After Cartman is upset by harsh fat-shaming comments on the internet, Butters is forced to filter his social media accounts for negativity along with many others. Meanwhile, Randy takes a stand against "charity shaming" when a Whole Foods cashier repeatedly guilt trips him for not donating to feed hungry children.
Safe Space includes examples of:
- Abilene Paradox: #ShamelessAmerica wants their social media profiles sanitised of all negativity by having Butters monitor their accounts. Had they just endured the criticism or just ignored it in the first place, they wouldn't be inviting more criticism by embarrassing themselves in an attempt to deflect it.
- Brutal Honesty: Reality shames the #ShamelessAmerica for doing more to help themselves than solve the problem they organised the party for. He also bluntly tells them that criticism is an unavoidable part of life and they were doing it as well without realising. For example, Vin Diesel showing off his abs in response to fat-shaming is, in fact, also fat-shaming.
- The Bully: The Whole Foods cashier humiliates Randy for not donating money to the store's supported charities. This becomes more and more elaborate and exaggerated to the point it is obvious he is just using his position to heckle him. He later brings both Vin Diesel and Stephen Seagal to tears with passive-aggressive criticisms/jokes when they try to protect Randy.
- Bungled Suicide: Butters survives his suicide attempt via jumping off a window and ends up in hospital.
- Can't Take Criticism: The celebrities take advantage of the concept of safe spaces in order to remove any form of negativity from their lives. As a result, they are thin-skinned and will jump to any means necessary to reassert their sense of dominance over others. As shown by their characterisation in the episode, their attempts to ignore and deflect criticism has made them foolish cry babies.
- Call-Back: Randy is seen purchasing gluten-free beer.
- Comically Missing the Point: Demi thinks the starving kids are lucky to be able to be so thin.
- Dastardly Whiplash: "Reality", a physical manifestation of the harshness of real life who wants to tear down the safe spaces of others.
- Didn't Think This Through: None of the people who put up pictures on the internet thought for a second that they would receive any negative comments.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- PC Principle basically threatens detention to any of the students picked who refuses to cater to Cartman's fragile ego and moderate his social media for him. It's taken to extremes when he volunteers Butters to do the same for various other people.
- #ShamelessAmerica has Reality executed for calling them out on how thin-skinned they are.
- Downer Ending: The #ShamelessAmerica movement decides to alleviate Butters' burden by forcing poor kids in third-world countries to filter their comments and Reality is publicly executed.
- Driven to Suicide: When faced with the choices of continuing to filter the toxicity out of Cartman and the other celebrities' social media, plus Reality threatening to kill him for what he's doing, or two weeks of detention from PC Principal and a grounding from his parents, Butters decides to attempt to kill himself, although he manages to survive.
- Hypocrite:
- Cartman takes offense to people making negative comments about his weight, yet has no problem saying (and doing) far worse things to other people, often on the basis of their race, religion, or gender.
- Everyone who uses Butters to filter their social media profiles. They claim that negative feedback is harmful, yet they're okay with piling all of it onto one emotionally fragile boy.
- Reality claims that it was every insecure persons' fault the Butters tried to kill himself, even though he threatened to kill him.
- Heel Realization: The #ShamelessAmerica group make a clear expression of disbelief when they realise they spent more on their celebration dinner than what they raised for charity.
- Insane Troll Logic: Both Cartman and Demi Lovato believe that since the social media comments they read after going through Butters' filter don't contain any negative ones, everybody who sees their posts must like them and they're more popular.Kyle: There's more than two people on the internet.
- Irony: If anyone in this episode needs a safe space, it's Butters.
- It's All About Me: Randy makes a PSA about how wrong "charity shaming" is, surrounded by the malnourished children he doesn't want to give money to. Then again, all he wanted to do was simply turn down making a donation until the Whole Foods Cashier kept tormenting him for it.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Reality might be vicious and cruel, and at one point attacks Butters because he thinks he's the one building safe spaces, but in the end, he is furious at others for driving a child insane because they're not tough enough to deal with it themselves.
- Karma Houdini: The Whole Foods cashier who goes out of his way to publicly humiliate those who don't donate (or only donate a dollar) is never seen getting any sort of comeuppance for his behavior. Randy only manages to get around him in his last appearance by claiming his fundraiser will support getting hamsters through college.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After seeing Butters hospitalized, PC Principal realized that he put Butters through more than he can handle and is openly regretful. Of course, he proceeds to create a solution that is far worse.
- No Social Skills: The real problem of the safe space people is less that they can't take critic and more that they think posting their assholes, dick pics, or themselves in underwear in social media is not gonna attract negative reaction.
- Paper Tiger: Despite being action film stars, Steven Seagal and Vin Diesel turn out to be incredibly insecure and easy to drive into crying fits.
- Prone to Tears: Deconstructed, #ShamelessAmerica is just a group of hypocrites who went to extreme lengths to exclude any form of negativity in their lives. They're arrogant enough to think they're better than everyone else, yet fragile enough to crumble like a house of cards once someone lightly criticizes them. When Reality calls them out on this, they seemingly agree with him, until they decide to just execute Reality for making them feel bad.
- Real After All: After seeing the "Safe Space" music video, you'd first believe Reality was a fictional character made exclusively for the video, but then he tries to attack Butters. You could easily dismiss it as Butters slowly going insane, but then Stephen tells Randy about Reality crashing #ShamelessAmerica's gala.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Reality delivers one to #ShamelessAmerica at their gala.Reality: What a lovely charity event, I bet you're feeling pretty good about yourselves hmm. What have you done? You have raised $300 by spending half-a-million on Filet Mignon and crystal glasses. Look at you, Vin Dipshit. You say fat-shaming is wrong so in response you show off your abs-YOU'RE THE ONE FAT-SHAMING, IDIOT! What's the matter? You're sad that people are mean? Well, I'm sorry the world isn't one big Liberal Arts College Campus. We eat too much, we take our spoiled lives for granted; feel a little bad about it sometimes! No, you want to put all your shit up on the internet and have every person say "Hooray for you"-fuck you, you're all pricks.
- Sadistic Choice: After being confronted by Kyle, Butters has the choice of either continuing to filter the social medias of celebrities and Cartman and keep on dealing with internet toxicity and Reality's death threats, or get two weeks of detention at school from PC Principal and then a grounding at home from his parents. Butters then decides to kill himself.
- Sanity Slippage: Being forced to weather through all sorts of online negativity takes a serious toll on Butters, to the point that he runs around school naked and jumps out a window.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: The #ShamelessAmerica banquet raised $300, after spending $500,000 on food and drinks. Reality being the way he is calls them out on this.
- Take a Third Option: Butters is stuck between either helping pampered celebrities (and Cartman) feel good about themselves 24/7 or getting 2 weeks of detention at school and a grounding from his parents at home. He tries to commit suicide instead.
- Take That!:
- To the concept of Safe Spaces and thin-skinned celebrities who need their social media to be filtered to only receive positive comments.
- Matt & Trey must really hate The Fast and the Furious films if they have the Whole Foods cashier insult Vin Diesel by reminding him he's the star of them.
- Villain Song: "Safe Space", a song all about how people need to be sheltered due to their own insecurities and how they need to be protected from reality.
- Would Rather Suffer:
- PC Principal approaches both Kyle and Wendy before Butters about filtering Cartman's social media and threatens to give them two weeks of detention if they refuse. They both immediately opt for the detention.
- Butters has gone insane because of all the negativity he has had to deal with, plus Reality threatening to kill him. When Kyle tells him to quit filtering the social media of celebrities (and Cartman's) and simply accept two weeks of detention (which would also lead to him being grounded by his parents at home). Butters then jumps off a window in an attempt to kill himself.
- You Are Grounded!: Should PC Principal give Butters detention at school, his Abusive Parents will ground him at home.
