Condemned by History cleanup thread

The film section on Ancient Astronauts lists some recent straight examples (such as from the newer Star Trek movies and DC/Marvel films), so I wouldn't call it a Dead Horse Trope

Found an entry in the Literature page.

• Non-fiction author David Irving was once a respected "maverick" historian of World War II, widely praised for his knowledge of Nazi Germany and ability to find historical documents. While some of his claims were disputed by professional historians, critical and popular opinion of him was generally positive, as a self-educated outsider offering a new perspective on the war. However, things started to shift in the late 1970s, when he began promoting historical negationism. In his 1977 book Hitler's War, he claimed that Adolf Hitler merely used anti-Semitism opportunistically to get elected and had no knowledge of The Holocaust, as well as blaming Winston Churchill for the war's escalation and characterizing the German invasion of the Soviet Union as a preemptive strike intended to prevent an impending Soviet attack. This book's critical reception was resoundingly negative, and marked a turning point for his literary output.
  
  While his books continued to sell well, historians and critics began to criticize the inaccuracies, misrepresentations and biases present in them. Over time, Irving's claims about the Holocaust became increasingly controversial, culminating in endorsing outright Holocaust denial when he testified at the 1988 trial of German Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. His testimony and subsequent legal battles completely destroyed his reputation outside of Holocaust denier and Neo-Nazi circles, and many of his earlier works were re-evaluated in a more jaundiced light.
  
  When the fall of the Iron Curtain enabled access to materials that disproved many of his claims about World War II and the Cold War (notably definitively proving that his estimates for the Dresden bombing's death toll were greatly exaggerated), serious questions were raised about his methodology and research, and this combined with many unsavory facts about him coming to light means that his work is no longer considered serious good-faith scholarship, with even the most charitable readings of his bibliography saying that all of it is slipshod and bias-ridden at best. Even more damaging was the libel lawsuit he himself brought against Deborah Lipstadt for (truthfully) calling him a Holocaust denier, fictionalized in the movie Denial. Irving lost the case, went bankrupt, and was legally classified as a historical fraud, destroying his career once and for all.

The entry more sounds like a Role-Ending Misdemeanor than outright CBH, and maybe the entry could be trimmed down a bit.

I think it was discussed in the CBH thread already.

When was it discussed before?

I was just thinking. Would The Annoying Orange qualify for this trope? I see it as being in a similar boat as Fred, which is listed on CIH.Web Original. It was once one of the biggest shows on the internet at the start of The New '10s, to the point of getting various brand deals with big-name companies, but people nowadays seem to view AO as an artifact of the 2010s whose humor has aged really poorly, and don't like looking back on it.

I don't think the Annoying Orange counts as CBH for the same technical reason The Nostalgia Critic can't count as CBH: the series is (to my knowledge) still in production and the trope only allows examples 5 years after production.

Edited by jlvs200s on Apr 8th 2024 at 8:09:33 PM

And TBH, the earlier episodes (basically anything before 2014) are still regarded as Actually Pretty Funny.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but while The Annoying Orange became disliked by former fans, it still has a young fanbase; unlike Fred, who didn't manage to reach new kid audiences.

As regarding The Boys, even though I'm coming late to the discussion...

Evolving tastes and social trends mean there is something of a backlash against many works from bad boy creators from The '90s and Turn of the Millennium, such as Garth Ennis and Mark Millar.

This is kinda expected and happens to everybody sooner or later, to some degree or another.

Ironically, some of their most famous works being adapted into popular stuff that has been widely accepted as improving on the originals has fueled the backlash even more.

But "they face a backlash" isn't enough to qualify for Condemned by History. Their works still have plenty of fans and no one treats you as a weirdo if you admit to still liking Garth Ennis.

Edited by renenarciso2 on Apr 9th 2024 at 6:31:16 AM

Since the show came out, I've seen a lot more people who are unironic fans of the original comic and even defend it against criticism. Not everyone seems to think that the show was better than the comic. One criticism I've been seeing is that for a show about muggles fighting back against superheroes, the muggles seem to be reliant on the superpowered characters. These fans tend to argue that this was something that the comic did better than the show.

I have a Web Original suggestion, but I'd like to see if anyone else has any thoughts or anything to add to it.

• "Obey the Walrus" was once a legendary video in the world of YouTube Horror, with many citing its unknown origins and its use of Sensory Abuse as a highly effective and unconventional method of scaring. When people learned of the person in the video, transgender actress and model Sandie "The Goddess Bunny" Crisp, it served as a major case of Colbert Bump for her career and led to her gaining newfound popularity. However, after Sandie's death in 2021, people began to view "Obey the Walrus" through a more critical lens, noting how it seemed to use Sandie's physical deformities (the result of malpractice for the treatment of her polio) as a means of unnerving viewers, which many came to view as incredibly disrespectful towards the late actress. Coupled with many uncomfortable truths coming out about the video's creator in late 2023, "Obey the Walrus" has gone from one of the internet's most beloved horror videos to being viewed as a little more than a glorified freak show that exploited the physical appearance of an aspiring entertainer for the sake of views.

Edited by RWBYraikou888 on Apr 11th 2024 at 12:09:06 PM

Would Overwatch count? Many fans of it seem to belive the game went downhill around 2019 with the updates actively making the game less fun, with thing reaching their boiling point with the Overwatch 2 “upgrade”, that removed several features from the first game and failed to deliver sufficient replacements. Futhermore many of the story’s themes about diversity and anti-capitalist getting undermined as more and more about its publisher Blizzard Entertainment was uncovered. Furthermore the game’s loot boxes and lack of single player content are held to far figure scrutiny now. The fact the game’s always online nature means it’s now impossible to play the earlier better received versions of the game (even if you buy a disc for Overwatch 1 it won’t run), so you can’t exactly pull Fanon Discontinuity like most instances of Seasonal Rot.

Edited by Mariofan99 on Apr 12th 2024 at 1:17:07 PM

It could probably be Don't Shoot the Message in terms of it’s themes. Don't some still like the art design and world of Overwatch too, in spite of the bare-bones game?

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Apr 12th 2024 at 11:05:35 AM

Don't Shoot the Message is about how the work handles the message. This sounds more like Overshadowed by Controversy.

Not familiar with the video, but that sounds like a good candidate to add to Condemned by History — I know that traditional freakshows themselves are listed as part of the "other" section of the page.

As someone who doesn't play: is Overwatch actually disliked? It may be getting more criticism now, but my impression is that it still has a big fanbase.

Overwatch is more of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!

I brought up Overwatch on this thread a while ago. It was suggested that it didn't count and likely falls under Overshadowed by Controversy instead.

Edited by BlueXIII on Apr 12th 2024 at 6:09:40 AM

Okay so no to Overwatch. I’d say Add Obey the Walrus though

Is The Amanda Show this or just Overshadowed by Controversy? It was definitely popular at the time and memetic for a lot of the mid-2010s, but unlike most of Dan Schneider's other works, in recent years I mostly just see it come up in reference to Amanda Bynes' mental health and the poor treatment of kid actors, which in turn has a lot of people condemn certain running gags and sketches (like Amanda's Hot Tub and Penelope Taynt) as more uncomfortable to watch. And since it's a sketch show centered mostly around one actress whose mentorship under the show creator has come under scrutiny, it's harder to separate than other Schneider shows that still have fandoms for their characters.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 12th 2024 at 11:06:01 AM

It's probably Overshadowed, because while there are lots of reasons people might not watch it as they did before, it doesn't seem like anybody actually hates the show in any kind of numbers.

It's harder to watch for sure, but do people actively dislike the show as a show?

No, not really, it's still watchable. It's just that it gets real uncomfortable in hindsight.

Plus it gave us the dancing lobsters who are still beloved to this day.

OBC, absolutely. Condemned? Probably not.

That makes sense, I was going to ask about it before but decided OBC probably fits for now (though the revelations about Drake Bell will need some more time before they're added since that only became public knowledge recently). I hadn't seen the lobster memes referenced like they used to be so I wondered if they'd fallen off. Thanks!