Basic Trope: An Aesop against jumping on fads.
- Straight: The Phonýmon Collectible Card Game becomes popular at Alice's school. She spends the whole episode trying to get some, but when she finally gets to test out the game, she finds out that once you look past the cool monsters on the cards, the game is just an unbalanced mess. Moral of the story: Don't be too quick to jump on fads.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice does numerous uncharacteristically unpleasant things to try to get her hands on some Phonýmon cards, which alienates her friends and family, and eventually gets her stuck with a criminal record after she's caught stealing cards from a store. When she finally gets to play the game, she finds out that it's just a glorified version of War
that manages to be even more boring. - The Phonýmon CCG is portrayed as a gateway to a horrible gambling addiction that ends with Alice being Driven to Suicide.
- Alice gets herself killed while trying to replicate a risky stunt that was trending on a fictional version of TikTok.
- Alice does numerous uncharacteristically unpleasant things to try to get her hands on some Phonýmon cards, which alienates her friends and family, and eventually gets her stuck with a criminal record after she's caught stealing cards from a store. When she finally gets to play the game, she finds out that it's just a glorified version of War
- Downplayed: Some of the students just have a good time playing the Phonýmon game, which is portrayed as fine, but others do things like pestering everyone to get into it, ignoring all schoolwork in favor of playing the game, and so on. Moral: it's fine to enjoy a trend, but don't take it too far.
- Justified: The Phonýmon game was designed to appeal to children with its bright colurs and cool monsters, but they didn't put that much work into the card game itself, so it makes sense that kids would latch onto it because it looked cool, only to drop it when they found out it wasn't really that good.
- Inverted: Alice absolutely refuses to give the Phonýmon game a shot. A month later, after the fad is over, she buys a heavily discounted deck out of curiosity, and the one time she finally finds someone who's still willing to play, she really enjoys it. Moral of the story: if you're too quick to assume that It's Popular, Now It Sucks!, you might screw yourself out of an enjoyable experience you could have shared with your friends.
- Subverted:
- The Phonýmon game only looked like an unbalanced mess because Alice was playing it incorrectly.
- While the game may be an unbalanced mess, Alice still enjoys collecting the cards for their cool artwork.
- Double Subverted:
- If played according to the real rules, the game is more balanced, but also very dull.
- Then Alice takes the collecting aspect too far by becoming completely focused on that at the expense of everything else.
- Parodied: Alice and her friends have a lot of fun with the Phonýmon card game, and everything is fine. At the end of the episode, they shrug and wonder what the drawback was supposed to be.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice gets into a variety of fads: Phonýmon cards, TokTik trends, Crazy Bandz, and Widget Spinnerz. She likes some of them and gets too invested, others don't interest her, and some she enjoys without consequences.
- Averted: Alice buys some Phonýmon cards, enjoys the game like she expected, and everything is fine.
- Enforced: A group of Moral Guardians demanded an episode with an anti-consumerism message.
- Lampshaded: "I need to get my hands on some Phonýmon cards!"
- Invoked: Mary tells Alice that the Phonýmon card game is cool, and gets her into playing it.
- Exploited: Bob owns a super rare Phonýmon card, but can't find anyone to sell it to. He knows that Alice is gullible and easily falls with the crowd, so he introduces the game to her.
- Defied: Alice's mother is sceptical about the Phonýmon cards, but her father convinces her to buy Alice some. Alice enjoys them, and they conclude that that's what matters.
- Discussed: "Do you think those Phonýmon cards are really as fun as they seem?"
- Conversed: "Gee, you think they made this episode to teach us a lesson?"
- Implied: Bob makes a mocking, offhand reference to the forgotten Phonýmon fad, which makes Alice feel embarrassed.
- Deconstructed: After being disappointed by the Phonýmon cards, Alice overcorrects by embracing the It's Popular, Now It Sucks! attitude to the point of alienating her from her friends because she refuses to give the popular things they like a shot.
- Reconstructed: Alice learns to use her judgment individually.
- Played for Laughs: Alice's attempts to get her hands on the cards lead to hijinks.
- Played for Drama: Alice is bullied for not following the Phonýmon trend.
- Played for Horror: The cards are secretly the home of an evil beast. It's waiting for the right time to strike, and that'll happen once everyone gets into the game...
If everyone else went back to Trend Aesop, would you?
