Basic Trope: The story's message is to address the downsides of social media.
- Straight: Bob's life falls into disarray because he's too distracted by keeping up with his TropeChat feed to focus on what's important.
- Exaggerated: The toxicity running rampant from social media websites not keeping bigots and disinformation spreaders on their platforms in check leads to The End of the World as We Know It.
- Downplayed: Bob sometimes lands into trouble from spending too much time on his TropeChat account, but knows when he's at risk of falling in with the wrong crowd and does take a break from social media once in a while.
- Justified:
- Users of the platform don't have to make their real names publicly visible, giving them free rein to be complete assholes to everyone else who uses the site while facing zero repercussions for their behavior.
- The creators of the social media site are completely neglectful when it comes to prohibiting harmful content from their platform.
- Inverted: The story prioritizes showcasing the upsides of social media and glorifies it as one of the greatest achievements of the modern world.
- Subverted: Bob sees a post on TropeChat about an off-the-wall and baseless conspiracy theory involving the President running a slave trafficking ring, but quickly decides this is baloney and proceeds to file a report on the post.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob sees another post claiming that people who buy fidget spinners are racist and is actually deceived into harassing and assaulting people who own fidget spinners.
- Bob's report on the conspiracy theory is ignored by the TropeChat staff, allowing the post to deceive more gullible users.
- Parodied:
- Bob looks through his latest notifications and dryly remarks about how the most popular posts are either bigoted conspiracy theories or claims that the 1969 moon landing was staged.
- The world becomes a dystopia where people are enslaved by the owners of the social media sites and have economy and law replaced entirely by social media rules.
- A popular method to discredit someone is to use a social media post to claim that the person stuck their tongue out at a puppy or that they don't like ice cream.
- Zig Zagged: The story demonstrates both the negative and positive qualities of social media.
- Averted:
- Social media is acknowledged in some capacity, but the depiction does not involve attacking its faults.
- Social media doesn't turn up in the work at all.
- Enforced:
- "I'm so sick of people who won't shut up about their activity on Twitter, Facebook and the like, so let's do a story that'll open those idiots' eyes to how they're enabling all sorts of evil by not giving up their social media!"
- "It really distresses me how easy it is to get away with posting inflammatory content on social media these days, and I feel pointing this out in our story will be a good way to make more people aware of this issue."
- Lampshaded: "You're saying I'd be at peace if I abandon my TropeChat account? I know where you're coming from, but I'd sooner chew both my arms off."
- Invoked: A person who doesn't care for social media attempts to turn people against it by telling everyone horror stories about how social media can ruin your life or cause division between people.
- Exploited: Social media is used by manipulative jerks to do away with people they dislike by using slanderous posts to goad others into murdering the individuals they want dead.
- Defied: The owners of TropeChat are well aware of how social media can be harmful to society, so they enforce a zero-tolerance policy towards content that is bigoted, misleading or otherwise harmful, ensuring that any user capable of causing trouble gets banned the moment they post something that is beyond the pale.
- Discussed: "I'm disturbed by how often TropeChat allows Antisemitic ramblings from Neo-Nazis on their platform."
- Conversed: "No amount of this show's soapboxing about social media being bad will make me shut down my social media accounts. It's true that there are rotten people there, but if you're going to condemn every single website that has problematic users, why be on the Internet at all?"
- Implied: A character reveals themselves to believe something nonsensical and another retorts that this proves social media will lead to society's downfall.
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