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Narm / GoAnimate

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Whether it be due to its low-budget synthesized voices, cheap video effects, or how even the serious of situations can become this despite the efforts of its users, GoAnimate/Vyond and the hundreds upon hundreds of "X Gets Grounded" videos have cemented themselves as one of the Internet's biggest sources of Narm.


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    Across most videos 
  • It's very difficult to convey any sort of emotion beyond Dull Surprise with the text-to-speech voices - whenever someone is supposed to be angry or sad, they still sound exactly the same as when they are happy or neutral. As a result, common phrases like "No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no" become this and Overly Long Gag rather quickly.
    • And even better is when people use the "Scary Voice" or "Kidaroo" voices when certain characters are angry, commonly used for the infamous phrase "OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH!!!!".
  • Pretty much any time a character throws a tantrum, whereupon they start dancing due to a lack of tantrum animations (although this is an exception for the Business Friendly theme). See for yourself.
  • The sound generally used for people getting injured, which is actually a truncated version of a toilet-flushing sound effect, often sounds painful and hilariously unfitting in many circumstances, such as when it's used for, say, a person falling from a great height, their neck is broken, or being hit by a flying school desk.
  • Due to the sheer amount of times it gets used, the dramatic "BANG!" sting gets narmy very quickly.
  • The Comedy World theme's "crying" expression simply looks too ridiculous to take seriously; likewise, so is its "shocked" expression, as it has characters making a neutral face before shutting their eyes and then bugging them out in the most over-the-top way possible.
  • The 'Calming Video' fad is this in spades. To describe the format in general, each video involves a character (normally someone like Caillou, Macusoper or Dora, or an Author Avatar) coming to some sort of harm (normally having a Punishment Day or being sick) or getting incredibly angry for some reason, then being 'calmed' by someone else, typically Boris, Diesel Busters or Caillou (again). These videos can drag on for upwards of ten minutes while all that happens is the character or Author Avatar screaming at the top of their lungs in broken text-to-speech. Expect plenty of 'WA-EAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AH's and 'GEE-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR-ARR's to be yelled by the 'calmee', while the 'calmer' repeats the same things over and over again with an annoyed expression, unintentionally making it look like the 'calmer' really doesn't want to be here.
  • Most rant videos are easily this; thanks to the often simple Madlib writing, unoriginality, and sheer level of Accentuate the Negative:
    • They usually open with the name of the subject, followed by "More like" and a "clever" derogatory nickname of the subject.
    • "...and they go on failure adventures" (commonly used for shows that contain adventurous plots, although some creators say it for any type of show)
    • Also when the subject is a show: "...the writers are jerks, while the cast is morons."
      • "Do you know who likes this show? (name of person), they wish to be a part of the cast, but they cannot because (reasons). And do you know who hates this show? (name of person), they wish to kill all of the cast."
      • "And (minor character in subject)? Well, nobody gives a (number followed by derogatory word) about them, not even (number)."
      • If the show in question ended airing or has been cancelled: "Thank god this show got cancelled in (year)."
    • "Screw (name of subject), and screw (second subject). (third subject) is (number) times better than (name of subject)."
    • And then after all of that they always say "End of rant" and then show the titles/logos of the next rant video subjects.
  • "ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME ENGAGE ME." Made better when the Kidaroo voice is used when the character says this. This is meant to reenact a scene from the South Park episode "HumancentiPad", but the sheer usage of it in videos has pretty much lost the source reference.
  • Several "(character) Gets Grounded" videos that feature a video where a new baby is born often wind up like this. Right at the beginning, the mother character's water will break all of a sudden, and it is followed by the family rushing to the hospital. After a few minutes, the (fully-clothed) baby is born, and after a few minutes of joy, one of the newborn baby's siblings will say "Oh the baby looks terrible!", and knowing the nature of most GoAnimate videos, grounding ensues. In some cases, the mother won't tell anyone about their pregnancy until literally seconds before their water breaks, so it's a surprise to not only the sibling, but the father who's suddenly dealing with their child coming with only a few seconds to take it in.
  • Every "(Character) Misbehaves at (Place)" video is filled with Narm. The most notable example, however, is shown in almost all videos of this kind; the troublemaker will ask their parents to go to a fast-food restaurant to get food in order to waste time, and after a brief argument, the parents cave in and they waste half an hour getting the food. Then, when the right time comes, the troublemaker throws the food they just ordered out the window, causing it to hit the car and cause a collision.
  • Some depictions of Boris as his "Teeth Guy" form (which, in question, is usually a red-skinned Boris with the size of his mouth and eyes maxed out), while sometimes passing off as Nightmare Fuel, can also end up like this, due to his over-exaggerated Ax-Crazy tendencies, loud but deadpan voice, dialogue filled with cliché racial slurs and swears, and non-stop chatter.
  • A term used in a lot of "Warren Cook/Dora Gets Grounded" videos is that Dora or Warren Cook get grounded for a long number of "tranquilities". "Tranquility" is not a period of time. It means a state of peace and quiet.
  • Any "(Character) Gets Their Revenge On Their Parents" videos that have the parents being sent to the audience, made up of several middle-aged men with deadpan expressions, before the audience and parents shrink into nothing.
  • Boris' designated voice (Eric from the Ivona TTS platform) has some odd voice quirk. When he tells someone to "Shut up", his voice will give it in a very harsh hiss. Also, when he makes thinking speech ("Hmmm..."), it sounds more like he's enjoying something to eat ("Aytch-Emmm-Mmm-Mmm-Mmm-Mmm-Mmm").note 
    • Doris' has the same thing as certain phrases, like "That's it!" and "Let's go!", will be given in a more excited and joyous tone, even when angry. note 
  • Many of the TTS voices seem to have a problem with long chains of letters, particularly vowels. For example, when a character makes a crying noise (e.g. "waaaaaaaaah") or a scream ("aaaaaah"), the voices will glitch out and sometimes crash, which is noticeable with voices such as Jennifer (Ivona) or Alan (Loquendo).
  • The use of non-TTS voice clips can cause this. For instance, clips of Dr. Robotnik saying "I hate that hedgehog!" and variants thereof are commonly used as various troublemakers' responses to getting grounded... even if there weren't any hedgehogs involved.
  • The Error videos can come off as more than a little silly due to how ridiculously stupid the characters are (thinking that physically covering the error with things like showers will stop it, not just letting a short error timer run down on its own, etc.) the inconsistencies regarding the timer (the videos seem to imply the error will be over when the timer stops... so why do the characters in the errors reduce the timer as a punishment?), and the fact that the only punishment the errors can dish out (besides permanently disabling the device they appear on and apparently grounding the user of the said device) are attempts at jump scaring the user with hackneyed creepypasta references.
  • In some "X Causes A Fake Lockdown" videos, a short scene at the troublemaker's home will sometimes play before a news report on their television, which is meant to show the parent's anger, but often comes across as silly.
    Parent: Oh yeah, you're definitely standing.
    Troublemaker: But-
    Parent: (in a loud or demonic voice) STAND.

    Specific examples 

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