"It's like that friend who's the asshole. He's our asshole."
— Nick Webber, Hot Tub Time Machine
In a group of otherwise good friends, there's one character who's an unrepentant Jerkass to everyone else. Or, if they aren't downright mean or cruel, they may be so stupid, annoying, or just plain weird that it's embarrassing to be seen with them. In any case, asking a member of the group "Why are you even friends with him?" is a perfectly legitimate question. It can usually be answered with one or more of the following explanations:
- Seniority — The group members have known this person for a long time. They might have even genuinely liked them at one point, but years of maturity and development (either by the disliked friend or by the others) resulted in this member no longer fitting in. Despite this, they continue to hang out with this person out of obligation, loyalty or familiarity.
- Proximity — They're neighbors, classmates, family members, coworkers, landlords, spouses/partners or some combination of the above and the group simply can't be rid of them. So they have no choice but to tolerate the nuisance to the best of their abilities in order to maintain peace.
- Necessity — They're worth keeping around because they're useful. Oftentimes, they possess skills or resources that no one else can provide or have qualities that hold everyone together in times of crisis. (Examples include the Bunny-Ears Lawyer, the Indispensable Scoundrel, The Team Benefactor, the Cloudcuckoolander's Minder, the Team Mom/Team Dad, or the Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass).
- Control — Someone with power over the group (parents, teachers, bosses, etc.) is forcing them to include this person, who is likely a spouse/partner or relative to said higher power. The disliked friend could even be that authority figure themselves which may or may not overlap with:
- Fear — The last thing you want to do is piss this person off by telling them they can't join in; Best (and often) case scenario is the disliked friend has Hair-Trigger Temper who often bullies the group, worst case scenario is that they are Ax-Crazy and abuse the group on a regular basis. Similar to this is:
- Goodwill — In which the others will allow the disliked "friend" to tag along not necessarily because they're afraid of his or her wrath, but because they are too nice/passive to tell them to sod off.
- Pity — They're such a pathetic loser that the group just can't bring themselves to kick them to the curb. Alternatively, the group might keep them around because they are pathetic since hanging out with the loser makes everyone else feel better about themselves. At its darkest extreme, it can lead to:
- Abuse — The group wants to keep this person around because they see them as a punching bag. Commonly, the group would have to be utter Jerkasses or bullies who seek pleasure in pushing them around. Often on the receiving end of Post-Violence Warning. If the disliked friend gets fed up with the treatment and leaves the group, expect them to get treated in the wrong for doing so. Because Status Quo Is God, the disliked friend will be back in the group by the end of the episode. And while the group may have a Heel Realization and apologize for their bad behavior, they will go right back to mistreating their "friend" in subsequent episodes. Too much abuse from the group can lead the disliked friend to develop a revenge arc and turn the tables, abusing the group (see Fear above)
- Audience Popularity — Sometimes, a jerkish Ensemble Dark Horse will start hanging around the group just to feature them more prominently.
- Supervision — The disliked character is too dangerous or irresponsible to be left to their own devices, subreasons include but are not limited to: The disliked friend is an exceptional case of Lethally Stupid or Too Dumb to Live, the disliked friend has a disability or is a pet and is unable to function, let alone survive if simply left to their own devices.
- Caring: Deep down, the group (or at least one member) really does care (or the disliked character cares about them), and the issues all boil down to difficult behaviour. Even the closest of friends fight with each other from time to time, but at the end of the day, they are still True Companions.
- Deserving: Even if they don't care, per se, the group does recognize the character has some redeeming qualities despite their faults, or else they've done something to earn a place in the group.
It's not even that their friends aren't aware of their behavior, either. They're perfectly aware that the person is a jerk, or a geek, or a ditz, and will frequently treat them as such based on their behavior. They still get included in the group nonetheless, with the group often defending them if any outsiders insult or mistreat them. Once in awhile, they may even be on the receiving end of Complimenting the Oddball.
In some cases, it's discovered that the group really does care about this friend and vice versa. In other words, "They may be a pain in the butt, but they're our pain in the butt." Often uttered right before such lines as "You mess with them, you mess with all of us!" or "We're not leaving anyone behind!" The character may have a breakout episode that explains the reason for their attitude or reveals a human side that never showed before (such as a cute hobby or a Hidden Heart of Gold).
More tragic examples may lead to the disliked character Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, and their former "friends" bitterly regretting that they tolerated someone so obviously malicious for so long. Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal can be at play if the friend gets fed up with the way they treat him, or Rejection Projection if he was the problem all along. They may be the subject of Speaking Up for Another.
This is Truth in Television. Chances are you have a "friend" like this (or multiple friends), or you may even be that "friend" yourself.
Compare Vitriolic Best Buds, The Troublemaker, and With Friends Like These..., where this kind of attitude is usually limited to one or two select members of the group as opposed to being the opinion of the group as a whole (though the latter trope can compliment this one if one friend is actively disrespected enough by the others).
This trope may overlap with Loser Friend Puzzles Outsiders, as well as "May Be X, But Our X" Remark. However, in this trope the whole social circle hates the "loser" rather than an outsider to the group, and the person may actually have some cause for being disliked. In the other, the person is usually presented as being an innocent victim of prejudice, whether it's related to social Darwinism, jocks vs geeks, Slobs vs. Snobs, or racism, fantastic or otherwise.
If The Friend Nobody Likes is a protagonist or otherwise portrayed sympathetically, he may instead become The Woobie. The Friend may also be The Gadfly if they aren't an up-and-out jerk.
If someone is disliked to the point that people won't associate with them, All of the Other Reindeer is in play.
See also My Friends... and Zoidberg, The Complainer Is Always Wrong, No Accounting for Taste (when a romantic couple are similarly incompatible), and Token Evil Teammate. See The Friends Who Never Hang if it's just two people in a friends group who don't have much to do with each other.
Sub-pages:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Film
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Western Animation
Other Examples:
open/close all folders
Asian Animation
- Lost in the Moonlight: The protagonist, Ju-li is this to her fellow performance art classmates. While struggling to put on her juniper tree costume she tries calling for help, but nobody takes notice. She finally got the costume right... and realize she's alone in the changing booth.
Ju-li: Am I invisible to them?
Comic Strips
- Popeye:
- Wimpy is a lazy, cowardly mooch, who would sell anyone out for safety, money, or a couple of hamburgers. His oft-forgotten backstory is that he's the very well-educated son of a wealthy family who disowned him for his cocky laziness and unrelenting self-indulgence; he promptly doubled-down on this and devoted himself to proving that mooching one's way through life was not only possible, but the wisest way to live. As a result he is openly hated by most of the other characters, especially Geezil, who has gone so far as to try and kill him on a couple of occasions. The only ones who seem to like him are Popeye (and even he has his limits, like once paying off a cop to have Wimpy arrested because he wouldn't stop bothering him), and Olive (although she more than likely just tolerates him for Popeye's sake). A 2026 comic story has the whole town getting together and agreeing to ignore Wimpy's very existence until he stops being such a moocher. That being said, because of his intellect and quick thinking skills, he does prove to be useful on occasions.
- Ham Gravy, Olive Oyl's ex-boyfriend, had always had a somewhat contentious relationship with the rest of the Thimble Theatre cast, being a Jerkass Lazy Bum who was constantly getting them into trouble with his harebrained "get rich quick" schemes and chronically unfaithful to Olive — he was nakedly primarily interested in her due to her wealthy background, and repeatedly dumped her to try and woo richer girlfriends, only to come crawling back to her when he inevitably failed. This ultimately led to him vanishing from the comics in 1930, after Olive decisively broke up with him and got together officially with the more faithful and hardworking (and more popular with the readers) Popeye. In the 2020s, writer Randy Milholland brought him back as a minor recurring character, with a strong focus on how none of the cast can really stand Ham Gravy (who continually brings it upon himself). In one 2026 strip, Ham Gravy attempts to buy magical aid from Popeye's archenemy, the Sea Hag; the Sea Hag repeatedly insults Ham Gravy, at one point responding to Ham Gravy's admission he was hoping to give her his firstborn as payment for her help by declaring she wouldn't want to raise any child fathered by him.
Music
- Cheekface has two songs dealing with that guy:
- "You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East" is — taken literally — about a warhawking psycho dictator shooting down the narrator's ideas to instead shoot up the Middle East with bombs. Taken metaphorically, it's about a dude who just can't stop suggesting the same thing over and over again to the aggrievement of his friends, and the song implies it might actually be about the narrator himself, unable to think outside of the box or stand up for himself and dealing with a frustrating existence.
- "Friends" is about a friend who has no personality and a boring hobby that replaces it (to the point where the narrator suggests doing literally anything else), keeps ditching their plans (and other people) before things get good, and only has the most tenuous of connections to the protagonist. In fact, the song suggests they stop being "friends".
Myths & Religion
- Arthurian Legend: While knights' characterizations tend to vary wildly, most of the staple members at least get a chance to be presented as brave, courteous, strong, chivalrous as well of protectors of the weak and slayers of evil. Sir Kay is instead, with the exception of very early Welsh myths, shown to not be a very good fighter, jouster or at all chivalrous with multiple instances of him harming or insulting the weak and being knocked off his horse by one of the other knights because of it. The only knight who may have it worse in terms of mostly consistent bad portrayal is probably Sir Agravain, and even he is usually presented to at least be an okay fighter, and even Sir Mordred is also usually a competent fighter at least, is sometimes shown to at least appear charming, and can even come off as a Tragic Hero depending on the story; plus those two are almost always villains, Kay is just a jerk. Even in the earliest tales which show him favorably, there's scenes like Arthur roasting him so hard with a poem that he runs off in anger in Culhwch and Olwen and Guinevere all but gives him the medieval equivalent of "kys" in The Lady of The Fountain. He is almost always presented as King Arthur's foster brother and one of the first knights of the round table, so the reason everyone puts up with him appears to be seniority; and because for all of Sir Kay's faults, disloyalty is not one of them.
- Norse Mythology: Loki's insatiable need to play tricks and pull pranks on the other gods shown to be very tiresome and annoying to them. However all the other gods understand just how clever Loki is and have more than once used his wiles to get themselves out of bad predicaments. They put up with his more annoying aspects because they've seen what he can do to their enemies and they're just glad he's on their side, though even this sours when he and they learn he is prophesised to destroy them all in Ragnarok. It seems that Odin befriended him in his youth and they got on so well that he adopted him into his family as a brother, and the other Aesir got on with him initially but gradually his behaviour got too malicious for them. Eventually he crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he causes the death of Baldr (and then, in some interpretations, interferes with the plan to bring him back to life). After this, the other gods hunt him down and tie him up until prophetic events let him loose for the last time.
- Classical Mythology: The gods are largely a Big, Screwed-Up Family, but the one thing they all agree on is that they don't like Eris, the Goddess of Chaos and personification of disorder and discord. Notably, the gods once threw a grand party to celebrate a wedding and invited every divinity except Eris, who promptly decided to crash the feast. She claimed she wasn't offended at all and even offered a gift: a beautiful golden apple marked "To The Fairest." She then "accidentally" dropped the apple among Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, who promptly began fighting over which of them deserved it, and...well, ever hear of the Trojan War?
Podcasts
- Brimstone Valley Mall: Misroch fears they're this to the rest of the band, aware they're sort of a loser who is incredibly difficult to get along with. Asmoraius points out that it's not true; sure, Misroch annoys the crap out of them, but no one's forcing them to stick around. They're True Companions through-and-through, and while they won't hesitate to call them on their shit, they are still a dear friend to all of them.
- S-Town: Discussed in regards with John B's social life. John B claims that all his friends are dead. He is also something of an outsider, being a fiercely intelligent and educated man with an interest in some very obscure topics who lives in rural Alabama. He mostly hangs out with local ne'er-do-wells, but is significantly older than them, has a very different world view and has a tendency to go off on long-winded rambles on whatever catches his ire that day. The ne'er-do-wells, on the other hand, admire his skills with practical chemistry and metalwork and humor him in his intellectual musings, but think he is weird and kind of creepy. They are very quick to squash any idea that they don't like John, but are equally quick to point out that when it comes to socialising with him "a little goes a long way".
Professional Wrestling
- El Satánico Dr. No is one of the least popular luchadores of CMLL, among the other luchadores of CMLL. Los Sicarios del Ring Averno and Mephisto never fully recovered from the brainwashing he subjected them to but nonetheless it did not take long for them to turn on him and follow their own agenda. Rey Bucanero and Ultimo Guerrero kicked Satánico out of Los Nuevos Infernales, which he was largely responsible for the existence of.
- Holidead was this in World Wonder Ring STARDOM. Her debut match saw her own Tag Team partner and the opposing team, who were members of her own Power Stable, joining forces to kick her ass before Alex Lee realized she would be losing too. And Act Yasukawa's Bad Boss tendencies aside, Oedo~tai are otherwise True Companions most of the time. However, during outside STARDOM excursions Holidead would establish a friendship, if a somewhat vitriolic one, with Thunder Rosa, and they seemed to bond with La Rosa Negra when they took her on as a manager.
- Michael Cole was this for the announcer team during his heel run in WWE.
- Byron Saxton is this among announcers. Every broadcast partner he has, even the babyfaces such as Cole and Tom Phillips, makes jokes at his expense and not the light-hearted kind either.
- Corey Graves is often this as a heel colour commentator, due to his constant vindicative jabs at other commentators and creepy obsession with beautiful blonde heel wrestlers like Mandy Rose. He would often get into back-and-forth arguments with Byron Saxton (who isn't popular with the commentators himself as explained above) and/or Renee Young while Michael Cole tried to play peacemaker by calling the match, and Byron noted he was happy not to have to listen to him go on about Mandy at one point.
- Sam Roberts is often this to the other announcers/commentators during the pre-shows on WWE PPVs due to his Insufferable Genius attitude. That said they will acknowledge his Jerkass Has a Point moments.
- Despite not officially being a member, JD McDonagh is this to the members of Judgement Day (aside from Finn Balor and to a degree Dominik Mysterio). It doesn't help that JD has been responsible for Judgement Day's major losses (such as Finn and Damien Priest losing the tag titles to Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso).
Radio
- John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme: Two of them are among the perils faced by attendees of "The Terrible Leaving Do of 2017"; The new bloke no-one likes, and Barry, who never stops talking about his car. They, like everyone else, had only intended to show up for a while then duck out, but then it turned out not enough people had shown up to make this socially acceptable, leaving everyone trapped.
Roleplay
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Jacob is an uptight Commander Contrarian who frequently complains and drags his feet when it comes to getting involved with the main group. Still, he got superpowers like the rest of him, which binds him to them through better or worse.
- Finn is an unrepentant and arrogant jerkass, who nevertheless received superpowers and thus is invited to join the group. He does at least try to help stop events from spiraling out of control.
Stand-Up Comedy
- Named for one of Dane Cook's stand up routines. He finishes it by stating that if you don't know which one of your friends is this, then that's because you yourself are this trope.
- Gabriel Iglesias often tells stories of one of his oldest friends, Felipe, whose inability to know when to stop messing around is frequently the cause of whatever mess Gabriel ends up describing.
- Louis C.K. sets up a bit about Time Travel by mentioning a friend of his whom he hates talking to, but can't really avoid "because you can't break up with your friends."
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech features a collection of various "clans" that are a totalitarian to the extreme and practically everyone within them is a Proud Warrior Race Guy. They have a Might Makes Right mindset so deeply integrated into their culture that they are viewed as a totally incompatible to the point of being alien-like to the rest of the Inner Sphere humanity. However, even among the warmongering clans, one stands out for being so violent in particular, Clan Smoke Jaguar. They would constantly attack the other clans to fuel their own ambitions and restock on resources, which soured relations and denied alliances with the other clans, and too mighty to be attacked back themselves by the other clans. This ended up biting them in the ass as when they nuked Turtle Bay. This level of savagery had never been seen before by the Inner Sphere, and when they began to counter attack against the clans, the Inner Sphere singled out Clan Smoke Jaguar to Make an Example of Them in revenge. When the Inner Sphere came knocking with Operation BULLDOG, the rest of the clans simply stepped aside and basically let the Inner Sphere completely annihilate the Smoke Jaguars to the point of very near extinction.
- A very common occurrence in Fiasco because you are encouraged to play Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist characters, and the way the Relationship mechanic ties characters together in a circle. Even if two characters have a friendly relationship, one will usually have an unfriendly or power-unbalanced relationship with someone else, who will therefore end up getting pulled into the social group as soon as the chaos kicks off, and proceed to ruin everything. Of course, this is the aim of the game.
- Among the Pentacle in Mage: The Awakening, the Guardians of the Veil and the Free Council are the most disliked. The Guardians of the Veil are the Secret Police of mages, working to contain knowledge that's too dangerous and willing to go to great lengths to do so, while the Free Council are radicals who reject the Diamond Orders' fixation on Atlantis, belief in hierarchy and subtle disdain for Sleepers. Naturally, their vastly different belief systems lead to the two least popular orders not really getting along with each other, either.
- The Court of Mirrors in Princess: The Hopeful are this to the Radiant Courts. Unlike the other Twilight Courts the court of Mirrors are merely narcissistic and solipsistic. Thus they are the easiest Twilight Court from the Radiant Courts to work with, however it's clear that the Radiant find the Court of Mirrors to be very very annoying.
- The fluff of Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution gives us Mama Bear: A scary, jerkass, drug dealing, stoner with a bad temper, who is also letting the main characters stay at her safe house. Proximity, necessity, and fear keep them around.
- The heroes in Sentinels of the Multiverse mostly don't like Setback or Guise much, although Setback has at least one fan (his girlfriend, Expatriette). Both are kept around and allowed to team with other heroes because they're useful and Setback at least means well; they're unpopular because Setback has a bad luck curse that keeps screwing with him and everyone around him, and Guise keeps nicking their stuff, claiming to be them, and Breaking the Fourth Wall.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- In the backstory, most of the Traitor Primarchs got on poorly with their brethren. Magnus's cocky use of warp power meant he wasn't trusted; Lorgar's desperation for something to believe in meant he didn't have many friends among the militantly atheistic Imperials even before he embraced Chaos; Angron was a brutal berserker whose Legion slaughtered everything in its path; Konrad Curze was a sadistic maniac who led a similarly vicious Legion; Mortarion got along badly with any of his brothers who endorsed the use of psychic powers; Perturabo was always cold and distant from the rest of the family and had a fairly nasty reputation; and nobody ever really got to know the militantly secretive Alpharius, with only Fulgrim and Horus himself really being well-liked. Among the loyalists, Jaghatai Khan's insularity and remoteness, Russ's studied brutality, and Lion El'Jonson's politicking meant that they were not well-liked; in the early stages of the Heresy, the Khan and the Lion were the ones everyone considered to have a high risk of siding with Horus.
- A chapter with absolutely no warm will among others are the Marines Malevolent (who, despite the name, are actually loyalists). Notorious among Astartes chapters for their callous disregard for civilian life, and general asshole nature. Game Workshop themselves hate them
.
- The Minotaurs are a close second to the Marines Malevolent above in terms of "Space Marines nobody likes", being willing to let their allies die to make their job easier and steal gear from other Chapters. And to top if off, they're the High Lords of Terra's attack dogs.
- The Lamenters are hated due to being one of the Chapters from the "Cursed Founding" with everybody believing they're a bad omen despite being the closest thing Warhammer 40000 has in terms of "good guys".
- Even within Chaos's tendency towards Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, Fabius Bile gets a particularly impressive case. As the primary Mad Doctor of the bunch, he's done a lot of work to keep the Traitor Legions as functional as they are by converting aspirants into full-fledged Space Marines, and goes to great lengths to avoid favouring any one Legion over the others so as to not offend them. However, Abaddon is still furious at him from some past cloning incidents and has put most of his more innovative creations on a "shoot on sight" list, and several of the Legions have sent assassins after him at one point or another.
Theatre
- In Jekyll & Hyde, Sir Danvers Carew is the only person who can stand Simon Stride, a sexist jerk who works to bring Jekyll down at every opportunity. Simon gets invited to Jekyll and Emma's wedding, where Hyde kills him.
- Jersey Boys: Tommy DeVito falls under the "Necessity" category as nobody can stand his Jerkass attitude and illicit habits, but he's good at getting things done.
- Michele in The Saint of Bleecker Street is a bitter, resentful man, nearly a Hollywood Atheist in his cynical attitude towards religion. Nobody really trusts him, even before he murders his girlfriend Desideria, yet he still gets invited to sing at Carmela's wedding while Desideria does not. This may be because his beloved sister, Annina, is Carmela's best friend and was invited to the wedding.
- We Are the Tigers:
- It seems that the cheer squad only tolerates Farrah, disliking her for her abrasive personality and constant drinking. Even after her death, they still talk about how they dislike her.
Reese: Cairo hated Farrah.
Cairo: Farrah hated Farrah too! - Similarly, most of the team dislikes Cairo because of her Alpha Bitch tendencies.
- It seems that the cheer squad only tolerates Farrah, disliking her for her abrasive personality and constant drinking. Even after her death, they still talk about how they dislike her.
Visual Novels
- The Ace Attorney series has Larry Butz, a loser who blunders through life without a clue and develops a crush on every attractive woman he sees. Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth tolerate him because he's their childhood friend (seniority), plus he's not actually a bad person, just oblivious, unfortunate, and irresponsible (pity), and he really shouldn't be left to his own devices (supervision). Additionally, nearly every time he appears, he manages to provide a clue that helps crack the case...eventually.
- Artificial Nexus: While most of the development team in COEUS get along fairly well, nobody likes Kieran, to the point that even Nice Girl Linnea is frequently rude and blunt to him. At best, Sigurd tolerates him.
- Danganronpa has its own page.
- Highway Blossoms has Mariah Pastorius, leader of "the Trio," a group of rival treasure hunters who repeatedly end up running into Amber and Marina. While the two groups end up forming a friendship of sorts, virtually everyone besides Marina considers Mariah a nuisance, as a rude, hard-drinking and immature woman.. Mariah's case is a mixture of Seniority (she and Joe have known each other a long time, perhaps even longer than Tess has been alive), Supervision in Joe's case(since as he puts it, Mariah "needs someone to look after her") and Caring (because Mariah has a few moments in which she shows she really does care).
- Raging Loop: While Yasumizu is already a village of outcasts and exiles, some of the local denizens are clearly less 'in' with the local clique than others, which becomes a big social handicap for them when the village is forced into a Deadly Game of Werewolf. As an outsider, Fusaishi himself is immediately suspect by the local villagers (though in Yomi he is not a participant in the game and therefore safe from being lynched or killed by the wolves), Chiemi and Kiyonosuke are both seen as outsiders (and the latter is extremely prickly on top of it) and therefore often become dumping grounds for votes when there is no obvious scapegoat available, and The Old Man Who Cried Wolf is considered to be worthless (and Kanzo suspects he might have been a wolf in an earlier game) and therefore often targeted on general principle as well. Finally, Rikako, despite her ability to loop through time, is not good enough an actress to walk the line between being seen as too passive (and therefore not useful enough to keep alive by the villagers) or too active (which gets her murdered by wolves or lynched when she is a wolf). Consequently she's played the game for tens of thousands of tries and never survived to the end until Fusaishi gets involved in it.
- Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair has a few examples who aren't well-liked but still manage to get invited to the party.
- Kotoba Gaikoku, a notorious pervert who hits on both boys and girls. Even Taiko, his best friend, freely admits he's an idiot, and after it's revealed that Kotoba not only got manipulated into helping out with the murder plot, but had been stalking Momoko for some time, Taiko is unable to say anything in Kotoba's defense. In Taiko's case, Kotoba is an example of Seniority, since they've known each other for a long time, and Caring, since Taiko has seen times when Kotoba has proven to be a decent individual.
- Hiro Shiratake is an arrogant Jerkass who thinks most people are beneath him. The only people who seem to like him are Runa, whose crush on him blinds her to his faults, and Momoko, his girlfriend, the latter of whom ends up killing him for cheating on him. He's a Dating example, as well as a minor Control example, since the only reason Rie invited him and Momoko was because Runa asked her to.
- Mika Tamashii is a fairly obnoxious prankster who loves scaring people, having set out to scare 108 people so that her dad will buy her ice cream, and most characters are exasperated with her. She's the only character besides Hiro who doesn't have a best friend at the party; the other pairs are Raiko and Nobara, Runa and Rie, Momoko and Kamen, and Kotoba and Taiko. In the good ending, however, she manages to befriend Kamen, who'd previously written her off as not worth her time, by virtue of being there for Kamen when she's grieving for Momoko's death.
- GENBA no Kizuna
- Hiro ends up becoming a witness to the crime because Raptor Pack Productions invited him to their wrap party, but the only reason why they invited a Jerkass like him was because he was their Honorary True Companion Runa's boyfriend, making him a Dating example.
- Downplayed with Ryuunosuke Hazama, head of RPP. While nobody outright dislikes him, his increasingly temperamental and demanding nature leads to conflicts with the others, especially Terano Takamori, and even his childhood friend Shiku Jura describes him as a bit of a Spoiled Brat when asked about him. However, the other characters know about his tragic circumstances- losing his entire family at a young age and having CVID- so there's a mixture of Caring and Deserving, as well as Seniority in Shiku's case.
- Kurou Mikazuki, the victim of the case, is a Loan Shark whom Ryuunosuke contacts to get him to finance the project. He frequently shows up, often unannounced, making threats against Ryuunosuke and sexually harassing the female members of RPP. He's a case of Fear, as the members of RPP don't like him (in Terano's case, from the very beginning), but only pretend to be nice to him to prevent him from retaliating. When Shiku overhears him demanding that the group's mansion be torn down, she reflexively tackles him to stop him, causing him to try to strangle her to death and forcing her to kill him in self-defense.
- Slay the Princess: Your Voices have a definite pecking order. Ones that are either called out as the worst or greeted with general hostility that they may or may not actually notice include the Contrarian (for constantly being The Gadfly), the Broken (for angsting all the time), the Smitten (for being overdramatic and obsessive) and the Opportunist (for being a brown-nosing, weaselly little shit).
The Broken: We're screwed. Again. I'll see you all when we die.
The Contrarian: Really. I'm the worst one? Do you see how whiny and un-fun he is?
Web Animation
- Waru from 13 Cards comes to mind, as he is a Jerkass. The other clones are mostly irritated by him, or indifferent at best; even the normally stoic Kuromaku has been enraged to the point of beating him up, and Dante, who usually stays out of the other clones' shenanigans, has joined in on their attempts to get revenge on Waru for his antics.
- The Amazing Digital Circus
- Jax is a complete and absolute Jerkass who revels in watching his "friends" suffer, motivated by a cocktail of hedonism, comedic sociopathy, denial, and the need to Never Be Hurt Again, and so will Kick the Dog every chance he gets. The only reason anyone even tolerates him is because the Digital Circus is a small place and Caine pushes them into adventures together, so avoiding this smarmy rabbit is basically impossible. Word of God even confirmed on Twitter that nobody in the circus likes Jax, even if some of them (like Ragatha) do still pity him on some level. Later on in the series, Pomni proves to be the exception and develops an Odd Friendship with him, but she is still very aware that Jax is a deeply troubled and toxic person. Despite all of this, all of the members of the circus do care about him, with even Zooble, the one who seems to dislike him most of all, admitting this:
Pomni: We'll always be in this together. No matter what.Zooble (to Jax): Hey. That includes you too. Listen. We're not gonna have you wandering off alone somewhere and abstracting or something. You're a pain in the [boink], but you're still one of us.
- Ragatha, albeit in a different manner. The other players like her fine, but all of them can see through her forced positivity and optimism, which all of them sans Kinger find tiresome to deal with at best and utterly disingenuous at worst. As such, she has no one that she's particularly close with; the episodes "Untitled" and "They All Get Guns" highlight that Jax of all people is more successful at befriending Pomni than Ragatha is (And in fact, he's more successful at it than he's okay with). Kinger proves to be an exception with Ragatha due to her positivity helping him deal with his own self-hatred in the past.
- Jax is a complete and absolute Jerkass who revels in watching his "friends" suffer, motivated by a cocktail of hedonism, comedic sociopathy, denial, and the need to Never Be Hurt Again, and so will Kick the Dog every chance he gets. The only reason anyone even tolerates him is because the Digital Circus is a small place and Caine pushes them into adventures together, so avoiding this smarmy rabbit is basically impossible. Word of God even confirmed on Twitter that nobody in the circus likes Jax, even if some of them (like Ragatha) do still pity him on some level. Later on in the series, Pomni proves to be the exception and develops an Odd Friendship with him, but she is still very aware that Jax is a deeply troubled and toxic person. Despite all of this, all of the members of the circus do care about him, with even Zooble, the one who seems to dislike him most of all, admitting this:
- Bone from Animated Inanimate Battle is hated by the other contestants for an unknown reason. So much so, that they put a restraining order on him where he is only allowed to go at least twenty feet apart from everyone else. Oodle's the only guy who actually likes him.
- Apparently, Bone is absolutely okay with being pushed around and being shunned by almost everyone.
- The Annoying Orange: Grapefruit.
- Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse has Raquelle, who's often the Sixth Ranger and Token Evil Teammate of the main group of girls. They all realize that Raquelle is incredibly envious of Barbie and constantly trying to sabotage her, but begrudgingly put up with her in the interest of the whole gang. Barbie does genuinely like Raquelle because she's inhumanly kind, but even she occasionally slips in a few barbs at her.
- Raquelle's twin brother Ryan is also treated this way by the heroes; when he joins the main group for activities, he's either paired with Raquelle so they can hatch a Zany Scheme together or forced to partner with someone else whose ability to hide their dislike for him varies.
- Midge and Summer are downplayed examples of Proximity — they're both old friends of Barbie's, but their abrasive personalities (the former loves Incredibly Lame Fun and the latter is a complete Competition Freak) often chafe with Nikki and Teresa. Unlike Raquelle and Ryan, though, Midge and Summer are genuinely nice people with singular flaws as opposed to overall jerks with well-hidden positive traits.
- Bowser's Kingdom has Steve, a nerdy, none-too-bright Piranha Plant who keeps butting in on whatever Hal and Jeff are doing.
- Dreamscape: Nik for Jenna and Aseir. Although its more that Jenna and Aseir are abrasive themselves, rather than anything Nik is doing wrong. That being said, he does love provoking them.
- DSBT InsaniT: Dave is The Bully of the group, so naturally nobody is fond of him. The feeling is very much mutual, though.
- Girl-chan and Swirly Glasses in Girl-chan in Paradise. The two almost never appear alongside the other party members, but when they do they're almost never acknowledged except in disgust and annoyance. At least until Swirly Glasses turns out to be "Captain Taisho Bushido Blaster Buster #1".
- Helluva Boss: "Mastermind" shows that Mammon's fellow Sins aren't particularly fond of him, with Leviathan (half of her, at least) moving her seat after he gets uncomfortably close while both Asmodeus and Beelzebub feel disgusted by him and insult him when he acts like a Manchild.
- In the main Homestar Runner universe, Coach Z applies most of the time. Bubs and Homestar are the only ones who can tolerate him with in any consistency, and even they think he's a creepy, depressing, weird, disgusting loser to be avoided when possible — which he is, to be fair.
- The Most Popular Girls in School has Jonathan (Than) who is homophobic and in the closet. Nobody likes him until the later seasons, but he sticks around anyway.
- Puffin Forest: Abserd, the multiclass adventurer with only one level in every class in the game. He has an extremely nasally and annoying voice, which justifies why every group he ever joined (from wizard circles to thieves guilds) quickly dumped him at the earliest opportunity. Sure enough, the party get rid of him at the end of their mission by allowing an evil elf queen to take him hostage, in exchange for the person they came to rescue.
- Revenge Films: Cathy is disliked by the other moms owing to her bad behaviour at a cafe and she keeps inviting herself to eat with them. Cathy's rude behaviour got the other moms banned from the cafe so they had to find a new one and they decided to exclude her from going to the cafe with them.
- RWBY: While "friend" may be pushing it, Cinder Fall has few genuine allies among Salem's forces, even counting the people she brought into the fold. Tyrian and Watts both take delight in mocking her failure at Beacon and her scars, Hazel treats her with cold indifference, Neo can barely stand Cinder and is reduced to rolling her eyes behind Cinder's back, while Mercury openly hates her and thinks she's "a pain" while gladly talking down to her once he gets a Rank Up and is not under her command anymore. Emerald is the only person who likes her, and it's expressly pointed out that Emerald is a victim of abuse and gaslighting at Cinder's hands to make her feel this way (And she still pulls a Heel–Face Turn and leaves). Even Salem finds it hard to tolerate Cinder at times, and admits that while she knows Cinder survived the Battle of Haven, she won't let Cinder rejoin their ranks unless she can actually prove herself.
- Sgt Ducky: Tony is depicted as one as he gets the most negative portrayals in the videos.
- Tony cheated on his girlfriend, and then he got vomited on immediately afterwards. During the party, Ducky and his friends decided to help their new friend Dan have sex with Emma because he hadn't had sex in 2 years, and they felt bad for him. After failing the first time, Tony was asked to distract Emma while they prepped Dan for a second chance, but Tony started making out with her instead. While they were trying to cheer up Dan, Emma threw up on Tony while they were kissing, and it got in his mouth. From then on, that moment was seen as evidence why you should never break a pact with the lads.
- In The Head Casey, he overdosed on cocaine during a party and had to be taken to the hospital (where he then had to walk home for 7 hours after his recovery because his phone ran out of battery and he had no money for a taxi). Nobody felt too bad for him because Tony nearly got everyone arrested when the police came to the house to investigate the incident.
- Teen Girl Squad:
- What's Her Face in is explicitly called the "pity friend" and is the one the other three are most likely to ditch or relegate to the least-desired roles. Generally, this just makes the other girls look mean, especially Cheerleader. She's a deviation from the trope because there's nothing particularly wrong with her personality. She's actually the nicest (and arguably sanest) of the four. This is why the other three look mean when they interact with her; it's because they are.
What's Her Face: Can I not get stuck playing bass?
Other Girls: NO WAY! - For that matter, none of the other girls really seem to like The Ugly One either. Not to mention, the others are delighted whenever Cheerleader dies. In fact, none of them seem to like each other at all, although What's Her Face gets it the worst.
- What's Her Face in is explicitly called the "pity friend" and is the one the other three are most likely to ditch or relegate to the least-desired roles. Generally, this just makes the other girls look mean, especially Cheerleader. She's a deviation from the trope because there's nothing particularly wrong with her personality. She's actually the nicest (and arguably sanest) of the four. This is why the other three look mean when they interact with her; it's because they are.
- Trouble Busters: Minami was disliked by the other moms due to her bossy attitude and bad table manners. This led to them conspiring against her after Hikari found out that she was stealing fish from the restaurants that she forced Hikari to take her to.
Web Video
- American High Digital: Hyde in "Team Manager" is clearly disliked by the rest of the basketball theme for contributing pretty much nothing of value, but keeps the position anyways.
- Toonami Abridged: In Sailor Moon Abridged, it's Jadeite of the Four Heavenly Kings. He has the shortest screentime of the four, and when he dies, Beryl, Metallia and the remaining Kings all declare "Fuck Jadeite".
Web Original
- Anakin in Anakin Shrugged, since he keeps bringing up his extremely long and boring thesis and trying to get people to listen to him talk about it.
- Played for Laughs in The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Power Rangers video games. The episode has a parody of the show's opening theme, and introduces five nerds who combine to form the man himself: the Angry Nintendo Nerd, Atari Nerd, Sega Nerd, Playstation Nerd, and Tiger Electronic Wristwatch Game Nerd. The disgusted glare he gets from Nintendo Nerd and his own fading smile make it pretty clear the rest don't like him and he knows it.
- The crew in Binder of Shame is a group made entirely out of these people. Since they're the protagonist's only social contact, though, he actually goes into denial for a time and convinces himself that this is what friendship is (he gets better).
- Jonathan in Board With Life. Not only does he openly deny his geeky tendencies and his friends and is constantly late to the group's game nights, when he finally shows up, he's constantly on his phone, zoned out, or distracted in other ways. And when it's his turn to host the game night, he only wants to play one game, the only one he's good at: Risk. I mean, Risk: Lord Of The Rings.
- SuperMarioLogan: Cody is this because Junior and Joseph are often making fun of him.
- Bowser Junior is also this in "Stuck!" Joseph and Cody admit they don't really like him and just use him to watch TV.
- Maizono is this in Danganronpa Abridged Thing, most likely because she's a total weeaboo, with only Naegi and to a lesser extent Fujisaki tolerating her (enough that Alter Ego is hard-coded to use her weeaboo speak style).
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
- Yamcha isn't any more a Jerkass than most of the other characters and less a jackass than some, but everyone likes to belittle him because they see him as weak. On the other hand, Goku doesn't aim to belittle him as much and even quietly dissuades him from committing suicide in the future.
- Raditz and Guldo are treated pretty much the same on their respective teams, leading to the line "I don't know what this Yamcha is, but it sounds a lot like Raditz".
- Vegeta's status as this is lampshaded in Episode 38, after Future Trunks realizes just how much of a Jerkass his father is:
Trunks: How are these people friends with you!?
Tien: Makin' a lot of assumptions there.- This ends up getting deconstructed in Episode 5 of DragonShortZ, where Vegeta's desire for a fight goes unfulfilled because the only two people that could tolerate him long enough (and survive the experience) for one are dead (Goku) and in the future (Future Trunks), and everyone else that could give him a challenge flatly tells him no because they're busy living their own lives and/or hate him and refuse to fight him out of spite, complete with back to back The Reason You Suck Speeches from 18 and Gohan. This puts his actions in the Buu Saga, namely going Majin and forcing Goku to fight him, in a sadder light.
- In Escape the Night:
- Matt Haag AKA The Professor becomes increasingly disliked by everyone over the course of the show. Partially due to his arrogance, cowardice, pessimism and some poorly timed comments. Even his Only Friend Timothy seems to be getting fed up with him by episode 7.
- In Season 2, we have DeStorm, who was a massive pain in the ass to everyone, but especially Alex, who's girlfriend got killed because of him.
- An even bigger example is Teala from Season 3. She proved to be absolutely useless to the point were everyone cheered when she died.
- Fictosophy: "Jedi Coworker." Everyone's had it up to here with Tom's shenanigans. The only one who's okay with it is Shannon, who also happens to be the manager.
- Vitaly from Fight of the Living Dead, (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpg784McjKY) is despised by everyone due to being Insufferable Imbecile and Dirty Coward. Throughout the season, Vitaly only makes things worse for the team and is indirectly responsible for half of the teams deaths, causing some of them to jokingly call him more deadly than the zombies trying to kill them. His Never My Fault attitude also gets on his teammates nerves, and when he ends up getting attacked, his team wastes no time leaving him to die. One of them even says that Vitaly finally did something useful by being a distraction for the zombies so that the others can escape.
- Friendship is Witchcraft:
- Spike is near-universally loathed, especially by his friends. Twilight outright treats him like a slave, though he seems content enough.
- Twilight is a less obvious example but she isn't well-liked by her friends. She's a narcissist, has creepy Fangirl tendencies, and as the series goes on it becomes more obvious that she is a Villain Protagonist. Celestia in particular finds Twilight both annoying and unnerving.
- When the Game Grumps come together with their friends like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye to play some Among Us, Ross quickly becomes this owing to just how good he is at being an Imposter. It gets to the point that they often target him just for the hell of it during votes, even if he's done nothing suspicious that round, just to get rid of him and remove him from the equation on the off-chance he's the Imposter.
Arin: Hell yeah! We did it! We got rid of the menace! Whether or not he was actually the murderer!
- Bladezz in The Guild, at least in the first season:
Clara: He's like the retarded cousin of the Guild! The right thing to do is to let him play tag, even though he runs around hitting people.
- Amir in Jake and Amir. Although Jake often denies that they're friends, at other times he doesn't and there are multiple episodes that feature them doing something together (be it with more people or just the two of them), so they at least have something resembling friendship going on. All reasons except for dating and necessity apply to Amir in some way.
- In The Key of Awesome's parody of "Somebody That I Used to Know", Tony gets this through Necessity, since, while he's sold all their other instruments and at least one person's set of shoes to pay his drug debts, he's the only one able to drive the van. There's also a measure of Supervision:
"Hey, guys, where did Tony go? You all know that Tony can't be left alone."
- Madoka Magically Abridged Hitomi seems to be this to Madoka and Sayaka. As they brush off her suddenly disappearing from the episode in episode one. Not caring what happened to her.
- Discussed in "20 Reasons Why NOT to be 'In Da Club'" by Matthew Santoro. Matthew talks about that one friend who's a total downer and nobody likes, but who the group feels like they have to invite because they're part of the group. Matthew then says that people should just not invite that person anymore.
- In Monster Island Buddies, Gorosaurus was one of the original Monster Island Buddies, but Godzilla and company didn't care much for him and didn't even give a crap when he was kidnapped by Kong and taken to Skull Island. Even after he's back, the other characters still seem to dislike him, Rodan even says he scares the shit out of him. On the villain side, there's Gigan, who constantly tries his best to make friends, but is perceived by everyone else as annoying and stupid. Titanosaurus counts as well, due to his insane, psycho behavior.
- The Onion once had an article implying this about a man who was considered the "funny" guy in their group of friends, even to the point where he not only was totally insensitive to his friends' feelings and was more than willing to kick them while they were down, but unwilling to allow for any details from his life to ever come out, save for one that the friend telling the story had only heard about: that he was getting divorced for the second time.
- Pirates SMP: The Kite faction, being the Blood Knights and Proud Warrior Race Guys of the Faction Isles, are treated this way. Just about all the other factions look down on them, are wary of them, or otherwise dislike them — the discovery-avid Heron faction has a particularly strong dislike towards them for their "murderous bastard qualities" or otherwise "making murder their only personality trait" (both are direct quotes), whereas the wealth-hungry Kestrel faction mostly just look down on them for being poor; the Nightingale faction mostly gets along with everyone anyway and is therefore not counted. In spite of this, the other factions don't deny that the Kites are one of the four factions and have their strong suits in a fight, and some inter-faction friendships have been formed between Kites and non-Kites despite the apparent animosity.
- A blog titled Plausibly Deniable lists several possible reasons for the prevalence of this trope among social outcasts, mainly that they suffered from All of the Other Reindeer and don't want to put anyone else through that, even when the person is obviously toxic.
- RAZZLE: Played for Laughs whenever Ryan, Alan, Ben and Zach (jokingly) mock Jordan in any videos or streams featuring them.
Zach: And because [Gwen] and Ben weren't available, we are here with Jordan Raisman!
All: [flatly] Booooo…
Jordan: Great to be back!
Alan: Oh my god…
Ryan: Can we talk about anything but Jordan?
Alan: How long has it been since we've had Jordan?
Zach: Not long enough. - Resident Evil Abridged: None of Wesker's subordinates respect him, because he's a smug douchebag. Chris describes him as, "a jackal who's married to his sunglasses", Jill thinks he's condescending, and Barry's only working for him because he has to. In the end, even the Tyrant turns on him!
- Puddy in Tales of MU is this to Mack for as long as she's Mack's roommate.
- In Todd in the Shadows' review of From Justin to Kelly (crossed over with The Nostalgia Chick), he wonders why girls always have a "Token Evil Friend."
Kaya: Why are we friends with her, again?
Todd: That's a good question. That's an excellent question. - The Tumblr and Tickld name for this type of person is "Moon Moon", due to a post where someone got "Moon Moon" on a wolf-name generator and commented that she would be the wolf no one likes ("OH SHIT WHO BROUGHT FUCKING MOON MOON ALONG?").
- Ultra Fast Pony:
- Rainbow Dash, being an annoying, idiotic, crazy, Jerkass, with No Social Skills is on a good day tolerated by the rest of the cast, any other, they openly hate and abuse her.
- Twilight Sparkle is barley treated better than Rainbow, if at all by the rest of Equestria. But unlike Rainbow, while Twilight does have plenty of flaws (she can be Jerkass to the others, she's a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, she mistreats her son/slave Spike, and she has an egonote ) she's also the only one that regularly tries help and does occasionally save the day, making her mistreatment by the rest of Equestria seem comparably undeserved.
- Whateley Universe: Dr. Venus says this to Dr. Macabre as she gave him both barrels in her "The Reason You Suck" Speech. As a Mad Scientist, you know you've screwed the pooch when Professor Guinea Pig says you've gone too far.
- Both Insufferable Genius Jobe Wilkins and aspiring supervillain Nephandus are seen this way by the other Bad Seedsnote , though Jobe gets a bit of Character Development in this regard later.