Basic Trope: The password isn't hidden when typed.
- Straight: When Bob writes the password to his computer, it isn't asterisked out.
- Exaggerated: Not only isn't the password asterisked out, it's also written in large letters, and the screen is huge.
- Downplayed: The password is gradually asterisked out as Bob writes it. If the password is "Trope", it looks like this: "T", "*r", "**o", "***p", "***e".
- Justified: Bob is always alone when he's at his computer, and it's in a secure location, so why hide the password?
- Inverted:
- Bob's password is hidden well, even using the wrong number of asterisks.
- Bob's password is hidden completely, not even asterisks are visible, like in UNIX non-graphical password prompts.
- Subverted:
- From Bob's angle, the password is highly visible. However, if you turn around a few degrees, the lighting makes it invisible.
- It is irrelevant whether or not the computer uses asterisks in place of the actual characters, as Bob’s password actually is ‘***’
- As a level of misdirection, a joke, and a prank to any snoopers the computer generates a psuedopassword of the same length using a dictionary. "Trope" is just an alternate mask.
- Bob is being watched, and is deliberately entering a wrong password while turning on the option to see the password, in order to trick the person watching him.
- Double Subverted: But if you turn a few more degrees, it becomes visible again.
- Parodied:
- Bob's computer makes loud sounds and displays a flashing banner that says "Bob's password here!".
- Bob's computer says his password out loud while Bob writes it.
- Bob's password is literally "SWORDFISH".
- Zig Zagged: At first, the password is visible, but Bob finds a way to hide it. Later, we see the password again, but it turns out to be a fake password to hide the actual password (Bob has changed it), says Alex, who just tried it... but is Alex trying to trick us?
- Averted: Bob's password is asterisked out when written.
- Enforced: The writers want to show how clever, lame or embarrassing Bob's password is.
- Lampshaded: "Uh, Bob, I can see your password..."
- Invoked:
- "Bob, you often make typos when writing your password and thus fail your logins. Wouldn't it be easier if you kept it from being asterisked out?"
- Earlier, Alice broke into Bob's computer and made it not hide passwords.
- Exploited: Alice sees Bob's password and uses to gain access to some of Bob's private files.
- Defied: Bob activates the option to hide the password as he's writing it. If no such option exists, he hides the password with a piece of paper taped to the screen.
- Discussed: "Those programs that don't hide passwords are a real nuisance." "Do such things still exist?"
- Conversed: "Why isn't Bob's password asterisked out?" "Why hide a lame password like "Password" anyway?" "Well, the people in this series are stupid..."
- Played For Laughs: This is used to show that Bob's password is "Bob", and Alice sees Bob writing it. Bob is still surprised when she hacks his computer.
Back to Highly Visible Password.
