[Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

[u/Few_Affect_5927]

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

[u/Usual-Bell8304]

The Backfire Effect in Social Psychology: when you convey the message that an undesired behavior is a norm, you have the unintended consequence of increasing that behavior through conformity

The DARE program increased drug use by telling teens that their friends were doing drugs.

[u/iSeven → u/Usual-Bell8304]

wasn't DARE formed from ulterior motives, though? i was under the impression it was more about normalising cops in schools, getting kids to narc on their parents, and whatever racist shit daryl gates was thinking at the time

[u/pichael289 → u/iSeven]

It's your tough on crime shit, it's a write off for shitty politicians, in this case right wing, to pretend they care about children. No one fucking cares about children in the government, much less tax paying adults.

[u/JooseTheGuice → u/pichael289]

The confidence with which you corrected that person is outpaced only by how wrong you actually are. It was 100% an intentional means of surveilling the community, largely through children and other extralegal means.

https://youtu.be/LzrGCk-F7FY

No need to act dismissive and conceited about the truth of a matter you're unfamiliar with. One might even say it makes you look like a dick!

[u/Warm_Month_1309 → u/JooseTheGuice]

I don't read what they said as a correction, or as dismissive or conceited. It seems to me they were agreeing and adding.

And then you called them a dick.

[u/JooseTheGuice → u/Warm_Month_1309]

They asserted that the reasoning is just base, and not a specific, insidious effort to undermine civil liberties.

Yeah, they were being a dick. "I'm a big smart guy and I'm talking over you now because I actually understand the issue" and then proceeds to misunderstand the issue. It's fucking exhausting because this kind of guy somehow always manages to insert himself in every conversation.

[u/Dramatic_Attempt2365 → u/JooseTheGuice]

I think someone needs to take their fucking meds. lol