Medal Of Dishonor / Real Life

In General

• Interestingly, even the biggest awards in a field can become this. There are certain awards from the big award shows that some people are a little suspicious of because of a track record that make them look cursed. A couple:
  • The Grammy Awards as a whole is frequently seen as this to a lot of people. Because of the sheer amount of extreme snubs, severely biased decisions, and consolation awards that have occurred over the decades, many see winning a Grammy as irrelevant to actual success and/or artistic quality. There are many songs, albums, & artists that have won Grammy Awards but are widely forgotten about years later or in some cases outright Condemned by History. And while there have been some well-deserved wins (such as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and Adele’s 21), those are seen as exceptions to the Grammys’ track record. Not only that, but there have been many acclaimed, successful, & influential artists who have never been nominated for a Grammy in their lifetime, only getting some recognition after their heyday, breakup, or deaths, if even that.^note  (Notably The Kinks, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, ABBA, etc.).
    • In one example that serves as a microcosm to this attitude towards the Grammys, Pearl Jam won their first award in 1996. But when Eddie Vedder gave his acceptance speech he very bluntly stated that he doesn’t think the award means anything… in front of a live audience.
    • Best New Artist at the Grammys: The award is notorious for its completely erratic track record. You either go to soaring new heights (like The Beatles or Mariah Carey) or (more likely) your career tanks afterwards. In particular, the category has had a lot of One Hit Wonders and acts that were briefly big but couldn't sustain longterm success (Men at Work is probably the best example). Almost every Best New Artist winner is asked afterward if they're worried about the curse. More specifically, the 1990 award, which was awarded to Milli Vanilli and was later revoked. They had planned to give the award to one of the other nominees (Neneh Cherry, Indigo Girls, Soul II Soul, or Tone Lōc), but none of them wanted it. In a sense, the Award is exactly what it says: Best New Artist. It doesn't claim to be a Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • Best Supporting Actor and Actress at the Oscars can be this, but it’s ultimately a zigzagged example: Louis Gossett Jr. said, after his win, that he felt it was something of a double-edged sword. While he did have an Oscar to his credit, he said he felt like he was trapped in a strange gray area where smaller productions don't think they can afford you (since you're an Oscar winner) and big productions don't think you can carry a film on your own (since you're a Supporting Actor). In particular, Best Supporting Actress has attracted a reputation for having a Best New Artist-like curse. While Supporting Actor often goes to well-known men in lesser roles (it's the category in which John Gielgud, Sean Connery and Robin Williams won their Oscars), Supporting Actress has had a striking number of obscure character actresses who didn't do much noteworthy work after their wins (Beatrice Straight, Brenda Fricker, Mercedes Ruehl). However, there are still plenty of actresses who have a reputation of doing both Lead & Supporting Roles and only winning for the latter (such as Judi Dench, Anne Baxter, & Jamie Lee Curtis)
  • Most "Car of the Year" awards are similarly erratic. The Simca 1308 beat out the first BMW 3-series for the 1976 European COTY, for instance.
• The "wooden spoon":
  • Cambridge University students who graduated with a "third-class honour" (the lowest passing grade for an honour's degree program) were once given a wooden spoon. The spoon got bigger and bigger with every passing year, and by the time they banned it in the early 1900s, the thing was two metres long.
  • In many sports, the team that finishes in last place on the ladder/table at the end of a season is said to have won the wooden spoon.

Education

• School yearbooks sometimes go with this with the "Most Likely to" categories. While most of the awards tend to be the usual "Most Likely To Succeed" type awards, some yearbook committees can parody the concept with stuff like "Most Likely to End Up in Prison" or "Strangest Haircut". Others are a deliberate joke poking fun at a particular student's quirks, like a Civil War buff being voted "Most Likely to Secede".
  • This story proves that this sort of thing is not as funny in reality than in fiction. (To make it even worse, the "award" was given right after the terrorist attack in Manchester, Great Britain, where 22 people were killed.)
• Similar to the Cambridge University example, the cadet at West Point who graduates with the largest number of demerits is granted the title of "the goat". This is not purely an example of this trope, though, since a fair number of people consider it quite impressive to be able to get into that amount of trouble and not get expelled in disgrace. While there is no official award, it is customary for the rest of the graduating class to pay the goat a dollar. Since the graduating class at West Point is usually about a thousand people, it makes a pretty nice prize.
• In Germany exists a extremely persistent rumor that if you manage to receive your Abitur (high school graduation certificate) with exactly 4.0 (the worst mark possible since a 4.1 means you failed), you would win a car. It is unclear where the rumor originates from, but bad students are infamous for attempting to at least get the 4.0 for this reason. Considering that the student needs to get exactly 280 points (5 points in each course), it is needless to say that most candidates not only don't get a car but also no certificate.

Entertainment

Advertising

• On Dutch television, there's an annual award ceremony for the best TV advertisement, the Gouden Loeki (Golden Loeki, after the animated lion that served as the mascot for the national advertisement broadcasting foundation). Its counterpart is the Loden Leeuw (Lead Lion), for the year's most annoying ad.

Films

• The Golden Raspberry Awards. Some recipients are good sports (and/or agree that the "award" is well deserved) and avert the trope.
  • Halle Berry had the good grace to actually collect her award in person for Catwoman (2004) with her Oscar statuette in tow. She even made a suitably effusive and weepy speech, as if she was winning the Oscar again; writer Michael Ferris also showed up to win his, thanking the boosted DVD sales by hating audiences.
  • Tom Green went there for Freddy Got Fingered, considering it an honor; even bringing a red carpet.
  • Bill Cosby had his Razzie made from marble and gold at the studio's expense when he "won" for Leonard Part 6 (the awards are typically made from materials that are worth less than five dollars in total).
  • Paul Verhoeven also went to the ceremony for his Showgirls "honors" (and stated: "I got seven awards for being the worst, and it was more fun than reading the reviews").
  • Sandra Bullock handed out a free copy of the offending movie to everyone in the audience. Then she won an Oscar the very next day (for The Blind Side).
  • When Brian Helgeland won a Screenwriting Oscar for his adaptation of L.A. Confidential, a reporter asked if he would accept the Worst Screenplay Razzie he "won" the day before (for The Postman). He said "Sure, why not?" and the Razzies founder went to Helgeland's office to give it to him. Reportedly he keeps them side by side on his shelf in his office as a reminder of Hollywood's fickleness.
  • The only other person who won both awards the same weekend besides Bullock and Helgeland, composer Alan Menken, proudly received his Worst Original Song Razzie for Newsies in 2020, and his website also shows his "nomination" for the same award for Rocky V. And lyricist Jack Feldman requested his statue so he could display it alongside the Tony won by the stage adaptation of Newsies. (Menken has mockingly said he's only an Emmy short of a "REGOT" which he has since finished).
  • Tom Selleck requested delivery of his award for Christopher Columbus the Journey.
  • Some go there as a protest. J.D. Shapiro, one of the screenwriters of Battlefield Earth, received the Worst Screenplay statue at a radio show, and went to the actual ceremony to pick up the award for Worst Picture of the Decade, because he was fired from the movie in early production stages due to Executive Meddling.
    J.D. Shapiro: Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can't help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.
  • Barry Pepper has said that if he knew he was going to win for his role in Battlefield Earth, he would have gladly shown up to accept it in person.
  • Ben Affleck jokingly complained on the radio about not receiving his Worst Actor award for Gigli (plus Daredevil and Paycheck). So later Affleck was given the statuette in Larry King's show, and proceeded to pull it apart saying "it's a little cheap". The trophy was then put up on eBay, and its income paid the theater used for the following year's ceremony.
  • David Eigenberg did a video to receive "Worst Screen Ensemble" for Sex and the City 2 because "he never won an award of any kind and if this was what he won, he would accept it."
  • Jamie Dornan said he would've attended the ceremony where he won Worst Actor for Fifty Shades of Grey had he been invited, so Conan O'Brien delivered Dornan his Raspberry as he promoted the final film of the trilogy.
  • Once Baywatch won the kinda positive "Razzie Nominee So Rotten You Loved It", Dwayne Johnson took to Twitter to celebrate it.
  • Dinesh D'Souza appeared in the video announcing Hillary's America as the winner of four Razzies (three for himself, Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Actor), saying that it was chosen out of petty revenge for Donald Trump's election, while adding that being recognized negatively was better than an Academy Award because "my audience loves the fact that you hate me."
  • In a case where the actor didn't go to receive, but took the message to heart, Eddie Murphy said he worked less during the 2010s because being chosen as the Worst Actor of the 2000s made him decide to take a break.
• The French Gérard award was essentially their version of the Razzie awards (and a parody of the César movie trophies, but where a César is a golden statuette, a Gérard is a cinderblock), given as a Take That! to politicians and TV/movie stars with highly evocative categories like:
  • "Gérard for Talking So Much About How Well He Did As A Local Elected Official That You Want To Tell Him To Stay In His Dump Of A Backwater"
  • "Gérard for Best Presidential Bootlicker And When We Say Boots It's A Euphemism"
  • "Gérard for Best Use Of Her Husband's Connections To Boost Her Career"
  • "Gérard for Best Actor Who Should Really Have Stayed A Stand-up Comedian"
  • "Gérard for Best Singer Who's Gone Into Acting, Or The Other Way Around, In Any Case He's Bad At It"
  • "Gérard for Best Movie Where It's Explained To You That Racism Is Bad"
    • Slight Inversion - "Gérard for Best Singer/Actor Who's Pretty Reasonable In Both, But We Wish They'd Make A Bloody Decision As To What They're Best At"
• The Chinese equivalent of the Razzies, the Golden Broom Awards, has seen winners appear to receive their trophies, such as an actor who took the "prizes" won by his directorial debut as stimulus to improve himself.
• CinemaScore is a marketing survey which asks a random selection of first-day moviegoers' rating of a film from A+ to F. Getting an A+ is very rare, but getting an F score is even rarer^note Using Fridge Logic, it should be evident that, unlike critics, normal moviegoers usually only go to see only movies they would enjoy, and people who see a movie on opening day are more likely to be the ones most excited for the film's release. For a film to get an F means that either massive Misaimed Marketing occurred or all the people most willing to be positive about the movie in question hated it.; in the survey's forty-plus year history, only twenty-two films have received an F, although several examples are notably subject to Critical Dissonance.
• Rotten Tomatoes ranks movies on a percentage scale of how many critics liked the film; 100% means everyone who reviewed the film liked it, 0% means everyone who reviewed the film disliked it. Twenty reviews are required for a film to get a "critic consensus" that briefly summarizes the collective critiques. Getting under 60% earns a film a "Rotten" score. Getting a 0% is fairly uncommon, and getting a 0% with a critic consensus even rarer; it occurs so seldom that Wikipedia has a page specifically listing all of them, and there are only 44 films that qualify.
  • In 2008, Rotten Tomatoes awarded the "Mouldy Tomato Award" to the ten worst-reviewed film of each year for the past decade. Of particular mention is 2002's "winner", Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, which has a 0% with a staggering 119 reviews, easily taking the crown for the most-hated film on the site by number of reviews.
• Any movie that manages to land on a list of the biggest Box Office Bombs in terms of the amount of money lost. The current (as of 2013) leaders are The Lone Ranger and The 13th Warrior.
• The movie poster website impawards.com has an annual tradition where they vote for both the best and worst posters of the year in several categories and genres. There's also a third section, not part of the official picks, where they award various tongue-in-cheek prizes for things like "Best Review From a Dead Dictator Award" or "Least Romantic Poster for a Romance Movie".
• Karate a Muerte en Torremolinos won 4 Godoy Awards (Spanish equivalent to Golden Raspberries) for art direction, special effects, wardrobe and make-up/hairdresser (the only nomination in this last category); and was nominated to three others: worst movie, director and writing.

Literature

• The Bad Sex In Fiction Prize, awarded annually by Literary Review to the writer who has produced the worst sex scene in literature that year. A notable nomination in 2010 (though not the eventual 'winner') was a passage from Tony Blair's memoirs about sex with his wife on the night after his predecessor as Labour Party Leader died; the nomination was a double insult to Blair, implying not only bad writing on his part but also dishonesty in the rest of the book, as it bears repeating, this prize is an award for bad sex in fiction.
• SF fandom has (or had) the Hogu Awards, a parody of the Hugo Awards with such categories as Worst Fanzine Title, Best New Feud, Most Desired Gafication (or in non-fanspeak, the person the voters would most like to leave fandom - in a bonus parody of the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund that sends British fans to the US and vice versa, the winner of this award is said to be eligible for the Mid-Atlantic Fan Fund) and Special Devo Award for Harm to Science Fiction. The Hugo is a statuette of a space rocket on a wooden plinth; the Hogu is a wooden plinth with a scorch mark on top.
• The Annual Romance Cover Contest includes a "worst cover" category. There's been at least one case of an author lobbying for her own book in this category as a way of pointing out her lack of input on the art.

Music

• The Sex Pistols certainly saw their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this way, and chose instead to not attend, scrawling an obscenely-worded note detailing just how insulted they were by the honor. This attitude is pretty common among musicians and fans, similar to the Grammys, also due to the large amounts of Award Snubs. The Pistols were just the most vocal with their disdain.
• At one Félix Award ceremony (the Félix Award being Quebec's version of the Grammys), Céline Dion was awarded Best English-Speaking Artist given that she just began her successful streak in the English market after having spent her early years singing only to French markets. She said in her speech that the title English-Speaking Artist doesn't suit her (owing to her Francophone roots) and thus she rejected the award. This apparently caused that particular category to be subsequently known as Most successful artist performing in a language other than French.
• While not intentionally handed out, one dubious yet frequent occurrence at the Eurovision Song Contest is the phenomenon of a country somehow not receiving points from any of the other countries. As an inverse to the famous "douze points" (12 points) awarded to a country's top pick, this distinction (as coined by longtime British commentator Sir Terry Wogan) is referred to as "nul points" (this, of course, is not proper French, but leave us not pick at straws). Thirty-nine songs over the years have received it.
  • This wasn't an uncommon phenomenon in the contest's early years. Given a voting system that only favored a country's top five, this left many songs that weren't necessarily bad, but couldn't quite finish in the top five, to languish. At least one country received nul points every year from 1962 to 1967. In fact, from 1962 to 1965, four countries each year shared last place. Notable occurrences include 1963 (where almost every Nordic country received nul points, even Sweden, along with the Netherlands - the one major exception being Denmark, who won the whole thing with a fair deal of support from their Nordic neighbors), 1964 (where Portugal became the first country to score nul points for their debut entry), and 1966 (where one of the two recipients was Italian singer Domenico Modugno, responsible for two stone-cold Eurovision classics in "Volare" and "Piove (Ciao, ciao, bambina);" it was also the sole nul points for both Italy and Monaco).
  • Following a similar fate for usually-successful Luxembourg in 1970, precautions were taken to ensure no country could finish that low again. A system from 1971 to 1973 required juries to award points to every song that year, so while a country could still come in last, it was never with nothing (as poor Malta found out when their first two entries both bottomed out the scoreboard). Then 1975 saw the introduction of the 12 points system that's more or less been used in variations ever since. People thought nul points were still basically a thing of the past...until 1978. That was when Norway sent singer/comedian Jahn Teigen and his song "Mil etter mil" to represent them in Paris, France. Apparently disgruntled at the way his song had been arranged for the contest (loud and brassy as opposed to the smooth country-rock tune he intended), Teigen decided that if that's the way his song was to be played, he'd perform accordingly. And thus, we got this masterpiece, a perfect storm of bizarre choices regarding performance, vocalization, and, er, wardrobe, with a hefty dose of Large Ham on top of it all. It ended the night with nothing, making Teigen something of a Eurovision folk hero (and, indeed, he competed on two more occasions), but that would've been the end of it. Until...
  • 1981 saw Norway once again bottom out the scoreboard with nul points, this time for folk singer Finn Kalvik and his composition "Aldri i livet." A fairly chintzy number (despite production assistance from Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA), its fate combined with that of Teigen and Anita Thallaug (who scored nul points under the old system in '63) established Norway as the "nul points country," which took Norway some time (and a win in 1985) to shake off (to a degree, but that's for later).
  • 1982 to 1983 saw more countries take nul points, with Finland's punk song "Nuku pomiin" by Kojo doing so in 1982 and the double whammy of Spain's "Quien maneja mi barca" by Remedios Amaya (an intense, let's charitably say interestingly-sung flamenco number) and Turkey's "Opera" by Cetin Alp and the Short Waves (what do you think it sounds like?) doing so in 1983. After a few more charitable years, the same fate once again befell Turkey's Seyyal Taner in 1987, Austria's Wilfried in 1988, Iceland's Daniel in 1989, and (once again) Austria's Thomas Forstner in 1991. Wilfried's "Lisa Mona Lisa" was voted by Eurovision fans to be the worst song to receive nul points in 2003. (For what it's worth, Remedios Amaya was deemed the best).
  • There were sporadic occurrences throughout the rest of the '90s. Lithuania, one of seven debuting (largely Eastern European) countries in 1994, scored nul points for their first-ever entry (a distinction it shares with Portugal), leading them to withdraw until 1999. 1997 saw two countries do so, one being Portugal and the other being - you guessed it! - Norway, a year after a highly successful hosting gig in Oslo. Switzerland's Gunvor, who by the time of the contest had become a Swiss tabloid fixture, worsened her hometown reputation by earning nul points in 1998. That was that for a few years, until...
  • 2003 saw a triple whammy for the United Kingdom's ill-fated Jemini and "Cry Baby." It was the first British entry to finish last, the first British song to score nul points, and the first English-language song to receive no points (also, its one of the few Eurovision performance on this very site's So Bad, It's Horrible page for music). The duo blamed several causes for their failure, including non-functioning monitors preventing them from hearing the backing track (and therefore starting the song in the wrong key, which they barely recovered from before the end of the song), and - in relation to that - sabotage by other contestants. Terry Wogan believed it may have been a result of "post-Iraq backlash," but the common counterpoint was that the song just kinda stunk.
  • The introduction of the semi-finals in 2004 should theoretically have made nul points even harder to achieve, as now most countries have to earn their place in the final as opposed to just being there by virtue of their score the previous year. However, the very first year of the semi-final saw Switzerland earn nul points for Piero and the Music Stars' "Celebrate" (which is also on the So Bad, It's Horrible page; here's why - proceed with caution) and 2009 saw the Czech Republic's Gipsy.cz and "Aven Romale" also finish their semi-final with nothing, leading them to withdraw until 2015. And speaking of that year...
  • 2015 saw not one, but two countries achieve nul points in the final.. Austria and Germany's infamous mutual Eurovision hate-crush combined with nothing from the other juries meant that both Austria's Makemakes and Germany's Ann Sophie ended the night with nul points. This made Austria the first host country to finish with no points (not the first to finish last on home ground - the Netherlands did it in 1958 and Portugal would do it in 2018), as well as tying it with Norway and Switzerland as the country to most frequently receive the dreaded score. Interestingly, Austria isn't officially listed as finishing last, despite its shared lack-of-score: due to current tie-break rules, ties are broken by placing the country that performed earlier over the country that performed later, so Germany is officially listed as finishing last.
  • Since 2016, the voting system has been changed so that each country now awards two separate scores, one from the jury vote and one from the televote. 2021 was the first year to see an overall nul points result since the change, with the United Kingdom's entry, "Embers" by James Newman, being awarded zero points in both votes. Since the voting change also meant that "zero points" was officially announced as opposed to being skipped over, the UK had to suffer the humiliation of sitting through said announcement twice.
  • Obtaining zero points in just one of the jury vote or televote rounds is more frequent; since 2016, two songs have received no points from only the jury vote (Spain in 2017 and Israel in 2019) and six songs have received no points from only the televote (The Czech Republic in 2016 and Austria in 2017, Germany in 2019, and three songs in 2021). It has also appeared in the semi-finals several times: 2017 saw no televote points for Malta and no jury points for San Marino, for example.
  • Between 1997 and 2021, the Eurovision fan site House of Eurovision and later Songfestival.be awarded the Barbara Dex award for the worst-dressed contestant of the contest. Its namesake, the Belgian entrant for the 1993 contest, wore a self-made, semi-transparent dress that many found to be kitschy. Songfestival.be tried to scrub the dishonor by changing the criterion to "most striking look" in 2019, but eventually found that the negative associations were too much and discontinued it in 2022. Instead they replaced it with a more straightforward award meant to promote creativity, diversity and positivity in costuming, named the You're A Vision Award.

Professional Wrestling

• Most Professional Wrestling publications and websites, such as The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, will hand out the "worst of" awards alongside the rest of the year end awards. The Observer has for example Most Overrated (Hulk Hogan is a 7-time "winner"), Worst TV Show (Monday Night Raw has a 9-year streak going as of 2023), Worst Feud (WWE has a 23-year streak going, with Kane having been involved in nine during said streak), and Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic (WWE has a 6-year run going and has "won" 21 of the last 25.) Keep in mind though that WWE gets more viewers than every other wrestling promotion combined, so anything terrible they do is going to be a frontrunner for these just because more people see it. However, the most well-known award these days is WrestleCrap's Gooker Award, given to the worst thing (wrestler, match, or storyline) of the year. David Arquette won the inaugural Gooker in 2000 after winning the WCW world title earlier that year^note Beating out Mae Young giving birth to a hand. Yes, that idiotic angle that's widely considered the worst thing WWE ever did (at least in Kayfabe) actually didn't win this. Katie Vick did though, in 2002, a sentiment even Arquette agreed with. Of the 26 Gookers handed out so far WWE has 19, TNA has 3, and the other four went to the aforementioned Arquette in WCW, Ric Flair's Last Match in 2022, which was a one-off show, CM Punk's run in AEW, and a live spot of James Mitchell doing cocaine on NWA.

Professional Sports

• The Lowsman trophy (punning off of the Heisman Trophy), a statuette of a player fumbling a football, is awarded annually to the last player selected in the NFL draft. The player is also awarded the title "Mr. Irrelevant" and invited to Newport Beach for a parade and humiliating roast.
  • Ironically, as most teams use those late-round picks to select players best suited for Special Teams needs, whoever gets tabbed "Mr. Irrelevant" might actually garner a decent career in the league. Ryan Succop, 2009's Mr. Irrelevant, was the starting kicker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they won Super Bowl LV a decade later. There have been other notable "winners".
• Italian football has Bidone d'oro, the golden trashcan, which is given to the "worst" player in Serie A. This award has only been given to top club players, so it's really closer to biggest disappointment. France also has Ballon de Plomb, the lead ball, for the most disappointing player in Ligue 1.
• The Tour de France awards the Red Lantern (La Lanterne Rouge) to the rider who came in last. The award is named after the red light that used to shine on the rearmost car of a train. Cyclists who fell hopelessly behind on the race would actually compete with each other for this award, as "winning" would at least get your name in the papers, and get you invited criteriums, which could be rather lucrative. Not to mention that winning the Red Lantern means at least the cyclist finished the race, which given the overall distance of 3500 kilometers many participants fail to do.
  • This article describes Lanterne Rouge (in Paris-Roubaix, one of the most important one-day races in the world), and this article describes what riders try to go through to finish a race like this.
  • Giro d'Italia used to award a black jersey to the rider who was last in the GC between 1946 and 1951.
• Each year, the French soccer magazine France Football awards the "Golden Ball" (Ballon d'Or) to the best player in the world over the season. And each year, the French satirical site Les Cahiers du Football responds by awarding the "Lead Ball" (Ballon de Plomb) to the worst player of the French soccer league. Some awardees take it better than others. They also reward the "Lead Mic" (Micro de Plomb) to the worst soccer commentator on French Television − and there is serious competition on that one.
• When Nickelodeon broadcast its first ever NFL game in 2021, a playoff matchup between the New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears, the network introduced a special edition of their Nickelodeon Valuable Player◊ award. Instead of being the usual weekly trophy, this NVP was supposed to go to the best player of the game, selected by an online fan vote a la the Super Bowl MVP. However, when the game turned out to be a predictable, one-sided Saints victory, millions of adult fans watching Nick's broadcast over the standard CBS one thought it would be funny to go to the website and vote for Mitchell Trubisky, the Bears' underperforming quarterback. Despite Nick's multiple attempts to reset the poll, Trubisky won the NVP in what turned out to be his final game in Chicago.
  • Amazingly, the next year's playoff NVP almost flipped into a genuine honor. This time, Nick aired a rivalry matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, and when the underdog 49ers jumped out to an early double-digit lead, fans raced to recreate the NVP magic by voting en masse for Cowboys QB Dak Prescott. Come the fourth quarter, though, the momentum started swinging Dallas's way, as they put up 10 unanswered points to pull within striking distance of the lead—and, amazingly, Nick announced Prescott as the NVP right before the Cowboys' defense made a crucial stop to give Dak the ball for one last drive with no time-outs and the season on the line. The offense took the field, Dak threw methodically up the field to get into San Francisco territory...and then, with 14 seconds left, Dallas had Dak run straight up the middle for a first down, then failed to line up and spike the ball before time expired. Just like that, the Cowboys were eliminated, and not only did Dak's NVP become ironic again, it became a booby prize for the whole team's boneheaded mistakes throughout the game.
  • For the Christmas game between the Denver Broncos and the Los Angeles Rams, it seems Nick came prepared to avert this trope. They released the poll once it was clear the Rams were delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to the tune of 51-14. The poll only had Rams players, and the award went to starting QB Baker Mayfield. For some fans, the award was a sign of how Baker pulled his career out of the fire^note Long story short: was traded from Cleveland to Carolina for a pittance. After badly underperforming for a dysfunctional team, he was cut. He was then claimed on waivers by the Rams, and he won them several games standing in for the injured Matthew Stafford., while others were disappointed they couldn't vote for Broncos QB Russell Wilson (who had an awful season, to put it mildly – to the point of getting roasted by Patrick Star in the broadcast for a bad interception).

Television

• A popular Dutch show, Kopspijkers, had an award that changed name every season, but was essentially given to the worst thing seen on TV. The evangelical broadcasting station that literally reduced an entire class of children to tears by trashing the gifts they bought for each other to give a rather convoluted message about not having sex before marriage was a memorable winner. So was the dubious but famous medium, who was displeased with the host and said that she was receiving the number 10 from the other side. Said host later left the left-wing public broadcasting station for a billionaire's pet project channel named Talpa, originally named Ten. His career never really recovered from that move. Huh, guess the other side is pretty vengeful.

Video Games

• Gamespot, until 2012, devoted a whole section for this in their year-end awards, "Dubious Honors", where all but one award ("Best Game No One Played") are bad achievements. Awards vary, but every year included "Most Despicable Use of In-Game Advertising", "Most Disappointing Game", "Worst Game Everyone Played", and "Flat-Out Worst Game".
• Likewise, X-Play has The Golden Mullet Awards for the worst games of the year. The award is named after the first game to receive a 1 out of 5, Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis.
  • They also hosted a segment recognizing games they couldn't give a full review on because the producers refused to allow a 0 out of 5.
• Insomniac Games has the Snowbeast Award (picture here), given out to whichever employee at the studio made the worst aspect of a game that shipped over the previous year. Each recipient, what they made, and what game it's from, is written on its base.
  • The Snowbeast Award got its name and model in honor of what inspired it: the .'>Y.E.T.I.s on the snowy Planet Grelbin in Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, infamous Demonic Spiders for being fast (both in movement and attack speed), durable, unchivalrous, and abundant. Tony Garcia coded what shipped with Grelbin, including the Y.E.T.I.s that earned him the first Snowbeast Award; according to him and Mike Stout, Tony coded the whole level in about three days. Newly-hired Insomniacs playing the company's backlog would show up to work in bad moods after reaching Grelbin, and once they found out Tony made the level, they made sure to let him know; at first he thought it was funny, but it eventually got tiresome. Because of that, Nathan Fouts, another Insomniac employee, requested the Y.E.T.I. model from Insomniac's art department, which he used to sculpt a real-life model for what would become the Snowbeast Award. Tony, once he received the award, found it and the effort Nathan went through to make the joke hilarious, and appreciated it becoming a joke around the office in following years.
  • The next recipient is "RC3 - Carl Rocket Turret", referring to Carl Glave and the 'Noid missile station from Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. These turrets are Demonic Spiders for their missiles' awkward projectile trajectory; they fly in a gentle path upwards and out of your view before barreling directly downwards, throwing off when you would expect to have to dodge them. If the shot doesn't land on Ratchet's head, it hits the ground and emits a fast shockwave which must be jumped over.
  • Next is "RCB - Moo Insect Samurai", which, according to Moo Yu, is the Tremor enemy from Ratchet: Deadlocked. Moo reasons it's because of the large lunge that they do when attacking, though he also notes that since RAC encourages not sitting still and Tremors are fairly frail, they're not as bad as the award would make them out to be.
  • The first non-Ratchet & Clank example is "IX - Drew Mines"; this is referencing the mines from Resistance: Fall of Man, made by Drew Murray.
  • Sean Wissler received this for the creation of Percival Tachyon from Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.
  • Daniel Gonzalez earned the Snowbeast Award for the Daedalus in Resistance 2.
  • Mark Stewart got it for the Glider Challenge in Sunset Overdrive.
  • Billy Parmenter received this for the Blarg Turrets in Ratchet & Clank (2016) - likely for the oddly finicky hurtbox enemies using them receive unless you use the Groovitron.
  • Johnny Barnes was awarded this for ice floes in Edge Of Nowhere.
  • Additionally, Shaun McCabe said in a 2019 tweet that the Snowbeast Award would be presented during the week of E3, in regards to Spider-Man (PS4) - but who received it and what for doesn't seems to have been announced.

Western Animation

• One anecdote in The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation mentions that story meetings that weren't successful would have other storymen bestow the "Bomb of the Week" (or Big Bomb Award for Worst Sketch of the Week) award on the drawings. A "1st prize" likewise existed if the storyboard was approved.

Military

• The Purple Heart medal receives a mixed welcome from various members of the American military. Some see it as rewarding failure, while others see it as proof that you're willing to put your life on the line. Some recipients jokingly refer to it as the "Enemy Marksmanship Medal". Even those who consider it a genuine honor would nonetheless probably personally favor not ever being eligible to receive the medal (which is to say, not get harmed in combat.)
  • Similarly, the Prisoner of War Medal was debated in the United States for over a decade before it was established, as some felt that receiving an award for being captured was shameful and embarrassing. However, it was ultimately passed, awarded to anybody taken prisoner in a combat situation (later expanded to also include being taken hostage by terrorists) and who behaved honorably in captivity, retroactive to April 5, 1917. Like the Purple Heart (which can also be awarded to anybody injured while in enemy captivity), it shows that the recipient went into harm's way.
• There have occasions of people getting military medals despite not having earned them. The objective is to avoid admitting a mistake was made or the military needs good publicity. This often overlaps with Bling of War in communist nation-states.
• Former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey (D - NE) wasn't proud of his Medal of Honor (awarded for a routine SEAL action for essentially political reasons) and Bronze Star (supposedly for wiping out a VC base; actually a village of civilians including children).
• Repugnant Battle Honours: battle honours won by Indian regiments of The British Empire for actions relating to the subjugation of India.
• When Finland ended up fighting alongside Nazi Germany to recover territory lost to the Soviet Union during the Winter War, their ranks included Jewish officers. Some of them received the Iron Cross, one of Nazi Germany's highest awards, which they all told the Nazis where to stick.
• Some American POWs sentenced to forced labor in WWII Nazi Germany managed to get the War Merit Medal for "high production" or performing above the standards expected of an enemy prisoner.
• Wearing political decorations of the Nazi Party, awards directly associated with the SA or SS, or occupation service medals directly associated with the expansion of Nazi Germany in the 1930s is forbidden in modern Germany.

Politics

• When the names on the Nixon's Enemies List was revealed, Paul Newman and journalist Daniel Schorr stated (separately) that inclusion on the list was their greatest accomplishment. Ironically, Schorr announced the revelation live on television as part of his news report, not realizing that he was on the list until he came to his own name.
  • On the flip side, Hunter S. Thompson was disappointed to have not made the list.
• Similarly, the Nazis had a secret list of prominent British people to be arrested in case of a successful German invasion and occupation. Several of the people included such as playwright Noël Coward considered it an honor to be included.
• Fact-checking website PolitiFact has "Lie of the Year" awards that are given out to the most infamous false claims that they have covered that year.
• Peter the Great really loved medals of this type. In 1709, he "awarded" (in absentia) an "Order of Judas" to Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa for betraying him and siding with Swedish king Charles XII. In 1714, he introduced the Drunk Medal◊, a huge chunk of cast iron (weighing between 9 and 18 pounds), to be worn for a week as a punishment for being a Vodka Drunkenski.
• As of January 2019, British Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May has two dubious honours of overseeing the biggest ever defeat for a democratic government in the Commons (for her Brexit deal, 432 noes to 202 ayes, a difference of 230) and being the first government in British history to be held in contempt in parliament (for defying a vote to release legal documents related to Brexit).
  • Liz Truss, failed even harder; she only lasted 50 days in office, with the death of Queen Elizabeth II happening only two days after she was elected. Aside from the mourning period, Truss' time in office was defined by absolute chaos as she failed in attempts to lower runaway inflation (largely by cutting taxes for the rich, a move she was roundly criticized for) and the inability to control her own party, with 19 October providing an absolute goldmine for the news media in the aftermath of a failed confidence vote. Things got so bad that the Daily Star, a red-top tabloid, began livestreaming video of a head of lettuce to see if Truss would outlast it; the lettuce won.
• The title of Unwort des Jahres ("Un-word of the Year") is annually awarded to the most annoying or politically incorrect neologism, euphemism, or buzzword that has appeared in German media.
• In Sweden, there exists the Johnny Bode award, named after the controversial singer and fraudster. The award is given to celebrities or organizations which have "acted in Johnny Bode's spirit" by creating a scandal and continually making mistakes in a seeming lack of self-awareness. The prize is that the jury that decided on the recipient splurge on a party among themselves at a public location, then send the recipient the receipt and bill alongside a diploma.
• The French Légion d'Honneur has become this for some people. Created by Napoléon in 1802, it was initially the greatest honorific distinction, awarded to those who achieve great service for France. Nowadays though, it is better known as "the award of the President's friends", given away to people who didn't do much to deserve it (including… the Prince of Saudi Arabia). As such, it is often refused by people who either don't want to be associated with the government in any way or reject the idea of that award entirely.
• The Iznogoud Award is granted to the French official who has perpetrated the year's most high-profile failure.
• Private Eye bestows the Order of the Brown Nose (OBN) upon people who engage in egregious sycophantic praise. There are also three annual awards or sets thereof announced at Christmas or New Year:
  • The Nooks and Corners architecture columnist "Piloti" awards the Sir Hugh Casson Medal for the Worst New Building of the year. (It's named after an architect whom Piloti despised because in his later years he routinely took a fee to give evidence in favour of demolishing worthwhile buildings.)
  • Rotten Boroughs, the local government column, presents a set of awards to local councillors, senior council staff, etc. that it has reported on throughout the year. The categories vary from year to year but have included e.g. "Tory Bigot of the Year", "Jailbird of the Year" and "Nepotism Award".
  • The Literary Review column presents the Christmas Log-Rolling Awards for the most blatant examples of log-rolling (i.e. writers trading favours by praising each other's books) and other such disreputable practices in newspapers' and magazines' "book of the year" pieces.

World Records

• Browse through the Guinness World Records book sometime. There are records in there that few people should want to have, such as "Most Facial Prosthetics" or "Largest Kidney Stone". Jonathan Lee Riches, who won the World Record for "most lawsuits" by filing hundreds of Frivolous Lawsuits from prison, sued the Guinness Book of World Records to the surprise of absolutely no one.
  • Guinness ended up having to "retire" quite a few records because they felt they were encouraging people to endanger themselves (or their pets—The category of "fattest pet" was retired under allegations of people purposefully abusing and overfeeding their animals) or for accomplishments that could become illegal in extremes (squick-worthy example being youngest pregnancy).
• Evel Knievel, famed daredevil of The '70s, is listed in the Guinness World Records for "most bones broken in a lifetime" (433).
  • Since there are only 206 bones in the human body, Evel had to have broken several of them multiple times.
• Sister Andre (Real name Lucile Randon), a retired French nun born in February 1904, became the oldest living person in France on October 19, 2017, and was the oldest living person in the world from April 19, 2022 until her death on January 17, 2023 ^note her position was then succeeded by the Spanish Maria Branyas, born three years later in March 1907. When she found out about the latter achievement, Randon stated that she thought it was a "sad honor" that everyone born before her has now died.

Other

• The Stella Awards, named "in honor" of 79-year-old Stella Liebeck, who bought a cup of coffee from McDonald's, held it between her knees in the passenger seat of her parked grandson's car and splashed said (180-190 F, 82-88 C) coffee on her legs as she pulled the lid off, resulting in third degree burns over 6% of her body requiring extensive skin grafts, including her groin, then sued McDonald's for the cost of her medical care — McDonald's then devoted masses of money to slandering her name rather than paying out, unfortunately resulting in the case becoming the textbook example for a Frivolous Lawsuit while it was anything but. The full case and outcome is listed in the synopsis for the book "The True Stella Awards", which is no longer compiling any more of these kinds of suits.
• Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievement Awards. The publishers' decision to discontinue the awards after 2008 was itself regarded as a dubious achievement by many of Esquire's readers.
• The Ig Nobel Prizes are normally not this — they are given out to research that sounds silly but is actually very useful (for example, new insights on structural failure gleaned from research into how a piece of dry spaghetti snaps). However, they are also sometimes given as a criticism, such as the Medicine award that was given to several tobacco company executives who testified under oath that they believed that nicotine was not addictive; the Mathematics award given to Enron, WorldCom et al. "for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world"; Volkswagen's award in chemistry for "solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested"; and the Literature award given to the editors of Social Text due to their part in the infamous Sokal Affair. Most winners who are actual researchers do, in fact, collect their awards at the annual ceremony. The Take That! targets don't.
• Dutch TV used to have a consumer show which gave a golden acorn award (noting that the Dutch word for acorn, eikel, also means "idiot" "dickhead") to companies that had particularly poor consumer service. In a subversion of the trope and owing something to the Dutch cultural mindset, these companies' CEOs would often appear in person to accept the award and promise a change for the better.
• Italian parody news show 'Striscia la Notizia' has the Tapiro D'Oro (Golden Tapir), a statuette made to look like the eponymous animal on a wooden stand (which is nonetheless made entirely out of polystyrene) that is awarded and delivered on camera to politicians, celebrities, sports people and so on that have experienced then-recent defeats or notable humiliations of some kind, under the reasoning that the people in question are likely wearing a "long face" over their ordeals, enche the award's name. Most anticipate receiving the "prize" and are good sports about it, while some range from not-so-graceful to downright hostile about being approached.
• People magazine puts out annual Best and Worst Dressed lists, the latter supposed to be this Trope. Sometimes a subversion, with some second and third Worst Dressed recipients often expression public displeasure at not having the number one spot.
• The Golden Poo from consumer-awareness website The Consumerist is given to the "Worst Company in America," as selected by site voters. Electronic Arts got the dubious honor (along with the resulting hit in stock and the need to send CEO John Riccitiello packing) two years in a row back in 2012 and 2013, and Bank of America has been a contender for the award ever since the website has been running the contest.
• The Ernie Awards are Australian awards for comments deemed misogynistic, held annually. They are named after former Australian Workers' Union secretary Ernie Ecob, who was known for his misogynistic remarks. One of his best-known remarks was "Women aren't welcome in the shearing sheds. They're only after the sex", which is why there is a sheep on top of the Gold Ernie.
• The ever-popular Darwin Awards, which is given to those who remove themselves from the gene pool through their own stupidity. While it's a type 1, the ridicule is often posthumous, as "removing oneself from the gene pool" often means the recipient got a bad case of dead because they thought some incredibly stupid action was a good idea. Past winners include:
  • A devout missionary who went to the banned North Sentinel Island to preach about Jesus to an uncontacted tribe who not only kill all visitors but also speak a totally unknown language.
  • A livestreamer who attempted to climb Mount Fuji in winter, in street clothes, without any safety/climbing gear, and while complaining about how slippery/steep/dangerous the path was, slipped and fell to his death while thousands of viewers watched.
  • A soldier who removed a ballistic plate from his body armor so he could carry his laptop instead.
  • Too many people whose last words were "Hold my beer."
  • A bunch of agents from the Philippines' National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) smoking near a stockpile of seized munitions.
  • The site also awards "Honorable Mentions" to individuals who survive their misadventures with their reproductive capacity intact. Examples include "Lawnchair Larry", who in 1982 attached helium balloons to his lawn chair and managed to make it to 16,000 feet (4,900 m) before safely descending; and two burglars who broke into the house of football/soccer player Duncan Ferguson, who had a well-earned reputation for physical aggression on and off the pitch (with four convictions for assault and a six-month prison stay on his record), and paid for it with injuries that sent one to the hospital for three days.
• The Big Brother Awards, Orwell Awards, or Orwells are awarded in various countries to government and private organizations and actors who have done the most to threaten personal privacy. The categories vary, but some have also inverted this trope with one category honoring the bravest whistleblower.

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