. I'm going to electrocute you now.
• In the "Memories of Youth" strip (January 13th, 2011) of Nedroid, Reginald is about to commit Seppuku when Beartato stops him. Reginald explains, "...I just remembered all the embarrassing things I did as a teenager". Beartato tells him to move on from the past, but a thought balloon pops up in Reginald's mind wherein he remembers himself as a teenager at his crush's locker, about to give her a Mixtape of Love. Present Reginald then attempts to drink poison.
• In The Order of the Stick, when Grumpy Old Woman Serini Toormuck triggers a programmed illusion of upbeat young halfling Serini Toormuck, she calls her a "daffy brat" and then starts yelling at her about how it's her stupid ideas that left present-day Serini in her current situation.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:
  • Taken to extremes (like so many things in the comic) in a strip in which two future versions of a guy decide to go back and kill his teen self.
  • In "Time Travel", a guy travels back to give his teenage self advice, but is too disgusted by what he's doing, namely posting opinions on women on a Magic: The Gathering forum.
• Shortpacked!: Modern Age Batman meets Golden Age Batman — and yes, Golden Age Batman really was that much of a dick.
• In Sinfest, Fuchsia is terrified after she has a flashback to her pre-Heel–Face Turn days.
• The first time Bun-bun escaped Timeless Space in Sluggy Freelance, he developed amnesia and couldn't remember how he got out. So his second time there he figured his best course of action was to follow his past self out. Unfortunately he was such a pain in the ass that he ended up whacking himself in the head, causing the amnesia. That wasn't even two different versions of him, as both had the same kind of personality already — a misunderstanding led them to be at odds about something, and, both being the same, neither would back down one bit.
• In Sonic the Comic – Online!, this is Sonic's reaction to meeting his past self. It leads to this conversation when they come across a statue of Johnny Lightfoot that was built after his death:
  Past Johnny: Look — there's a plaque on the statue.
  Past Sonic: Heh, probably says "JOHNNY LIGHTFOOT — PROFESSIONAL SIDEKICK".
  Present Sonic: YOU CREEP! Johnny was more of a hero than you'll EVER be!
• Templar Arizona: In the bonus comic "Confirmation", the loud, boisterous adult Reagan meets and torments her insecure, reserved and racist^note 'moulignan' is the Italian equivalent of 'nigger', in case if you're wondering younger self.
• The main character of TwoKinds, Trace has been suffering from amnesia since the start of the comic, which is good since he was kind of a jerk. It leads to this conversation:
  Eric: Templar laws have, in recent years, made it a crime for slave traders such as myself to free our slaves voluntarily.
  Trace: What? Why? What kind of evil person would make a law like th... it was me, wasn't it?
  Eric: ...Yes.
• Rose from Wonderlab, after discovering the full extent of the suffering caused by the Wings' actions, loathes the kind of person they were in the past (i.e, a spoiled rich kid who was perfectly content with the status quo)

Web Original

• Here's one artist who expresses this sentiment rather succinctly.

Web Videos

• Anime America began a series in which they look back at videos made years before. For the first episode, Robyn looks back at Top 10 Characters That Need to Go Back to the Drawing Board". She criticizes her past self for having no chill, questions why she put Soul Eater's Excalibur on the list (present-day Robyn admits that she now accepts that character; ditto for Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo who appeared as a runner-up) and pokes fun at her past self's pronunciation of "manga".
• This is one of the older Joes' reaction in the CollegeHumor video "Looper Has Sex with Himself" when the younger Joe refuses to give the older ones a blowjob.
• Crash Course: John Green's general reaction to John-Green-from-the-Past, who plays the role of student.
  Present John: Can we just pause for a moment to consider the astonishing fact that most T-shirts see more of the world than most of us do?
  Past John: Mr. Green! Mr. Green! But T-shirts can't see the world because they don't have eyes.
  Present John: Look, Me-from-the-Past, it's difficult for me to isolate what I hate most about you, because there is so much to hate, but very near the top is your habit of ignoring everything that is interesting or beautiful about our species in favor of pedantic sniveling in which no-one loses or gains anything of value.
• On the Dream SMP, this is Played for Drama, where Ghostbur hates being reminded of the things "Alivebur" did, and will shut down anyone who tries to talk to him about it. Despite not remembering what he did in life, he's aware that his past self was a horrible person, and is quick to reassure anyone who mentions it that they're not the same. He's even told Phil, his father, that one of the happy memories he remembers from his life was when Phil ran him through with a sword.
• Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Abridged: Archer hates Shirou, same as in canon, but it's Played for Laughs more.
  Shirou: Nobody gets to say my dream is stupid except me!
  Archer: Hey, Shirou! Your dream is stupid!
• Glove and Boots: In their "10 Reasons Why Time Travel is No Good" the first reason they give is that you can meet yourself. Mario demonstrates by time travelling and meeting his past self and future self.
  Past Mario: I'm wearing this two-prong! I'm wearing this two-prong!
  Present Mario: Oh man! I thought I used to be cool but I was stupid!
  Past Mario: THIS IS THE BEST!
• The Music Video Show has this in the 100th episode where the third season host say this to the second season host.
• The Nostalgia Critic does this once in a while. Case in point, the Christmas with the Kranks review.
• React has special episodes where the reactors have to see themselves in past episodes as Kids\Teens or their audition tapes. Cringing ensues, caused mostly by looks ("Thank God for puberty!") and awkward behavior.

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