Gimme gimme chicken tendies
Be they crispy or from Wendys
— The unnoficial anthem of the series
Tendies stories are greentext stories which were particularly popular on 4chan in early 2015, featuring a Manchild who lives with his parents (usually just with his mom) and loves chicken tenders, which he gets in exchange for "good boy points", or GBP, that are awarded to him for good behavior. In most of these stories, the protagonist tends to be massively overweight, immature verging on infantile, and very violent, which often ends badly for his family.
The series presumably evolved from manchild stories which were popular on 4chan's /r9k/ board in mid- and late 2014. Those stories were generally about an adult male acting like a spoiled child (and tormenting his mother), but by early 2015, the focus had shifted on Anon simply wanting his chicken tenders (while still tormenting his mother).
Mostly Discredited Meme as of 2016, but still resurface occasionally.
Tendies stories provide examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Offspring: The son is abusive to the long-suffering parents in these stories.
- Age Lift: Sometimes Anon's age changes between reposts of a particular story (see Retcon below) i.e. from 38 to 28, which sometimes can change the context a little considering how the main conflict revolves around Anon being way too old for his behavior.
- The Alcoholic: Anon's mom tends to drink a lot of "Adult grape juice", which is pretty justified in her case.
- The Aristocrats: Not an actual aristocrats joke but same idea. Most of the stories derive their humor from simply being as absurdly disgusting, offensive, and shocking as possible.
- Author Appeal: Some of the stories are obviously just poorly disguised fetish stories that were meant to pander to the author's fantasies; unfortunately, considering the subject matter here, it's usually not your non-controversial vanilla fetishes.
- Berserk Button: Never get between Anon and his tendies.
- Big Eater: Anon loves his tendies and eats loads of them in many stories.
- Birthday Episode: Some stories take place on Anon's birthday. One of them ends with Anon saying it was his "best 40th birthday."
- Black Comedy Rape: Usually with Anon's mother on the receiving end, sometimes with other members of his family or even complete strangers.
- Body Horror: In one of the more surreal stories, Anon becomes a "human tendie"
by chopping off his limbs with his katana and breading himself in his urine and baby powder. - Butt-Monkey: Anon's mom often falls victim to her son's bad behavior.
- Character Narrator: The stories are written as if the author was their protagonist, providing first-person narration. The other characters refer to him as Anon, which in greentext stories is used as a replacement for the narrator's real name.
- Continuity Nod: Although there is no way to tell if any of those stories are connected or even share the same author, there is one story that mentions a "Legoland incident", which might refer to another story where Anon plans to defecate in public on an upcoming trip to Legoland in order to show his mother her place.
- Crossover: There is at least one story that is also a "Shrek is love"
story. - Darker and Edgier: In early stories, Anon wasn't too violent and the worst he would get was assaulting his mother with his body waste. As the time went on however, as is usually the case with 4chan, the stories became progressively darker, with Anon getting more cruel and sociopathic in many of them, and often including themes of murder, rape, or suicide.
- David Versus Goliath: Referenced by Anon in one of the stories when he's about to fling his soiled diaper at his mom after she tried to get him a job.
- Depending on the Writer: As the stories are posted by different anonymous users and each is supposed to be a made-up account of their own lives, the Anon's character varies a lot across stories. In some of them, he's in his twenties, in others he's as old as late thirties, in some stories he's simply a typical immature NEET with nerdy interests who still lives at home, in others he acts like a young child (wearing diapers, playing with toys, watching shows like Barney, etc.), sometimes he's simply a nuisance to his family, other times he's a violent and abusive sociopath.
- The Dog Bites Back: What Anon's mom is finally driven to in few stories. There is at least one instance of her apparently killing her son by hooking up a helium tank to his CPAP mask and telling him that it will get him into one of his animes.
- Downer Ending: Some of the stories end with Anon losing his parent(s), in others his actions get him arrested/committed, sometimes it's even implied he dies as well in the end after mistaking his dead mother's medicine for candy.
- Driven to Suicide: In at least a few stories, Anon's mom actually kills herself (usually by hanging), unable to stand living with her son.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the earliest known story using this formula (originally posted in January 2015) Anon doesn't terrorize his mother over chicken tendies but over a McRib. The first story in which tendies are actually mentioned doesn't involve Good Boy Points, and the conflict revolves around Anon's parents putting a lock on his minifridge out of concern for his weight.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: A very twisted example. Anon tends to be extremely abusive towards his mother, but in his own way he does seem weirdly attached to her, although it's apparently more about attachment to the comfort of his established lifestyle rather than genuine feelings towards another human being. In some stories, Anon also becomes very protective of his mother when her new boyfriend abuses her due to getting angered at her son's behavior. This often leads to Anon's "new dad" getting seriously injured or even killed.
- Fat Bastard: In many stories, Anon is described as very obese, often weighing several hundred pounds.
- Fictional Currency: Good Boy Points, courtesy of Anon's mom.
- Also Pepebux mentioned below.
- Flanderization: Over the course of the meme's lifetime, Anon went from an entitled, slightly messed-up Basement-Dweller to a cartoonish, exaggerated man-baby who constantly assaults others with his urine and feces, sexually violates his mother, and can't take the slightest care of himself.
- Food as Bribe: Well, it's actually Good Boy Points that are used by Mommy as the bribe to make Anon behave, but they can be exchanged for chicken tendies or other food items, so it works on the same principle in the end.
- Free-Range Children: Subverted. While Anon is technically supposed to be an adult, his immaturity and the way his mother treats him make every time he goes outside on his own look like this.
- Good Behavior Points: The "Good Boy Points", which are a Weird Currency version of Wants a Prize for Basic Decency used to control the Manchild. They are earned for things such as using the bathroom instead of the nearest convenient receptacle or cleaning one's room. They can be exchanged for real rewards, usually the neckbeard's favorite meal of chicken strips (referred to as "tendies") and Mountain Dew. These are often presented as ineffectual, as the critical step of punishing bad behavior is often neglected.
- Greedy Jew: The landlord in some of the stories. (But that may just be how Anon sees him)
- Innocent Bigot: In one story, Anon tries to steal frozen tendies from a random store customer while disguising himself with a very poor impression of an African-American person because "black man steals chicken happens all the time".
- Insistent Terminology: Anon usually hates it when chicken tendies ("chickie tendies" or just "tendies") are referred to simply as chicken tenders. Similarly, chicken nuggets are sometimes called nuggies.
- Jar Potty: Many stories have Anon keeping bottles of his bodily waste in his room and throwing them or emptying them on people when he doesn't get what he wants.
- Kick the Dog: Too many examples to count. It is a pretty common theme in the stories for Anon to be deliberately as nasty to his mother as possible, do horrible things just to break her psychologically, constantly test the limits of how much he can get away with, etc.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- In one story, the Anon actually gets his shit together, moves out, and meets a nice girl. He has a relapse when he forgets how to order chicken strips from a restaurant, and begins demanding tendies from the waiter, who has no idea what he means, and he causes such a scene that his girlfriend dumps him. Feels bad, man.
- As mentioned under Pet the Dog, one Anon makes his mother cry, which drives home what a little shit he his.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: The "Anon is mentally a baby" variant of these stories tends to have this kind of vibe to it, with Anon using Baby Talk and childish words to describe masturbation, rape, and other children-unfriendly things.
- Nobody Poops: Averted.
- Parental Abandonment: In many stories, Anon is raised by a single mom after his father left them, which is often implied to be the reason he turned out this way. There are also stories where mom gets tired and runs away too, leaving Anon on his own.
- Parental Incest: Some stories have Anon exchange Good Boy Points for a "blowey joey" from his mother.
- Pet the Dog: In one story, Anon actually learns the error of his ways and decides to become a better person after he sees him mom crying in the car from being pushed to her limits, culminating in him actually calling her mother instead of his usual "Mummy".
- Potty Failure: Anon often ends up "poopooing" and "peepeeing" himself; in many stories, he straight-up uses diapers, which his mother has to change of course.
- Psychopathic Manchild: And how! Most of the time, Anon is portrayed as very immature, often straight up infantile to the point of wearing diapers and speaking in Baby Talk, and the things he is sometimes capable of when doesn't get his way can be terrifying.
- Retcon: Some of the stories got slightly altered with time as they were reposted by different people in new places, with Anon's age changed or new lines added that changed the context sometimes.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Anon tends to speak like this in some stories.
- Rule 34: In some of the stories, Anon will masturbate to literally anything, including Baby Bop from Barney, Shadow from Bear in the Big Blue House, or even his own family photo album.
- Running Gag:
- Anon wakes up at some unorthodox hour (like 5 P.M.) acting like it's morning.
- Anon's mom is busy with "the new daddy" (who is often black) when he demands tendies.
- Anon wants his mom to make him tendies or take him to a fast food joint in the middle of the night, to which she pleads that she has to get up early.
- The story ends with Anon hearing his mom crying.
- Anon's mom uses "sleep candies" to cope with her situation.
- Especially in early stories and the preceding manchild stories, Anon says something along the lines of "This is why Dad left you" when his mother does not do what he wants.
- Scary Teeth: As could be expected, in at least few stories Anon is said to have very bad, rotten teeth, in one of them described as "harboring all forms of bacteria and fungi".
- Self-Made Man: Parodied. In one of the stories, Anon builds a global financial empire called PepeTech in just two days after Mommy told him in frustration that he can have all the tendies he wants once he makes his own money. When he hands Mommy a cheque for one million Pepebux (a curency he created) to be exchanged for Good Boy Points, it turns out that he was just playing with his CEO playset.
- In another story, Anon actually succeeds in getting a stable job and life, becoming quite successful while he is at it. When he returns home to visit his folks, he demands the reward his mother promised him for achieving what she asked; when she doesn't comply, Anon flips out and reverts back to his childish ways.
- Self-Made Orphan: In some of the stories, Anon's actions lead to this, directly or not. (see Driven to Suicide above)
- Series Mascot: The stories are usually accompanied by a picture of Pepe the Frog, mostly his smug variant, involved in the types of situations the stories are about. Pepe's mom also tends to have the face of Wojak, who is usually depicted as the victim of Smug Pepe's antics. A few posts, however, have featured a picture of a smug variant of Wojak holding a chicken tender.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: A common Twist Ending for greentexts. One example starts with Anon, his sister, and his mother boarding an airplane for a Vacation Episode in England, yet ends where it was All Just a Dream, with Anon checking his watch to see it's 9:02 A.M. on September 11th, 2001.
- Shout-Out: Anon tends to be a fan of Scooby-Doo in many stories.
- Also Barney, iCarly, My Little Pony, Magic School Bus, Nerd and countless animes and video games]].
- Pepe the Frog ("adopted" from the comic Boys Club) is often referenced, obviously.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Anon pretty much only sees his mom as someone to make him tendies and clean after him all the time.
- Struggling Single Mother: It is sometimes lampshaded or implied Anon's mother struggles to make enough money to feed her son.
- Together in Death: In one story Anon's parents kill themselves in their bed while holding hands, finally pushed over the edge by their son. He promptly stuffs them under the mattress to avoid eviction.
- Toilet Humour: Lots of jokes in the series are based around Anon's poo poo and pee pee, which he often keeps in bottles lying around his room, using them later on his unsuspecting mother.
- Tomato Surprise: In one story, Anon's mom won't get up to give him Good Boy Points, so he drags her from her sleeping place to the GBP board, uses her hand to add Good Boy Points, and then puts her back in her coffin.
- Trademark Favorite Drink: Mountain Dew (often referred to as "Dewie") usually takes this role.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Chicken tendies of course.
- Unnamed Parent: Names of Anon's both parents are undisclosed, as is generally common in greentext stories and on an imageboard whose culture promotes anonymity.
- Vulgar Humor: Subjects like rape, bodily functions, and worse are all Played for Laughs in these stories. If it's taboo, chances are there's a story where it's the punchline.
- Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: The whole concept of Good Boy Points for Anon: he gets them for doing extremely basic things, like doing chores, or maintaining personal hygiene.
- Wham Episode: The Pet the Dog story mentioned above. It's not like those stories have any consistent canon to begin with, but straying this far from the established guidelines is actually pretty uncommon, if most archived threads are any indication.
- Where Did We Go Wrong?: Anon's mother often asks this from herself.
- Weird Currency: Again, Good Boy Points, which are a quantification of how much basic decency it takes to earn what prize.
- Would Hurt a Child: What Anon often has no qualms about doing. In one story, he defecates in his baby nephew's crib, which is implied to leave him partially blind; in another, he punches his pregnant mother in the stomach and then locks her in a cupboard as she cries that he may have hurt the baby.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: In one story, Anon agrees to enroll in college (and gets in) in exchange for 10,000 GBP, which gives his mother hope that he will finally grow up and maybe even meet a nice girl. Upon learning her plan to break the status quo, though, he cancels his application, saying he has to take care of his ailing mother, and later that day his mom receives a letter praising her son for giving up college to stay home with her, hope leaving her eyes as Anon sits there, triumphantly sucking grease off his tendies.
