Shoot the Shaggy Dog in web-originated content.
- "The Grand Heist" episode of Achievement Hunter's Let's Play Grand Theft Auto V is a particularly cruel one. The team had pulled off an incredible heist with Ray pulling off a Heroic Sacrifice to get the rest of the gang airborne in a Titan, with Gavin in the controls. The team is flanked by helicopters, but Gavin's doing his best to keep them in the air, but he overcorrects and stalls the plane. He could have easily corrected this, but by sheer dumb luck, a helicopter gets under him and causes the Titan to explode, killing the rest of them.
- Joseph from Afterlife Labirynth died 591 times by 2014-07-28.
- In the Camp Camp episode "Eggs Benefits", the camp's platypus mascot lays eggs and the campers are ordered to take care of them until they hatch so Cameron can sell the hatchlings. All of the eggs are broken (or in one case, runs away to get away from Nurf's spousal abuse towards Preston) before they can hatch, with the exception of Max and Nikki's, but the platypus mother eats the hatchling, rendering the whole thing pointless. Max is upset that his Saturday was wasted.
- In Chuggaaconroy's let's play of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, he manages to get 5,000 fans for Ursula in the span of just one minute shy of 23 hours over the course of 3 days. He also laments over the fact that because he wants to respect the current continuity, he can't do any concerts at Indol, which forces him to up Ursula's Affinity Chart without any additional help. Right at the moment when he reaches the objective, he unlocks new concerts in continuity-friendly Titans, which won't do anything for him now and would've helped him out hours ago, rendering a good majority of his time towards the end stretch as wasted.
- In the interactive online horror story The Dark Forest, the protagonist's goal is to reunite with their guild after being separated from them during an attack. In the only route where you actually to find them again, the protagonist joyfully greets them and they resolve to leave the titular Eldritch Location together... only for it to turn out that they had been attacked by werewolves, and the protagonist had been bitten by one. He promptly transforms and slaughters them all without a second thought.
- Gemcraft: Episode Zero ends with the player grabbing the Gem of Eternity and instantly start turning into the Forsaken, the narration explicitly states that no matter what you do the corruption will eventually take off completely. Worse, it's a prequel and canonically the next person that comes along (that is, the player of the original Gemcraft) kills the Forsaken... and gets possessed.
- The Grickle short "The Smartest Dog In The World"
story consists of a dog trying to save his dying owner. The dog looks up a map to the nearest hospital, find diagrams on how to ride a motorbike, places his unconscious owner on the back, leave the garage... then promptly crash through a wall three houses down, which causes the motorbike to burst into flames, killing them both AND anyone who may have been inside the house at the time. At least the cat survives. - In the Homestar Runner toon "Homestarloween Party", Strong Sad concludes the story being told by the characters this way. It doesn't go over too well.
- A mild version is present in Manwhores. Even after Kevin gets up the courage to go out to Dead Man's Cove for the job necessary to save their apartment and bail Randy out of jail, and then confronts/seduces his ex-girlfriend, now the VP of an entire bank chain ("It's been one week!"), Kevin and Greg are still busted for prostitution and sent to jail.
- Played for Black Comedy in The Nostalgia Critic's James and the Giant Peach review. He's let out of jail on the condition that he'll do a positive episode on a film everyone likes, he has to praise it constantly otherwise he'll be hated again, and when he finally does give his honest opinion (he doesn't like the movie but can see why people do), he gets massacred by all the guns pointing at him.
- In PBG Hardcore Minecraft #6, the group is given the opportunity to pursue a side quest in order to get a Totem of Undying, which will allow them to bring one person back from the dead. After losing Mcjones in an easily-avoidable accident two episodes in, the group decides to find the totem. They succeed in finding the totem and getting it back to their base with no casualties, only for Dodger to die suddenly to a creeper just outside the house. They end up choosing to revive her over Mcjones, rendering the entire sidequest a waste of time as she would not have died in the first place if they hadn't pursued it. Then, Dodger dies again- permanently this time- a mere three episodes later without accomplishing anything noteworthy.
- In The Pirates Covered in Fur, the main band of heroes try their hardest to save Diamond City and to stop the main villain. While they do succeed in killing the Big Bad, by the end, everyone (save for two characters) is dead, and Diamond City is bombed by the military anyway.
- Roméo and Julieta: Unlike the source material, the deaths of the protagonists fuel no ultimate good or bittersweet outcome whatsoever. No, here they are shown building up a mutual bond solely to be brutally killed. Additionally, the humans responsible suffer no retribution, and it's possible they don't even realize what they've just done, or do and are just bastards to the point of not caring.
- The Saga of Biorn. The title character is an old Viking warrior who seeks an honorable death in battle in order to go to Valhalla. Should he die another way, he will be forced to go to Helheim, which is very boring. He fights many tough opponents, but they always end up dying due to some fluke. He finally gets his wish when he rescues a church full of nuns from a giant, dying in the process. In the afterlife, he eagerly ascends the stairs to Valhalla, his arms being loaded up with weapons in the process. Meanwhile, the nuns honor their rescuer's Heroic Sacrifice by giving him a Christian burial service. Just as Biorn reaches the top of the stairs, the gate to Valhalla is replaced with the gate to Fluffy Cloud Heaven, and all of his weapons disappear. The gate opens and reveals that Heaven is exactly like Helheim, only with nuns.
- Sintel. A young girl befriends a baby dragon only to see it snatched away from her by a larger dragon. She quests to find and rescue her friend, searching for what seems like forever before finding the dragon's lair and confronting its owner, only to find after mortally wounding the dragon that it bears the same scars her dragon suffered as a baby. She had traveled all that way and not only failed to rescue her friend, but she killed him herself.
- Slimecicle Cinematic Universe: While the ending of "We Spent 100 Days in a Hardcore Minecraft Apocalypse" looks to be a Bittersweet Ending, since Charlie sacrifices himself to stop the zombie apocalypse and his friends are doing well a year later, the LARPer starts another zombie apocalypse after Ronald Boo decries the whole thing as "all acting".
- The final episode of There Will Be Brawl has one with Link. After revealing that he survived being stabbed by Zelda, he rallies her back to the side of good, only for them both to be killed nigh instantly.
- WHAT COLOR ARE YOU?: The ending of the game segment, where after undergoing a long journey through the night and seeing a number of strange and wondrous things in the labyrinth, the player finally sees the sun rising and realizes that the castle they've been searching for is right in front of them... and is immediately killed when a chunk of stone breaks off one of the castle walls and crushes them.
- Wolf Song: The Movie: the heroes are able to force the villains to retreat eventually, but two of their number have defected and everyone with leadership qualities is dead, effectively making this a pyrrhic victory for the heroes at best
