Tropes dealing with shame, embarrassment, and humiliation... or the lack thereof.
Compare A Dishonorable Index, Envy and Jealousy Tropes, Insult Tropes, Being in This Index Sucks, Tropes of Awkwardness.
Contrast These Tropes Love to Brag and Admiration Tropes.
Tropes
- Acquaintance Denial: Pretending not to know someone to avoid embarrassing yourself or being scorned.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Children find their parents' antics embarrassing.
- Backing Away Slowly: Slowly moving away from a very awkward, embarrassing, strange, or off-putting situation.
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: Having to wear an embarrassing outfit for a job.
- Be All My Sins Remembered: Somebody is ashamed because they're being praised but feel that they don't deserve it because they did bad things.
- Big Secret: People are investigating a crime, one person didn't do it but is a suspect because they have a shameful, unrelated secret.
- Break the Haughty: Something bad happens to an arrogant person, doesn't necessarily involve shame.
- Break Them by Talking: Gaining a psychological advantage over someone else by talking to them and making them feel awkward.
- Candids for Sale: Someone sells candid photographs or videos of someone else.
- Carload of Cool Kids: A vehicle full of people. Needn't involve shame but often involves the people in the vehicle heckling.
- Catch the Conscience: Reminding someone of their crime to shame them.
- Caught on the Jumbotron: Being caught on the camera doing something embarrassing at a sports stadium.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Someone is caught with their pants down masturbating or preparing to masturbate.
- Circle of Shame: A group of people surround an embarrassed character and laugh at them.
- Closet Geek: A geek who is embarrassed by their geekiness and tries to hide it.
- Clothing Damage: Someone's clothes get damaged, usually played for Fanservice but not always. Not necessarily to do with shame but can cause it.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Somebody's underwear gets exposed, and it's Played for Laughs. Doesn't always embarrass them, but often does.
- Cone of Shame: A pet has to wear a cone collar to stop them from licking stitches or something, but it looks ridiculous to either the animal or the surrounding humans.
- The Conscience: A character who reminds another character to be morally good.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Someone is about to walk away from a person or people who need help, but then feels guilty and and goes back to help them.
- Cultural Cringe: People are embarrassed by an aspect of their own country's culture.
- Curious Qualms of Conscience: Someone is ashamed by their duty.
- Defeat by Modesty: Defeating the villain by damaging or stealing their clothes in a way that exposes (or threatens to expose) their privates or underwear.
- Dinner Order Flub: Somebody tries to order from a menu, but due to a language barrier, not knowing what a term means, not being able to read/see properly, or whatever other reason, they order something they didn't want or don't even order a dish. Doesn't always cause shame, but often does.
- Dirty Business: A good guy does something arguably bad out of obligation, and feels ashamed.
- Don't Look At Me: Someone doesn't want to be looked at.
- Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: Performing for young audiences brings nothing but humiliation and other indignities for the unfortunate performer.
- Dunce Cap: Someone is punished by wearing a large cone-shaped hat with the word "DUNCE" or a "D" on it.
- Easily Embarrassed Youngster: A child or teenager who embarrasses easily.
- Embarrassed by a Child: A character is doing something that embarrasses them, and they get more embarrassed by a child pointing it out.
- Embarrassing Ad Gig: A character stars in a commercial that embarrasses them.
- Embarrassing Alibi: An alibi to a crime is something humiliating to admit.
- Embarrassing Animal Suit: A character has to wear an animal costume but is embarrassed by it.
- Embarrassing Browser History: A character doesn't want people to see what they look up on the internet.
- Embarrassing Cover Up: Someone is doing something secret and is asked what they're doing. They use something embarrassing as an excuse.
- Embarrassing Damp Sheets: A character wets the bed (or damps the bed in any other form) and may (or may not be) ashamed of it.
- Embarrassing First Name: Someone is embarrassed by their first name.
- Embarrassing Hobby: Character has a beloved pastime, but is too embarrassed to let anyone else know about it.
- Embarrassing Hospital Gown: Wearing a hospital gown is seen as embarrassing, bothersome, or humorous.
- Embarrassing Initials: A person's initials or an acronym spells out something embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Last Name: Someone's last name embarrasses them.
- Embarrassingly Dresslike Outfit: A male character is embarrassed to wear a robe, toga, kilt, etc. due to thinking it resembles a dress/skirt.
- Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn: A sunburn embarrasses the one getting sunburnt.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Somebody is embarrassed by their middle name.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Someone has an In-Series Nickname they find embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Someone is embarrassed by a childhood photo of him.
- Embarrassing Password: Someone has a password that embarrasses them.
- Embarrassing Pyjamas: Someone is embarrassed by and/or ridiculed for their sleepwear.
- Embarrassing Relative Teacher: A student feels embarrassed when their relative starts working at their school.
- Embarrassing Ringtone: Someone uses a ringtone (usually in the form of a song) that he finds embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Slide: Someone shows somebody else a series of photographs, one of which embarrasses the second character.
- Embarrassing Statue: Someone is embarrassed to have a statue made of them.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Somebody has a tattoo that he finds embarrassing.
- Embarrassing Voicemail: Somebody leaves a voice message that they really don't want anyone else to hear.
- Embarrassment Plot: A whole plot or sub-plot focusing on embarrassment.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: Everybody is ashamed of someone, even a pet.
- Exposed Embarrassing Purchase: You wanted to keep this purchase private? Too bad.
- Trojan Gauntlet: The above but specifically for condoms.
- Face Doodling: Drawing on a sleeping person's face; not always embarrassing but often is.
- Fake Fabric Fashion Faux Pas: Wearing clothing made of polyester or some other artificial material marks you as a tasteless tacky boor.
- The Flapping Dickey: A dickey comes loose and flaps onto someone's face, humiliating them.
- Freakiness Shame: Being ashamed because you don't look normal.
- The Freelance Shame Squad: A group of people who laugh at and/or tease a stranger's mistake.
- "Gaining Confidence" Song: A character is feeling shameful and insecure at the start of a song, but gets over it while they sing.
- Go-Go Enslavement: A captive (usually female) is forced to wear an embarrassing outfit.
- Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Guilt haunts someone's dreams.
- Guilty Pleasures: Someone feels guilty about something he enjoys.
- Hannibal Lecture: The villain asks the hero questions, which get progressively more embarrassing to the hero.
- Hiding from Embarrassment: A character is stuck hiding because being seen to leave would be socially awkward.
- Humble Pie: An embarrassing event deeply affects the one being embarrassed.
- Humiliation Conga: The villain is defeated with a lot of embarrassing things.
- I Hate Past Me: Someone meets his past self via Time Travel and, often due to shame, hates him.
- Innocent Awkward Question: A child asks an adult a question that inadvertently embarrasses or shocks the adult.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Someone is embarrassed because another person posted a video of them doing something they find embarrassing on YouTube or similar.
- Interrupted Bath: Someone gets interrupted while taking a bath, often leading to embarrassment.
- It's a Costume Party, I Swear!: Lying that a party is a costume party in order to get someone to dress up and be embarrassed.
- I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Someone cringes about the clothes he used to wear.
- Less Embarrassing Term: Someone uses Insistent Terminology to cover up an embarrassing term.
- Mark of Shame: Giving someone a mark on his body or piece of clothing in order to shame him for something he did.
- Moment of Weakness: A moment in which a character acts contrary to his usual nature out of stress, causing damage and usually guilt.
- Monument of Humiliation and Defeat: The villain wins (at least temporarily) and makes a monument to shame the hero.
- My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Being ashamed of one's own country.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Someone feels really guilty.
- My Greatest Failure: Someone feels embarrassed or guilty about one big failure they did.
- Naked Freak-Out: Somebody covers themselves, squeals or both upon being naked.
- Never Live It Down: A YMMV trope for when people associate a character with one minor thing, not necessarily related to shame.
- "No Peeking!" Request: A character requests another to turn away or not to look while they perform an action, usually due to shyness or shame.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Someone feels guilty about doing something that will negatively impact another person and decides to keep it a secret from that other person.
- Of Corsets Funny: Corsets are played for comedy, often involving embarrassment.
- Old Shame: Trope for when a character is ashamed of something from their past.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Character has done something in the past that the other characters refuse to forget...or let them forget.
- Passing Judgment: Character does something embarrassing in public and gets stared at by appalled passengers of a vehicle.
- The Penance: Punishing/shaming oneself.
- Period Shaming: Making someone feel ashamed for menstruating.
- Personal Horror: The way you've alienated yourself from yourself often results in shame.
- Plaster Cast Doodling: Drawing or writing humiliating things on someone else's plaster cast.
- Prone to Sunburn: A character sunburns very easily and is embarrassed by it.
- "The Reason I Suck" Speech: A character makes a speech about how horrible most of his actions were.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Telling someone off by rambling on about how they are bad.
- Rejected Marriage Proposal: Both being rejected and doing the rejecting can potentially cause feelings of shame and embarassment, especially if there's other people watching.
- Reluctant Fanservice Girl: A woman is embarrassed because she has to be naked or in skimpy clothes but doesn't want to.
- Resigned in Disgrace: A person quits their high-ranking job, willingly or otherwise, because of an embarrassing scandal.
- Roadside Wave: A person gets soaked by a passing car driving through a puddle. Frequently an element in a Humiliation Conga.
- Saved From Their Own Honor: A character is honor-bound to harm themselves, but is stopped by someone wise/benevolent.
- Seduction as One-Upmanship: A character seduces another character's significant other to put one over on them.
- Self-Imposed Exile: A character exiles themselves, frequently out of shame.
- Shame Accusation: Somebody asks another person if they're ashamed of them.
- Shamed by a Mob: A group of people stare at a villain to shame them.
- Shameful Shrinking: Someone literally shrinks when they're embarrassed or ashamed.
- Shameful Source of Knowledge: Somebody doesn't want to give out useful information because they're embarrassed about where they got it from.
- Shameful Strip: Somebody is stripped of their clothing to embarrass them.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: A woman who doesn't care about nudity being taboo (despite being aware), she runs around naked or in her underwear anyway.
- Shameless Self-Promoter: An arrogant person brags about their skills shamelessly.
- Shaming the Mob: The hero shames an angry mob with a speech.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: A shape-shifter who's evil shames the good guy by impersonating their friend/love interest/etc while in combat.
- Shy Bladder: Somebody is too shy to pee.
- Slut-Shaming: Portraying promiscuous women as bad.
- Sudden Humility: Two people are friends, one of them has a disadvantage, then something bad happens to the person with the advantage, putting them on the same level as the disadvantaged person and humiliating the former advantaged person.
- Suicide is Shameful: People think suicide is immoral.
- Suntan Stencil: Someone tries to embarrass another person by writing or drawing things/words on them that will show up when they tan.
- Sympathetic Murder Backstory
- Uncool Undies: A character has underwear that's seen as embarrassing.
- Underdressed for the Occasion: Somebody is embarrassed because they aren't wearing formal enough clothes.
- Undressing the Unconscious: A character is embarrassed upon finding out they've been stripped while they were unconscious.
- Unmanly Secret: A man is ashamed of being In Touch with His Feminine Side.
- Virgin-Shaming: Virginity is seen as shameful.
- Walk of Shame: A shameful jaunt with head turned down.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: The hero accidentally does something bad, the villain compliments the hero, which makes the hero feel bad.
- "You Used to Be Better" Speech: An admirer says how a person used to be better in the past than they are now.
