Overshadowed by Controversy

There are some well-known works that gathered controversy throughout the years, and there are also famously controversial works in which the controversy, whether rightful or not, would overshadow most other aspects. Which isn't to say that works in the latter category have no other redeeming factor, just that most people would know little else aside from the controversial aspects.

Bad reviews alone do not make a controversial moment, and in fact some works can be well-regarded by critics and those who watched, read or played the work, and not all works listed here are either laughably bad or just downright terrible. Plot-related twists are generally not what makes up the category either, even if such cases are subjective and arguable. The major qualifier is that the works would be known beyond the fans of a particular genre that there's little knowledge of some other parts of a work to the general public.

Controversies can be a result of the following:

• Moral Guardians (be they politicians or groups)
• Unfortunate Implications
• Public cat-fights between the creator and the media, critics, public, or all three (such as Dear Negative Reader rants).
• Deceptive or offensive marketing

See also Dancing Bear, Just Here for Godzilla, Mainstream Obscurity and Watch It for the Meme. Compare No Such Thing as Bad Publicity. When a whole genre gets held under controversy, it would become The New Rock and Roll.

Please be cautious about editing this page. It isn't supposed to imply that there's no other redeeming factor for the works on this list.

Examples of Overshadowed by Controversy include:

Anime and Manga

• Eiichiro Oda, the author for the ever-popular One Piece, had his reputation eclipsed by various controversies since the 2010s and 2020s (at least in the West), which ranges from his general depiction of women in his manga (which includes the actual age for Bonney), to supporting Nobuhiro Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin's author) and Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro (Toriko's author), who were arrested for pedophilia-based assaults in real-life. (To make things worst, he also wanted Nobuhiro to go back to publishing in spite of this.)
• Gundam:
  • Though Mobile Suit Gundam: IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS has been a subject of minor controversy when it comes to it's toxic fanbase (such as the fandom drama regarding the powerscaling) and the infamous Audience-Alienating Ending, Some others also remembered how Mari Okada (the show's writer) received the short end of the stick even though the executives (Bandai and Sunrise) are the one that greenlit the second season. But then again, this was likely due of her involvement to other shows (such as the Ass Pull in the climax for Aquarion Evol), and her admiration to both Gaelio Bauduin (where she spared the character for second season) and his voice actor, Masaya Matsukaze, which the fans blamed her love to the VA for the show's messy script.
  • While Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is known for its no-nonsense, genuine yuri moments between Suletta and Miorine up until their eventual marriage in the finale, The franchise is also remembered for its backpedalling caused by corporate homophobia (which is not unnoticed by the Yuri fans), as they once erased evidence of Kana Ichinose's (Suletta's VA) interview of her confirming their marital statuses in Gundam Ace, while insisting that their marriage is "Up to interpretation". Even with the apology messages from Gundam Ace and Bandai/Sunrise and Miorine's confession to Suletta on an August 2023 G-Witch-themed event, those attempts did very little to extinguish the outrage from both Japanese and generally the International (where some already boycotted the franchise due to this) fans, to the point where the "#BANDAIhomophobia" hashtag has been used on most of the new products announced. While the final volume of the 2nd season's Blu-Ray ultimately subverts this by further confirming the girls' marital statuses, The actions of BOTH Bandai and Kadokawa still leave a very sour impression on those fans.
• "The Dog & The Boy", an Anime short produced by WIT Studio and Netflix, had any possible merits (story-wise) being eclipsed by a huge spark of outrage from both viewers and fanartists for its usage of AI-generated imagery and animation.
• While already notorious for the manga's creative choices, Reiji Miyajima's reputation further worsened as the real artists (usually from international fans) pointed out his experimentation with AI-generated imagery.

Comic Books

• Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog has had a few.
  • Ken Penders was always a divisive writer, but the Broken Base surrounding him grew even bigger in the midst of several legal cases, most infamously a lawsuit with Archie that rendered all of his creations off limits, and lead to one of the most divisive events in the entire comic: the Super Genesis Wave. The controversy wasn't helped by Pender's constant criticism of Flynn and Archie on Social Media, making the whole thing look motivated by spite, nor by rumors spread that this incident may have damaged Archie's relationship with Sega, possibly serving as one of the factors in the comics eventual cancellation.
  • End Game is a polarizing story, with many praising it as a high stakes thriller with a climactic ending, or criticizing it as a convoluted Idiot Plot. However, it has since become better known for the climax of the first part, in which Princess Sally, the comic's most prominent female character, is sent falling off a building to her apparent death, in what many saw as a blatant example of Fridging. Not helping matters, Penders originally intended it to be genuine, but a higher up (either an editor from Archie, or Sega themselves, no one seems to know) convinced him to reveal she was Not Quite Dead, but at the last moment, meaning she was sidelined during the final battle against Dr. Robotnik.
  • Knuckles the Echidna, a spinoff of the comic once acclaimed as better, is now better known for the revelation the Locke, Knuckles's father, exposed him to Chaos Energy as an egg, a process which canonically endangered both of their lives, after having a nightmare that was supposed to be prophetic, but never actually comes true, and then years later, abandoned him as child with little to no explanation given as to why, actions which Knuckles and the narrative almost immediately forgive him for. This became regarded by Penders's detractors (and even a few of his fans) as one of his lowest points as a writer, and the phrase "Had a nightmare, better nuke the baby" underwent Memetic Mutation.
  • While Worlds United, the second crossover with Archie's Mega Man comics has a large amount of Just Here for Godzilla feelings, it is undoubtably better known for being a Franchise Killer that led to Archie losing the license to both properties.
• Dilbert following 2016. While creator Scott Adams has always had political leanings, for most of the strip's running life, they were largely centrist ones that stayed out of the comic and allowed everyone to enjoy it. Then in 2016, Adams publicly supported Donald Trump and the strip took on an atmosphere much friendlier to conservatives. It go so noticeable that the Pointy-Haired Boss, once a Take That towards bosses who were stereotyped as dusty old folk out of touch with everything and overinflated their own importance, was actually treated well by the strip. Post-2017, it is impossible to discuss Dilbert without mentioning Adams' pro-Trump views and his subsequent support for Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. election. Combined with Adams' other increasingly right-wing attitudes and many have taken a much more sour look at Dilbert. It only got worse in February 2023 when Adams made what was wildly considered to be an incredibly racist rant, resulting in Andrews McMeel Syndication, the company that distributes Dilbert to newspapers and comic sites worldwide, cutting ties with Adams.
• Dreamwave's Transformers comic. The story had many positive elements, including introducing the idea of Shockwave being a Mad Scientist and other concepts that would become commonplace in 21st century Transformers media, but it's best remembered for Pat Lee's questionable business practices, such as not paying his employees, and his poor quality of drawing, which named Dull Surprise. The whole era is generally seen as a Dork Age take on the franchise.

Film

• The Brown Bunny is a film known mostly for being booed harshly at the Cannes Film Festival and the subsequent media catfight between Roger Ebert and the director. In fact, it may be surprising to learn that the film was later Re Cut and given a wide release, and Ebert gave the recut a three star review.
• Cannibal Holocaust was notorious to a degree that it forced director Ruggero Deodato and the actors to explain that nobody died in production and the gore was just special effects. There is still a great deal of controversy to this day relating to the cruelty against animals.
• Acclaimed film director Martin Scorsese has a problem with this:
  • The Last Temptation of Christ had sparked protests from religious groups worldwide, including the infamous attack at a Paris cinema where the use of Molotov cocktails injured 13 patrons and brought the theater under heavy repairs for the next three years.
  • Taxi Driver has been lauded as one of the greatest films of the 20th century. Of course no one remembers it for that. All they remember is that, after seeing it, John Hinckley, in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, shot President Ronald Reagan. Despite all the praise Foster got from her performance, she kept a low profile for the next few years to avoid being linked to the incident.
• It's impossible to have any discussion of the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot without addressing the criticism, both legitimate and sexist, towards it, and the responses to said criticism.
• The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. While The Force Awakens was well received overall, bar some complaints about retreading plot elements from A New Hope, the other two had a much more divisive reception.
  • The Last Jedi, the second film in the trilogy, became the focus of one of the most heated, bitter internet debates. While it opened to rave critical reviews and praise from the general audience, several people accused the film of having a heavily deconstructive story-line that either abandoned or didn't satisfyingly wrap up the lingering plot points of its predecessor while pushing too many progressive themes. This, in turn, caused the ones who liked the movie to call anyone who disliked it "troll" or "misogynist", and portrayed the Hate Dumb who fit that bill of being representative of anyone who disliked the movie.
  • The third and final film, The Rise of Skywalker, ironically enough, received controversy from trying to soothe over the divisive feelings from the previous film, most prominently the truth of Rey's parentage. The film proved to be divisive in its own right.
• The live-action remake of Disney's Mulan was overshadowed by Disney receiving support from the Chinese government and even filming on concentration camps for the Uyghyrs and lead actress Liu Yifei tweeting her support for, what were generally perceived to be, acts of Police Brutality in the 2019-2020 Hong Kong riots.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian. As a rather tongue in cheek portrayal of the life of Jesus, its release was accompanied by a deluge of accusations of blasphemy and religious protests to the point of being outright banned in some countries. And the Pythons were nothing but grateful for every second of it, actively using the controversy to spread the word about the film's existence.
• The Marvel Cinematic Universe got hit with this hard in the late 2010s and 2020s, as much of their output start dealing either with politics (Captain Marvel, The Marvels, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Secret Invasion) or religion (Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder), with a notable left-wing, atheist leaning. This results in the left getting pissed off at anyone who criticizes those works for any reason, the right being obviously angry at those works, and politically/religiously neutral people having to work hard to convince both sides that their (the neutral)'s opinion has nothing to do with politics (or are simply annoyed at how Anvilicious the message is in those works, regardless of whether they agree with the message or not).
• The Fantastic Beasts franchise, a Prequel/Spin-Off to the Harry Potter films. As part of the Wizarding World franchise, its existence alone was already controversial thanks to J. K. Rowling's open transphobia, which caused many to turn away from the films on moral ground alone, but it only amplified when Grindewald actor Johnny Depp was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife Amber Heard, which was then further amplified when Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone/Aurelius Dumbledore) was arrested in March of 2022. Despite some fantastic Worldbuilding and performances from the other actors, including rave praise for Mads Mikkelsen taking over as Grindewald, the franchise's behind the scenes drama is generally all that's discussed about it.
• The DC Extended Universe is known less for its films and more for the toxically divided fanbase it curtailed and some controversial behind the scenes choices. Be it the decision to go Darker and Edgier with Zack Snyder, only to then backpedal with Joss Whedon only to then backpedal on that backpedal and release Zack Snyder's Justice League, the real life drama and controversies surrounding many of the lead actors, some rather divisive reimaginings of characters and all most reviewers can talk about is the stigma that surrounds the films and how it continues to divide fans.
• Although Godzilla Minus One was very successful in Japan upon its release, fans in Southeast Asia were left disappointed by Toho's decision not to provide a wide theatrical release in most Southeast Asian theaters (Despite requests from their local distributors before the film was ultimately released on Netflix six months later), in contrast to the film's run in U.S. theaters.

Literature

• Fanny Hill is well known for having been a subject of obscenity tests and for having been banned in America from inception until a 1966 Supreme Court case ruled that the book has redeeming social value. When it was published in 1748, it got the author arrested on obscenity charges.
• Lolita is unfortunately more famous for the controversy that surrounds it than the actual content and quality of the novel: Vladimir Nabokov went through many publishers who refused to publish it, and after it was published, it was banned in many places for being "pornographic" or "an instruction manual for paedophilia" (which it is not). Even for people who aren't familiar with the history of the book, a lot of the covers/jackets make it look like erotica.
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie is recalled more for the ensuing fatwa declared on the author by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and for the fallout from that incident, than for the novel itself.
• The Uncle Remus stories are a group of actual fables told by slaves and former slaves in the American South, making them a valuable cultural resource. However, though once popular, they are now nearly unknown. Compiler and editor Joel Chandler Harris' fictional character who tells the stories, Uncle Remus, was written as an elderly ex-slave who was basically content to continue to work for a white family. The implied racism is now almost all that is known of the stories. The fables themselves, taken out of the Remus context, are stories about animals using their wiles to trick each other, and man, in order to survive. Unlike Aesop's fables, they are not meant to be morally instructive, but are a commentary on man resorting to animal-like behaviors in desperate circumstances.
• Uncle Tom's Cabin had a controversy that the publication of this book inspired over slavery, particularly in the years leading up to the American Civil War. However, few people have actually read the book.
• Harry Potter:
  • In the series' heyday, talking about it was impossible without discussing how many evangelical Christians denounced the books as promoting the practice of witchcraft. Not that that ever put a dent in the series' sales figures.
  • In late 2019, J. K. Rowling began making controversial remarks about transgender people on Twitter. This has not only caused many to denounce the books on moral principle, but many who used to be fans of the series began looking back on certain elements and wondering if Rowling's attitudes were present within the text the whole time. (i.e. the portrayal of Rita Skeeter and her "masculine hands")

Live-Action TV

• Roseanne had this happen twice. 
  • The series' original run is more famous for how gimmicky its last season was, before the twist of the series finale, where it was revealed that The entire series itself is actually a story written by the title character about her life, and the whole final season was outright invented by her to cope with the death of her husband, who died between seasons. Tellingly, the revival outright ignored this.
  • Its revival is more known for Barr's tweet directed at Obama administration advisor Valerie Jarrett, which many regarded as racist, and her subsequent firing. This led to the cancellation of the revival and the creation of an After Show, The Conners.
• Like most media of 2020 that painted the police in a positive light, Brooklyn Nine-Nine got a lot of flack following the death of George Floyd, even going so far as to be labelled "cop propaganda".
• Donald Trump's 2016 US Presidential Campaign generated a lot of racist and sexist controversies and his television shows, The Apprentice and the Miss Universe pageant, were pulled off NBC as a result. But no NBC show suffered from his presence so much as his hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live in 2015, which resulted in many demanding that SNL pull him off the show in what easily went down in history as their most controversial episode, one that the cast and crew publicly regard as an Old Shame. And considering some of the controversial characters that SNL let host and/or jokes that really didn't go over well, that's saying something.
• Doctor Who
  • "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". In 1977, not a feather was ruffled . In the 21st century, no matter how great a story someone thinks it was, the Yellow Peril card will be played by someone else, making it impossible to have a measured discussion about.
  • The era of producer John Nathan-Turner. Despite him being the longest running showrunner and having overseen the much beloved twentieth anniversary special, his era is better remembered for the serious decline in quality and the on-set hostility he inspired, to the point that Tom Baker, Mary Tamm and Colin Baker have frequently spoken about how awful he was to work with. Tom Baker even regretted not leaving the second JNT walked in.
  • Outside of the United States of America, "Kill the Moon" is remembered for being a defining moment in the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald's relationship but an otherwise average story. In America, all it's known for is accidentally kinda-sorta being relevant to the hot button issue of abortion.
  • Series 12. It started out small, pulling a Happy Ending Override for "The Day of the Doctor" and having a Snap Back for the Master, but when the series finale, "The Timeless Children", had the Doctor be the Timeless Child, an infinitely regenerating being and the progenitor of Time Lord society, any Growing the Beard sentiment that the show had built up following Series 11 was promptly forgotten as the fandom began a civil war over all the Plot Holes and Contrived Coincidences that this caused/would need to work and Series 12 was now looked at in a much more critical light.
• "The Puerto Rican Day" in Seinfeld is known for nothing but its unflattering portrayal of Puerto Ricans and the infamous scene of Kramer burning the Puerto Rican flag, though admittedly by accident.
• It is virtually impossible to discuss The Dukes of Hazzard without getting into a debate about the fact that the General Lee has a gigantic Confederate flag, regarded as a symbol of white supremacy in some areas, painted on its roof. The flag even caused Warner Brothers to stop producing merchandise of the car.
• The Community episode "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons". Way too into the game Chang cosplays as a Drow Elf. The unfortunate similarity to blackface got the episode pulled from digital distributors of the show and now all anyone can talk about when discussing the episode, once heralded as Community‍'‍s best, is whether or not pulling it was an overreaction.
• The 2002 UK version of Top Gear was quite good at this. Whether it be (temporarily) defacing a monument, offending a country and/or political movement or uttering something that wasn't considered politically correct. Some standouts include:
  • The first US Special got quite bit of controversy when Clarkson tied a cow to his roof in the roadkill challenge. Even beyond that, the sheer amount of racist stereotypes and jokes that the show used to depict Florida as a Crapsack World actually got the programme's US work visa revoked. And even among the fanbase of the show, all anyone remembers is the irony-deficient Alabama rednecks who could not take a joke and whipped up a mob after the presenters that literally sent them running for the border. To add insult to injury, most Top Gear specials ended with the presenters saying that many of the host country's stereotypes were exaggerated and that it's a beautiful place that everyone should come visit. The US Special by contrast, all but confirmed the stereotypes of American crassness and ended by saying "Don't go to America!" With all that taken into account, it's hardly a surprise that the special wasn't well received stateside.
  • In Series 16, the presenters took merciless jabs at the Mastretta MXT sports car and Mexico as a whole, even up to the Mexican ambassador to Great Britain. The BBC had to issue many apologies and even some of the show's biggest supporters felt that Top Gear had crossed a line. Mastretta though thanked them for the publicity.
  • The India Special was widely panned by the country in question who accused the show of overindulging in Toilet Humour in representing them.
  • In 1982, Great Britain and Argentina fought the ten-week Falklands War which ended in a quick victory for Britain. When the show went to South America, Jeremy had a Porsche who bore the plate "H982 FKL" which many Argentinians took a deliberate reference to the conflict and led to the production being chased out of the country. In truth, it was just one of the many random plates that Porsche stamped.
• The series Ethics in America, in particular the episode "Under Orders, Under Fire Part II", was well-remembered for the Mike Wallace and Peter Jennings portion which had them infamously imply that journalistic integrity and being a reporter required them to film the deaths of fellow Americans if they happened to be caught in an ambush by the North Kosanese if embedded in a unit, as well as the military (and Newt Gingrich) calling them out on it.
  • On that note, the documentary Vietnam: A Television Series was particularly infamous for it promising to tell the truth about the Vietnam War and fix the historical record, only to blatantly do the exact opposite of what it promised. This led to a lawsuit against PBS, the guys who aired the documentary that they lost and ended up having to make Television's Vietnam: The Real Story with cooperation from Accuracy in Media (which aired only once).
• The Path to 9/11 was remembered largely for the media circus that forced it to delay broadcast airing until it cut out a few minutes of film that explicitly condemned Bill Clinton for his role in 9/11 happening, as well as never being given a DVD release despite being promised one, nor even selling the rights to another company despite LionsGate offering to buy the rights, for reasons suspected by both various Conservatives as well as the creator of the documentary series (himself no conservative) to be due to Bob Iger trying to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency in 2008.
• The 2021 continuation of iCarly. There were some fans of the original who genuinely didn't like the continuation for various "They Changed It, Now It Sucks" reasons but discussion will inevitably be swallowed by the fact that Jennette McCurdy (Sam) chose not to return and the Vocal Minority of Seddie (Sam/Freddie) shippers saying that the continuation could never be as good without Sam. All YouTube clips of the new show have at least one comment reminding everyone that Sam is missing and how funnier she'd be making everything.
• Among the numerous plot and lore changes in the 2022 Halo TV series, one key aspect that often comes up in discussions is the frequent unmasking of John-117, also known as Master Chief. Throughout the two seasons, he often removes his helmet, which contradicts the original source material's intention of portraying him as a faceless character.

Music

• The Sex Pistols are mostly known for trying to play "God Save The Queen" from a barge during the Queen's Jubilee after being prohibited from playing the song on land. Much of the bad press was intentional.
• Michael Jackson's child molesting accusations. For a while, his death seemed to wash over that, but the documentary Leaving Neverland brought the controversy back in full force, to the point that his songs no longer get featured on movies and/or YouTube videos, and several AMVs of his songs are now deleted. 
• By the time the scandal has been revealed, and despite what the agency said otherwise, it's usually impossible to bring up Runa Narumi, aka the first voice actor for Yuika Mitsumine (a character from The Idolmaster: Shiny Colors), for her actions of cheating a man while being a "4 times Champion" to other guys. Even a video of her song covers has been flooded with trollish comments.

New Media

• Evony, a browser-based, allegedly free strategy game, is more known for its infamous advertising campaign and false promises of boobs than for anything else. On top of that, the publishers have been accused of plagiarism, spamming and distributing spyware, and they tried to sue a British blogger for libel for pointing it out (which backfired).
• Channel Awesome has become infamous in the mid-to-late 2010s for several controversies, most infamously the "Not So Awesome" controversy of March 2018.
  • CEO Mike Michaud is now mainly known for reports that he displayed abusive and misogynistic behavior, particularly aggressive reactions to female producers making money for themselves.
  • The Nostalgia Critic, being the face of the site, has suffered from this a few times.
    • The Sailor Moon review is remembered mostly from the backlash it received from fans of the series for several jokes that were viewed as sexist, using the heavily edited DiC/Cloverway dub instead of the original, original uncut Japanese version, and the joke that implied it was created by and/or for perverts when it was actually created by a woman for girls between the ages of 11 and 18, than for any of its actual merits. Doug would, in response to the controversy, swear off anime reviews outside of crossovers.
    • His fourth commercial special is mainly remembered for two things. The first was his reaction to the Canadian Rape PSA. Critic criticized it for starting off a "1 in 2 women are raped in Canada" PSA with a birthday scene, but a lot of people mistook it as not liking the message. The other was the sexual harassment Running Gag, in which he openly stated that men don't suffer from harassment because they can't tell who's interested in them or not.
    • His review of Jurassic World is mainly remembered for the fact that it came out while the movie was still in theaters, with the footage that Doug obviously couldn't get being replaced by reenactments. This was not only seen as distracting by some, but many thought it was a betrayal of his statement in The Review Must Go On that he wouldn't review movies while they were still in theatres. The Critic did nothing to help by mocking the backlash in his TRMGO review, saying that he already broke a promise when he brought back the show.
    • His TMNT review is mostly remembered for the joke he made about Splinter's voice sounding like he smoked a lot of Marlboros... unaware that his voice actor in that film, Mako Iwamatsu, died of lung cancer before it was finished. This earned the video a ton of negative comments, though Critic apologized for it in his Red Sonja review, making it clear that he had no idea who Mako even was at the time.
    • Doug Walker himself got caught up in controversy in late March 2018 when Not So Awesome came to light, particularly his preferential treatment, production of the Anniversary Specials, and being a part of the Skype call that got Pregler removed. In Doug's partial defense, he did try to apologize, but has remained silent about other aspects.
  • Justin "JewWario" Carmichael once one of the most celebrated members on the site, is now remembered solely for two reasons: his suicide a year after leaving, and the numerous sexual abuse allegations that started coming out in 2018.
  • Marz Gurl is probably remembered for two things, producing Farewell FamiKamen Rider, a tribute to JewWario that quickly became tasteless when the sexual abuse accusations came out, resulting in her adding a disclaimer to the start, and being one of the figure heads of #KickVic, a controversial movement regarding sexual harassment allegations towards Anime voice actor Vic Mignogna.
• Satellite City had to work hard to shake off collaborating with Doug on the infamous The Wall review. Many who didn't know who Satellite City was assumed the worst just by watching the review, and longtime Satellite City fans had to constantly reassure casual viewers that no, The Wall isn't a proper depiction of Satellite City's quality. 
• The reveal of Freddery McMahon's (the creator of the Transformers: Geewun Redone) behavior regarding his bullying to other people. Even Thew Adams, a former member of the Abridged Series' production, tweeted his disgust towards McMahon.
• The collection of YouTube channels known as "The Fandom Menace", such as Geeks + Gamers, The Critical Drinker, Nerdrotic, WorldClassBullshitters, The Quartering. These channels claim to review pop culture through an apolitical lens but they're better known for promoting racist and misogynistic ideology along with pushing right-wing extremism. Content wise, they feature very little other than "They Changed It, Now It Sucks" reviews of new media, complaints about powerful women, queer people and people of colour in that media (both among the characters and the production team) and exaggerating about "Political Correctness Gone Mad". Not helped by the fact that they clearly cherry-pick various aspects of the media to appeal to the Angry White Man mindset, being willfully blind to those elements of it that would disprove their arguments. Reddit discussions about the channels are largely about how toxic they are and how they overshadow more measured discussion about media while promoting hatred. Two of them, Geeks + Gamers and Nerdrotic, were infamous enough that they were, respectively, called out by the DC Extended Universe's Zack Snyder and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Simu Liu for their spreading of toxic hate.

Professional Wrestling

• Chris Benoit was widely remember as one of the decorated wrestlers in the mid-2000s. The aftermath of his infamous Pater Familicide in 2007 makes it hard to talk positive of the man, let alone his accomplishments. So much so that WWE immediately Unpersoned him when the details of the tragedy came to light one day after WWE paid tribute to his career.

Real Life

• Genaud, SA de CV / New Art Dub (originally known as Grabaciones & Doblajes, SA until 2004, Grabaciones y Doblajes Internacionales, SA de CV until 2007, and colloquially known as Estrellita) is one of the most prolific dubbing studios in Mexico, was the first profession Mexican recording studio used by Disney for their Spanish dubs and continued to work with them until 1999. In addition, the studio was founded by Edmundo Santos, considered one of the pioneers of the industry and a prolific Disney collaborator in his own right. It has become far more famous for its attempts to hire non-union voice actors, the conflict with ANDA that resulted from it, and the mass recasts on the current projects (most infamously, The Simpsons) that followed that.
• Businessman turned forty-fifth President of the United States Donald Trump is known less for any accomplishment he might have done and more for his reputation as a bigot if not an outright Neo-Nazi (accusations that were only fuelled by his legitimate support from members of the Alt-Right), his normalizing of such behaviours and language in politics, his open support for autocrats and dictators, along with countless accusations of corruption and sexual harassment and his rallying a crowd of his supporters into a violent mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th 2021 as part of a coup to stay in power. It's gotten to the point that only one of the candidates for either Senate seats or governor races that Trump endorsed for 2022 midterms won their race; the vast majority of centrists turned off by his name, investors began backing out if they saw his name attached to the project and some celebrities who endorsed him; like James Woods, Rosanne Barr, Kirstie Alley and Antonio Sabàto Jr.; were quietly blacklisted from Hollywood.
• Pete Sinclair, the former Fun Publications editor who supervised BotCon‍'‍s (a convention for the Transformers franchise) for 12 years since 2005, is currently notorious (even to the other alumnis such as David Willis, and former Fun Pub member Greg Sepelak) for his homophobia, bigotry, and his anti-vaccination statements.
• Reino Barack, the creator of the Satria Garuda series, has been labeled as a "simp" (A derogatory term that describes a male who overvalues a female to the point of putting her on top of a pedestal) in 2021 since the fans (primarily Indonesian) found out his marriage with Indonesian pop singer Syahrini in 2019, which also resulted on Satria Heroes Kai being permanently shelved, as if he's prioritizing his wife instead of continuing the show's production. However, given Syahrini's notoriety due to the number of controversies caused by her (which the Indonesian news department did not turn away to), the frequent mockery to Reino himself has become much more reasonable. In December 2021, a new controversy has been risen after the reveal of him doing NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) of his wife.
• Since 2020, many celebrities have found this status bestowed on them if they express anti-vaccination statements and support for COVID-19 misinformation:
  • In February 2022, Dwayne Johnson lost many of his fans due to his open support of Joe Rogan's misinformation on the pandemic, which he and Rogan viewed as freedom of speech, from The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. It was largely smoothed over only days afterwards when he withdrew his support after being informed on Joe Rogan's usage of racial slurs but the stigma does persist.
  • Evangeline Lilly garnered a lot of controversy in 2022 after she posted online about her taking part in a march against vaccine mandates and later urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to meet with the leaders of Canadian Trucker protest. Fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Simu Liu and David Dastmalchian have both called her out for this dangerous behaviour and many MCU fans called on Marvel to fire her and recast the Wasp.
• The 94th Academy Awards (2022) are known for nothing but the fact that Will Smith slapped host Chris Rock following the latter making a joke at the expense of the former's wife, a joke that Smith was initially laughing at. Smith was very notably not punished, on that night at least, and allowed to receive his award, much to the dismay of fellow hosts Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes and many other celebrities, like Mark Hamill, who condemned Smith's actions and the Academy's failure to punish him. The 94th Awards also celebrated CODA as a milestone for the deaf community in cinema and praised media that been largely, if not entirely, distributed through streaming instead of cinemas due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But all anyone can talk about is Will Smith slapping Chris Rock (A minor exception is the cartoon community, as they complained about the hosts' quote about how adults "endure" animation, but even THEY were largely drowned out).
• While she's known as the scriptwriter for AnoHana's tear-jerking scenes, Mari Okada is also infamous for her generally poor storytelling and execution to most of her contributed works (especially the mecha/science fiction genre, such as Aquarion Evol and Kiznaiver (which ironically comes close to being excellent)), compared to her actually good pieces such as Hanasaku Iroha and Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms.
• Though generally applied to the Hong Kong circles (and also to an extent, some of the Japanese and the Southeast Asian fandom); While Liyuu's performance as Keke Tang in Love Live! Superstar!! has been viewed as generally positive from the fanbase, the voice actress is also seemingly notorious for posting her celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2021, which also unsurprisingly soured some of the Asian fans' view to her.
• Austin St. John, who is known as Jason Lee Scott, aka the heroic Red Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, had his own career and reputation being eclipsed by his involvement to the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act, where he was indicted on federal fraud charges related to it.
• Top Gear and The Grand Tour presenter Jeremy Clarkson. His 20+ year career was marked by him offending just about every group under the sun. He knows this and happily embraces this fact. Controversy defines him so that a documentary was produced in 2023 detailing all the hot water that he's gotten into.
• Elon Musk was once seen as a kooky billionaire dedicated to helping humanity reach Mars. Around the late 2010s, he began to be seen more as a thin-skinned, ignorant buffoon who uses his wealth largely to bully the less fortunate and support regressive beliefs. This really amped up when he bought Twitter in 2022. Once a free service that had some token restrictions on hate speech, Musk's purchase saw a rise in hate speech and misinformation on Twitter (some of which he personally inflamed and supported) and he began hiding many of its features behind paywalls, causing mass departures from the platform, advertiser revenue to drop and even the platform's overall worth to drop (as little than a year after purchase, it's estimated Musk's policies caused it to drop by over half its value). And he renamed it as "X".
• Jamie Oliver, a British restaurateur and cookbook author known for his casual approach to cuisine and hosting his own cooking shows, has been likened to the "James Corden of the cooking world" due to his aggressive stance on food choices. Some audience members have criticized him for looking down on those with healthy diets and those who cannot afford high-end ingredients. As a result, his behavior has alienated many viewers and even some fellow chefs, including the late Anthony Bourdain, who has shown extreme disdain towards him.

“A sampler of England's hottest 'chefs' would include a mostly hairless young blond lad named Jamie Oliver, who is referred to as the Naked Chef. As best as I can comprehend, he's a really rich guy who pretends he scoots around on a Vespa, hangs out in some East End cold-water flat, and cooks green curry for his 'mates'. He's a TV chef, so few actually eat his food. I've never seen him naked. I believe the 'Naked' refers to his 'simple, straightforward, unadorned' food; though I gather that a great number of matronly housewives would like to believe otherwise. Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school.” —Anthony Bourdain

• While it's no surprise that Pacific Rim: Uprising had repeatedly getting the Fanon Discontinuity treatment, Steven S. DeKnight (the director) is also called out for his general behavior towards the audience and his poor reactions to the (understandable) criticism towards his film.
• Subaru Samuel Bartsch (known professionally as Subaru Kimura), a German-Japanese voice actor who is known for his role as Gouda "Gian" Takeshi in the 2005 Doraemon TV Anime, had his reputation generally eclipsed by his (international) detractors frequently bringing up an Instagram post of him mocking a traditional African lip plate, along with an image of him in blackface. Though he deleted the posts, Subaru has yet to comment about it, and he subsequently blocked those who had brought up the incident, further cementing his notoriety. To rub even more salt to the wound, Subaru also continues to be typecasted as English-speaking characters from recent Western Animations who were voiced by African-Americans themselves.
• Mike Pollock, a voice actor famously known for his role as the villainous Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik in most modern Sonic the Hedgehog media, had gained notoriety as a real-life villain since 2023 after fans discovered that he expressed transphobic views and identified as a Zionist, while referring to pro-Palestinian supporters as "collateral damage."

Events

• Power Morphicon, a biannual Tokusatsu convention held in California that focuses on the Power Rangers franchise and its source material, Super Sentai, has left an extremely bitter taste in its long-time fans since the early 2020s, as the convention also features multiple actors with an extremely controversial reputation in regards to their views, particularly Austin St. John (The original Red Ranger) and Andrew Gray (Super/Megaforce Red Ranger),

Sports

• The Russian Federation's place in the world of sports comes under fire due to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
  • Formula One: Russian F1 driver Nikita Mazepin of the Haas F1 Team, along with its sponsorship with Ukarali are removed from the Haas F1 Team as the potash fertilizer company has Nikita's father, Dimitry Mazepin being one of its key shareholders also has ties to President Vladimir Putin. Subsequently, the FIA gave the green light cancelling the 2022 Russian Grand Prix.
  • Nelson Piquet, another former Formula One driver, while he is at best known for being a three-time champion and ranked as the greatest of all time in the history of the sport, draws the ire of current generation of F1 drivers and fans alike for his disrespect towards fellow F1 legends Nigel Mansell (who he considers his Arch Enemy going so far as to call him an "uneducated blockhead") and Ayrton Senna, whom he outright calls him "gay" even after his death. The final straw that broke the camel's back was Piquet's racist comments during a podcast in 2021 while discussing an incident between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen (the latter of whom is the boyfriend of Piquet's daughter) at the 2021 British Grand Prix; and it was only a year later that this comment resurfaced, ultimately tarnishing his legacy.

Toys

• McFarlane Toys, an American toy company founded by comic book creator Todd McFarlane, is known for producing highly detailed collectible action figures and figurines based on characters from the DC Comics franchise. However, the founder has been criticized for his sexist comments regarding the potential market for female superhero figures.

Video Games

• Custer's Revenge was an unauthorized third-party game for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It gathered quite a bit of negative attention, particularly from feminist and Native American groups, as the objective involved raping an Indian woman. From the next generation of consoles onward, manufacturers require approval for games to be released on their machines.
• Daikatana, aside from its years spent in development hell, picked up controversy over its advertising campaign, which stated that "John Romero's about to make you his bitch." The game has mostly been forgotten aside from the aforementioned campaign and the negative press that brought Romero's development career down with it.
• The Manhunt series was best known for its premise of being about a convict being forced to take part in snuff films (the gameplay was mostly stealth based, with elements of Survival Horror). The first game was given mixed reviews, with some marking it down for the Gorn and others praising it for its atmosphere, the sequel received average reviews across the board and the series was mostly forgotten.
• The Postal series is well-known for being a common target for Moral Guardians to campaign against video game violence.
• Star Fox Adventures is mainly known for two things, starting out as an original IP called Dinosaur Planet before being reworked into a Star Fox title, and the fact that about half of the story got lost in the transition... including Krystal's story arc, resulting in one of the advertised main characters spending most of the game trapped in crystal.
• Night Trap was one of the video games that contributed to the creation of the ESRB ratings in the United States. An infamous bathroom scene which the game does call you out for when you fail to spare the girl in particular was what led to intense senate hearings with proponents of the ban saying it glorified violence toward women, while many of them admitted they hadn't played the game.
• Kazdam was a generally accomplished Robloxian as well as the former self-proclaimed "Myth King", a title which he used as the leader and founder of the RM Foundation, until his reputation went downhill after it was revealed that he made several myths himself and made them popular through his group, such as SubjectPyro, MartinCult, and Ulifer. The controversy got even worse when several people accused him of grooming 3 underage girls, abusing his girlfriend, manipulating and lying to his audience and friends, being homophobic and transphobic, and defending pedophilia, which were then confirmed by him. The fact that the controversy was so large that RM fell apart with admins abusing their powers, massive random demotions and promotions (done by a bot), the discord being nuked, and RM's games being raided and him creating a document trying to save his reputation only for it to get deleted by him under heavy fire thanks to the aforementioned document containing out of context screenshots, lying and manipulation didn't help at all.
• Happens a lot in the Friday Night Funkin' Mod Community.
• Dead or Alive 6 is pretty much remembered as the game that ended up toning down the fanservice as well as Shimbori claiming that women with big breasts were less human than those with small breasts, as well as the "Core Values" incident at EVO, and also the excessive micro-transactions and expensive DLC.
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is pretty much remembered for two things: 1. the fallout between Konami and Hideo Kojima, and 2., the infamous Truth ending which revealed that the Big Boss you were playing as was a body double the whole time.
• The Grand Theft Auto series, Grand Theft Auto V in particular, is known for many things but largely for its promotion of themes such as misogyny, torture, violence, murder and obviously grand theft auto. It got so bad that Target Australia pulled GTA V from its shelves. Not that Rockstar has ever been troubled by this.
• Jonochrome, formerly known as JonBro, is known for being the creator of the Riddle School series and his FNAF fan game series One Night at Flumpty's. On November 8, 2021, an anonymous user on Twitter accused Jon of grooming a 13 year old. The girl claimed that Jonochrome was simply a friend who had no malicious intent, who she simply started a relationship with when she turned 18. She also confirmed that he had apologized to her several times, had sought therapy because of the relationship and she also wishes for people to leave him alone. However, the messages and screenshots shared that had been confirmed by Jonochrome to have happened contained very manipulative and creepy behaviour, and that he had indeed discussed sexual intentions. In his response, Jonochrome claimed that his autism didn't allow him to understand what was wrong about dating a 13 year old, prompting backlash for how he tried to use it to justify his actions. Jonochrome has since left the internet and claims to be in therapy.
• Frank West of Dead Rising got hit with this pretty hard. Guy had a short-lived talk show hosting career coupled with a bombed photojournalism stint because the ruling body of the state smeared the edit pieces he'd established as psychobabble from a mentally scared individual suffering from PTSD whenever he'd bring up how it was the governments partnership with Phenotrans that caused the zombie epidemic in the first place. Its part of the reason why he needs to constantly look for new enticing scoops in order to put steak on the table.
• AmorAltra is an Indonesian gaming YouTuber and artist who rose in popularity with the Friday Night Funkin: Vs. Bob and Bosip mod, mainly due to his characters, Bob and Bosip. On December 25, 2021, it was revealed on both Twitter and Reddit that he had an NSFW alt and was making inappropriate art of minors.
• Even though the games had received generally positive feedback, Injustice: Gods Among Us and its sequel are known for popularizing the "Beware the Superman" trope among the audience in the 2010s. This portrayal has had a reputation-damaging effect on the franchise's superheroes, with a few exceptions such as Plastic Man and Green Arrow.

Web Comics

• Springtrap and Deliah was a Five Nights at Freddy's fan comic created by GraWolfQuinn on Deviantart in 2017. While Quinn ended up deleting the comic as well as her account in 2021 the comic was saved and preserved on other websites and is still readable. The plot was about Springtrap, the animatronic possessed by the franchise's main antagonist living together in the house of a young girl named Deliah and her father Nick after Deliah found Springtrap in the abandoned Fazbear Frights building. With Deliah forming a friendship with Springtrap. Throughout the comic Springtrap shows to have a very clingy relationship with Deliah as he is torn between letting her go and his desire to have her all to himself so he can have her as his daughter for all eternity. All the while with struggling with his murderous past as he is tormented by the spirits of the dead children he murdered. While some readers were already put off by Springtrap's relationship with Deliah the comic had its fair share of fans with some trying to continue the story as the comic's two alternative endings neither of them had proper conclusions or felt satisfactory. However in February of 2024 it was brought to the light by an ex friend of Quinn who released a document which showed during the times while working the comic Quinn had made several pieces of highly inappropriate fan art between the two titular characters and also taking part in inappropriate role plays of the two. It turns out one of the people in these role plays was only 14 at the time and the character Deliah is only 12 or 13! It soon became clear that Quinn's true intentions behind making the comic was it was a self insert story in disguse where she is Springtrap. Needless to say this caused a lot of people to turn away from the comic completely and lose all respect towards Quinn. Even those who still enjoy the comic and try to separate the story from Quinn's original intentions or change the story all together to remove any icky implications it is quite hard nowadays to talk about this comic without bringing this up.

Web Original

• Noracat was once a popular VTuber, on par with Kizuna AI and Kaguya Luna, until her reputation soured overnight when she accidentally turned on facecam during a now-deleted livestream.
• Reece Kendrick (better known online as MrReece254, OishiKawaiiFan2015, R. K. Studios, and BosherStudios254) is less known for his content and is more known for his arrogant and immature behavior, accusations of plagiarism, and a bunch of grievances and atrocities he committed.
• GameXplain is an American Youtube channel that focuses mainly around Nintendo video games, typically analyzing trailers, showing gameplay, and holding discussion videos. On January 2021, former members of the channel, Derrick, Ash and Steve revealed on their Good Vibes Gaming podcast that the real reason why they left GameXplain was due to poor employee treatment, crunch time and getting paid less than 1 dollar a month, Steve even mentioned that he has to crunch himself in 2 days in order to get his Final Fantasy VII Remake review out in time. It's also not helping that the GameXplain subreddit was made private and had the posts removed by a moderator, causing a lot of people to speculate that it was Andre Sergers (founder of the channel) who did it to silence criticism and erasing the truth. A few days later, on January 14th, Andre made a statement on his Twitter account, expressing his frustration with the calling out and that he wanted to wish his best to Ash, Derrick and Steve, but it received tons of dislikes from his fans and fellow content creators for being yet another generic, corporate apology, and chose not to bring up the shady treatment of his ex-employees. Though, the controversy has since died down.
• Jordan Frye, better known online as VenturianTale, is an American gaming YouTuber who is best known for playing with his siblings to form a gaming crew. Jordan, and by extension his siblings, played a wide variety of games, including but not limited to Fallout 3, Minecraft, Gmod, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas. The channel is directed mainly for kids and is one of only a few channels that does not contain swearing. On June 19, 2021, Bethany uploaded a 55-minute long video to her Flying Pings channel titled "The Truth About VenturianTale". In it, she details her experience of growing up in an excessively conservative Christian household. She explained how women were often viewed as lower than men, how even the supporting of LGBT+ was forbidden, and that they weren't allowed to have friends as kids, thus relying on only their siblings. She also explained how if they even questioned these ideologies, they would be "disowned" in a way, and they would be forced to cut all ties with said person. She said that Cierra was the first to question these ideologies, and therefore was the first to stop playing with the Venturian crew and had contact cut from her own siblings. Bethany then expressed these same feelings later on, and she herself had contact cut from her, and therefore stopped appearing in Venturian's videos as well. Isaac had also become more scarce in Venturian's uploads, however this was unrelated to any religious thing, and he still appeared in some videos. Jordan had continued to upload videos on a regular basis up until Bethany released her video. He turned off comments on all of his videos, and on June 23, 2021, he uploaded a 29-second long video titled "..." that not only had comments disabled, but the like ratio as well. The video, which has since been deleted, consisted of only white text on a black background that said that what Bethany said was true, and that there won't be a full response video because he didn't want to talk about her personal life online. He also announced that he was going to be taking an indefinite hiatus from content, and that his Patreon had been closed.
• SpiralRose, formerly DiamondzAreCool, was a Malaysian YouTuber known for her Battle for Dream Island and Friday Night Funkin videos. In May 2021, she was accused for threatening to dox her significant other at the time, FlaminghornZ, as well as sending inappropriate messages on their Discord account, banning members from their server, and sending death threats to their friends. Many people became outraged at what SpiralRose had done and created videos on the situation. SpiralRose temporary deleted her YouTube account on June 22, 2021, which was restored a day later, and she contacted FlaminghornZ's dad, which caused Flame to be grounded.
• Happens a lot in the DeviantArt Heroes community.
• Garnt Maneetapho, also known as Gigguk, is famous for his comedic rants and reviews on anime and otaku culture. However, among international mecha fans, he is often remembered for negatively impacting interest in the mecha genre in the West with his "The Fall of Mecha" video."

Western Animation

• Song of the South is mostly remembered for accusations of excessively romanticising the life of an ex-slave in the South. It got so bad by the mid-2000s that Disney has since tried very hard to hide the fact that the film exists, although clips still occasionally pop up on video-sharing websites like YouTube. Splash Mountain, which was based on the film's animated Br'er Rabbit sequences, was eventually decided to be changed to The Princess and the Frog, alongside other efforts to tone down rides such as Snow White's Scary Adventures and the Jungle Cruise.
• Ren and Stimpy has long been overshadowed by the behavior and viewpoints of creator John Kricfalusi, most infamously accusations that he mistreated his writing staff and used his position to force minors to have sex with him.
• Coonskin, Ralph Bakshi's satirical Blaxploitation reimagining of the Uncle Remus tales. The Rev. Al Sharpton famously criticized the film without even seeing it, saying, "I don't got to see shit; I can smell shit!". Since then, audiences have come to praise it as the exact opposite of racist.
• PAW Patrol suffered from this during Summer 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter resurgence. Many people started criticizing the show simply because of the show's police pup, Chase, being portrayed positively. This led to Chase's Ultimate Rescue episodes temporarily being pulled, and the Nick Jr. website changing an icon of Chase (used to represent PAW Patrol) to an icon of Marshall, the fire pup.
• Family Guy:
  • "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)" was a milestone in Brian and Jillian's relationship. It's remembered mainly for that infamous sequence where Quagmire rapes Marge Simpson, Victim Falls For Rapist and then Quagmire kills the Simpsons after Homer finds the two together.
  • Downplayed for "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven". There's still some Just Here for Godzilla feelings, thanks to Stewie hanging out with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it's largely known for its A-plot which many saw as yet another Anvilicious attack on religion. The episode revisiting Brian's Belief Makes You Stupid mindset was bad enough on its own but it also featured Meg converting to Christianity, finally becoming happy as a result, before Brian shattered her faith on the basis that the Crapsack World they lived in, along with Meg's own Butt Monkey/Cosmic Plaything status, meant that God, as the Bible described him, couldn't exist. As you can imagine, Christians viewers were not amused, and neither were a good chunk of the general fanbase or other atheists.
  • "Quagmire's Dad" is probably known for its treatment of the titular character, Ida, which was widely condemned as transphobic even when it aired.
  • The Season 21 finale "From Russia with Love"/"Adult Eduction". Its portrayal of Russia was deemed deliberately offensive and inaccurate to the point of Russian officials calling for the show to be banned in the country. It was likely only inflamed by the fact that this Take That at Russia (nothing too different from the show's previous digs at Russia), aired during Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and featured Ukraine-born Mila Kunis (Meg) delivering most of the middle fingers.
• After the Szechuan Sauce joke in the Season 3 opener led to McDonald's doing a very limited tie-in promotion, some fans of Rick and Morty were outraged by the low availability and went so far as to harass the restaurant staff. It led to a stigma of Rick and Morty having a hugely toxic fanbase.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender was very well received for most of its running life. Then Seasons 7 and 8 happened, having an increase in the show's perceived Bury Your Gays reputation, Shiro suddenly marrying Curtis in the finale to try and shake off this stigma, and Princess Allura performing a Heroic Sacrifice in the Grand Finale. Word of God eventually confirmed that Allura hadn't been Killed Off for Real but this did little to stem the fan outrage or the many attacks on the cast and crew, which included sending death threats, because the Fan-Preferred Couples hadn't been made canon. The show's post-airing reputation is largely defined by this toxic fan behavior which grew large enough to warrant a mention on the show's Wikipedia page.
• As hard as it may seem to believe following shows like Family Guy and South Park, The Simpsons was once defined by the fact that it was controversial and ruffled so many feathers thanks to Bart and Homer's Anti Role Model tendencies.
  • "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", aired just four years before 9/11, has a moment set in the Twin Towers where a background character utters the infamous line of "They stick all the jerks in tower one!". As a result, that line is cut out or the episode is simply pulled from re-runs altogether.
  • "The Principal and the Pauper", the infamous episode where Seymour Skinner is revealed to be an impostor named "Armin Tamzarian", is not only hated for its nonsensical and continuity breaking plot, but for the infamous case of Creator Backlash, Matt Groening outright calling it "a mistake" on the DVD commentary. It's also infamously known as the point where everyone regards the golden age of The Simpsons to have ended. Discussions about it mainly amount to calling out what a stupid idea it was.
  • "Homer vs. Dignity" is known for absolutely nothing but the infamous implication that a Panda raped Homer.
  • Many episodes where the family leaves America can generate controversy due to racial stereotypes being used to portray the other countries. "Bart vs. Australia" for example was condemned by the Aussies for being a deliberately inaccurate and spiteful depiction of them while "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" is outright Banned in Japan due to Homer tossing their emperor into used Sumo thongs. None generated quite so much controversy as "Blame It on Lisa" for portraying Rio de Janeiro as a hedonistic crime-filled slum of a city, exaggerating several stereotypes about Brazil and even incorporating the culture of neighbouring countries to paint an inaccurate picture of the city. It was so bad that a Rio tourism board actually planned to sue Fox for defamation, only standing down due to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protecting parodies.
  • Following The Problem with Apu, Apu himself as many Southern Asians decried him as an inaccurate portrayal of their culture who was also voiced by a white man. It didn't help that Matt Groening was initially very defensive about the criticism but the issue was eventually smoothed over when Hank Azaria offered his apologies and stepped down from the role.
• The Transformers:
  • "B.O.T." is one of the highest contenders for the most reviled episode in all of Transformers. It is full of continuity errors, it is full of animation errors, two out of the three human guest stars are Designated Heroes who have no regard for anyone but themselves and it's probably the best example of how being Merchandise-Driven could force the show to churn out Idiot Plots to promote new toys.
  • "Thief in the Night" in is remembered for nothing but its horrendously offensive demonization of Arab culture. It was so bad that voice actor Casey Kasem, himself of Lebanese descent, left the show out of disgust.
  • Though hardly as reviled or offensive as the previous two, the reputation of "Carnage in C-Minor" suffers quite a bit due to a truly staggering amount of animation errors; widely out of scale shots, character models copied right next to each other, frequently miscoloured character models, the wrong voices coming of mouths, etc. Its saving grace is that, unlike the other two, it does have a solid story to tell.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil. The show's very divisive Grand Finale, preceded by a rather bad Seasonal Rot, led to such a massive fan argument, namely about whether or not Star was a Designated Hero, which resulted in all that negativity being all that much of the internet knows about Star as a show.
• SpongeBob SquarePants has run into this a few times.
  • The episode "Mid-Life Crustacean" was yanked shortly after Stephen Hillenberg's death due to its climax and falling action revolving around a panty raid, which the powers that be argued was inappropriate material for a children's show; and many fans of the series were not happy, accusing Nickelodeon of perpetuating cancel culture by pulling the episode.
  • "One Coarse Meal", "A Pal For Gary", "Pet Sitter Pat", "Demolition Doofus", and "Are You Happy Now" have their reception mostly defined by their needlessly dark themes and poor writing to go with them, rather than anything about the actual episodes. This goes doubly so for their sister episodes, overshadowed by the more controversial airing partners.
• South Park:
  • While South Park famously satirizes all sides of every argument, as the series has progressed its critics argue that it has become less "Both Sides Have a Point" and more of a vehicle for the Golden Mean Fallacy, arguing that the show gives rise to bad faith arguments and is doing more harm than good to the conversation.
  • "Cartoon Wars". If you asked Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the two-parter is an examination of the limits (often hypocritical limits) that a society can place on artistic expression with some moments of Self-Deprecation thrown in. If you ask literally anyone else, the two-parter is a Shallow Parody of Family Guy and nothing more than an overblown temper tantrum because Trey and Matt don't like Family Guy. The fact that the episode is often cited by South Park fans to justify their hatred of Family Guy, and by Family Guy fans to justify their hatred of South Park, only fans the flames.
• Adi Shankar's "Bootleg Multiverse," a series of animated shows based on video games like Castlevania and Devil May Cry, received positive reviews from critics. However, it also garnered notoriety from fans of the original source material due to certain creative choices that permanently left a sour taste for the audience.
• Anyone who intends to discuss about Mighty Magiswords will also likely involve with the topic of Kyle A. Carrozza, the show's creator, for his two counts of child pornography possession.