Acceptable Hobby Targets

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    "Fucking gamers again, dude?! Can I just get one break without gamers trying to destroy the fabric of society?"
    "How many schools need to be shot up? How many women need to be raped because of video games? I'm sick of it."

    —Ethan Klein (tongue-in-cheek) on a "virtual rape news report", Girl sexually assaulted in GTA V -- h3h3 reaction video

    This is an index for the various stereotypes and Acceptable Targets that exist from their hobbies. See also Fan Hater and Even Nerds Have Standards.

    Examples of Acceptable Hobby Targets include:

    The devoted hobbyists

    Whether it's collecting something people generally try not to think about, spending a lot of time watching/reading/playing something that many would think would have stopped being entertaining days ago, or just peppering any and every bit of conversation with obscure references to their hobby, it's generally considered okay to think of people like this as obsessive freaks. Characters may temporarily become like this during a bout of Fleeting Passionate Hobbies.

    Real Life

    • Averted when it comes to Sports fanatics. They generally get a free pass when it comes to this. In fact, conversely, many people might regard you as being more than a little weird if you're not big on sports -- especially if you're a man. Of course, if you continue down this article, there are some exceptions to this rule.
      • Lampshaded in this online sketch that addresses the hypocrisy then makes fun of both fans for their fandom.
    • Otaku in Japan. Yep. Pretty much being scorned by media (and like in Densha Otoko). It doesn't help that most people in Japan liken otaku with people like Tsutomu Miyazaki...
    • Anyone who is very skilled at a particular video game is regarded as some sort of godly superhuman at best and a total loser with no life outside of that game at worst.
    • FanGirls. All fangirls are automatically hysterical, obsessive, semi-literate, 13-year-olds who will never get a boyfriend. No exceptions. Hey, it's the Internet, so anyone can claim to be a rational adult leading a normal life. A group of people have an interest in something you don't understand or think is dumb? "Well, they're just silly little fangirls. Of course they'd be into that."
    • The exception to this is women/gay men who are into fashion as a hobby.
    • This is also often considered a sign of autism, leading to a number of Unfortunate Implications.
    • Fanfic writers. Oh boy, fanfic writers. All fanfic writers are deranged psychos with no grasp of spelling, plot, or grammar who write everyone out of character and enjoy Pikachu having sex with Sailor Moon.
    • If you like anything that predominately features animal characters, then you are a furry. After all, All Men Are Perverts. How could it be possible for them to like something if it doesn't either help them get laid or give them something to jerk off to?
    • Cosplayers. We could go on for paragraphs about this, but to sum it up: If you do it well, and especially if you're female, you're pegged as an attention-seeking slut (even if the costume in question is hardly Stripperiffic). If you don't do it well or don't have the perfect figure for it, you're dismissed as a weeaboo and an eyesore who shouldn't even try.
    • Bronies. Good gravy, bronies. While most Periphery Demographics get some weird looks(an exception being something from their childhood), bronies are often regarded with a lot more scorn than any other. They are frequently referred to as "creepy manchildren with a near unhealthy obsession with a TV show aimed at little girls, who actively try to convert you into their perverted mindset, all the while being well above the normal age demographic for such a show." While most bronies tend to be good-natured fellows, this view puts them squarely in this territory. The fact that a Vocal Minority of bronies seem to be hell bent in making everyone watch the show, and dismiss anyone who doesn't like it as a Troll or Fan Hater doesn't help. It should be noted, though, that this is a very Vocal Minority, and most level-headed bronies tend to scorn off these, since they are the ones that give the Fandom a bad reputation. Case in point, My little brony, a site with at least 40% of their Image Macros dedicated to elevating the fandom as much as possible.
    • Speaking of Vocal Minorities, the Sonic the Hedgehog fan community is infamous for having one that will bitch and whine to no small extent about anything that makes the post-Adventure games different from the Genesis ones, because those were totally flawless.

    Web Comics

    Furries

    A group of people who enjoy art and literature about anthromorphic characters (werewolves, Bugs Bunny expys and the like)? No big deal. Popular internet humor/FanHater site Something Awful posting the worst dregs of freakish Fetish Fuel that they can find out of the entire subculture? BURN THEM. The fact that Something Awful is supposed to be a satire site is lost on 99% of the people perpetuating this meme.

    Real Life

    • Odd enough the main reason why people don't like furries isn't the Fetish Fuel; it's the really annoying members that cry out "Fursecution" when people make fun of them.
      • However, this has shades of Dead Horse Trope about it - the very term "Fursecution" is hard for anyone to take seriously these days, both by furs and non-furs, and it generally only gets bandied about by the kind of people on both sides who take it far, far too seriously. Fun drinking game! Go on Deviant ART, punch in "fursecution", and take a drink for every impassioned essay about how "the fur menace should be cleansed" or "this persecution needs to stop". It's like the debate between extremist ethnic minorities and far-right nationalists, only really, really silly. Strawmen, Windmills and Insane Troll Logic abounds on both sides.
        • And then there are the ones who target other furries for not being the right kind of furry...
    • Within the fandom, certain subsets are considered Acceptable Targets; and, recursively, there are even more specific subsets within these subsets that are considered Acceptable Targets to the less-specific subsets. It starts to resemble politics after a while.

    Live-Action TV

    • CSI, not to forget that one episode ("Fur and Loathing") that portrayed the entire Furry community as socially awkward individuals who can't seem to get off unless they're wearing a cheap animal costume and humping each other. Of course in fairness CSI is known for its habit of making everything overly sexualized and wrong.

    Web Original

    • To their credit, Something Awful considers this a Dead Horse Trope -- the fact that several of the most vocal people commenting on these posts were found (via comparing IP addresses) to also be on various art sites making furry requests kinda helped kill it, putting this subculture partly into the realm of Once-Acceptable Targets.
    • Most if not all of Encyclopedia Dramatica's targets on people with mental illness had the unfortunate case to be a Sonic the Hedgehog fan. Ironically, a casual browse through the ED forums turns up an awful lot of furry profile pictures.
    • This also even happens within the furry fandom itself. Everyone loves to attack different people with different fetishes and fursonae.

    Western Animation

    Nudists

    A group of people who like to be naked, depending on viewpoint either because being naked is fun, especially in a group (skinny dippers taken to the next level) or because it's a semi-religious view (that there's nothing shameful about the human body), with most nudists falling somewhere in-between. Often called Naturists in other countries, although some make a distinction -- Nudists like to be naked for fun, Naturists like to be naked because of a lifestyle or philosophical choice. Attracts a lot of new agers, and back in the day, a lot of hippies, so has gotten a reputation for being associated with new age philosophy. In addition, Swingers tend to be attracted to Nudism as it helps them, in theory, find more sex partners -- due to the mistaken idea that Nudists have to be promiscuous because they like to be naked. Nudists as a bit character tend to be pigeonholed into a few stereotypes -- the attractive blond bimbo, the new age hippy, or the extremely ugly old man, with varying levels of promiscuity depending on how they want the character to go.

    Live-Action TV

    • On Jimmy Macdonald's Canada, it's footage of a nudist camp that finally pushes Jimmy over the edge. Nevertheless, most of the humour is in his extreme reaction, and not the nudists.
    • Monk subverted this hard. Monk initially accused someone of murder based on the fact he was a nudist, and his rants on the subject came to the point of denying nudists were even human. Every single one of his friends came down on him for it. By the end he was convinced his prejudice was wrong, and the initial suspect saved the day. (He still freaked out when the naked guy hugged him. Of course, he's Monk, so...)

    Real Life

    • May not be helped along by the fact that a lot of pro-nudism people seem to go the over-the-top route of saying that all those people wearing clothes are just deluding and restricting themselves, and if they'd only strip down everything wrong with their lives would magically fix itself; IE, that everyone is a nudist, they just don't know it yet. People tend to get a little annoyed when they're told that complete strangers know what they need better than they do. (Which is, of course, why you have so many Acceptable Political Targets.)

    Web Comics

    • Averted in the webcomic Arthur, King of Time and Space, where, in the present-day arc, Guinevere comes from a family of nudists, and everyone accepts it (except for the prudish Lancelot).
    • The webcomic Loxie & Zoot is about nudists and nudism, and usually does a good job of depicting the characters as normal people and not deviants. Unfortunately, there's still a strong subtext throughout the comic that "getting nude makes you happier and makes you a better person" that gets a bit grating at times. Also, the comic's Big Bad is a prudish straw politician who seems to be genuinely allergic to nudity.

    Western Animation

    • Averted - and even Aesoped - in Family Guy when Peter and family are invited to dinner by a bunch of nudists to thank Peter for saving the father (Peter didn't realize he was a nudist, he thought he had just lost his swim trunks at sea). The actual mentality of being a nudist is played for laughs (they literally do everything naked) but Peter and Lois's prejudice against nudists is eventually proven to be an unfair bias and they learn their lesson. When the couple shows up again in another episode, Peter and Lois greet them warmly, and it's not even addressed that the two are naked.
    • Averted in Futurama. At several points during the show characters will walk around in the buff. This is, for the most part, ignored by the other characters after it's initially pointed out. Notable exceptions occur when the nude character had recently engaged in sexual conduct.

    Chicago Cubs Fans

    See also Every Year They Fizzle Out and ButtMonkey/Sports.

    Until 2016, the Chicago Cubs hadn't won the World Series since 1908, and hadn't even been in a World Series since 1945. So, therefore, they are obviously the worst team ever (even though plenty of other Major League Baseball Teams have never won the World Series), and all of their fans are complete idiots with no class who root for a lost cause. (Whether this will change with their World Series win in 2016 remains to be seen.) Similarly, fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs can be acceptable targets in that they have not won the NHL Stanley Cup (or made an appearance in the finals) since 1967.

    Literature

    • A fictional example of this is Ron Weasley's unwavering support of the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team in the Harry Potter series. The Cannons last won the League Cup in 1892 and in 1972 changed their motto from "We shall conquer" to "Let's all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best".

    Web Original

    Real Life

    • Just about every sports announcer has made a derogatory remark about the Cubs and, by extension, their fans. The Steve Bartman incident did not help things either. Also, many St. Louisans do this, but that's because of the strong regional rivalry between the St. Louis Cardinals (who have 11 World Series wins, the second-highest amount in MLB history) and the Chicago Cubs (who have won the World Series twice, in 1907 and 1908).

      There is a bizarre contradiction with the Cubs. Due to broadcasting on WGN and their "good guy" image, they've picked up a fanbase that's probably second to the Yankees in number. So much so, that in any state in the union, if someone likes baseball, but doesn't like the local team - if they're not a Yankees fan, they're probably a Cubs fan. However, their record/history is pretty close to the exact opposite of the Yankees.
      • Played with in Back to The Future Part II in which the Cubs win the World Series in 2015.
      • And in a Samurai Cat book; titular hero Miaowara Tomokato is nodding in sympathy with two Chicago natives about how bad the Cubs are. Tomokato's a 16th-century samurai, so he has an excuse; the natives, though, are Prohibition-era types, with the World Series win in recent memory and decent chances of making it. Huh?
    • Fans of Chicago's two baseball teams stick stereotypes to the other team's fans. Therefore, Cub fans are seen as effete wine-sipping yuppies, while White Sox fans are stereotyped as boorish, cheap beer-drinking slobs.
      • Due to Wrigley being just as much of a tourist attraction and a party destination as it is a baseball park, another common criticism from Sox fans is that Cubs fans either aren't baseball fans, or just drunken frat boys. In return, Cubs fans also take to criticizing Sox fans' jealousy and general preoccupation with the Cubs.
    • Detroit Lions fans. The words "0-16" and "Matt Millen" pretty much sums it up.
    • Cleveland Browns fans. In fact, any professional Cleveland team in general...and let's not even get started about Lebron James when he took his talents to South Beach.
    • San Diego Chargers and Padres fans. Their championship drought is as long as Cleveland's (longer by a year actually), but they are such a Butt Monkey, even those that feel sorry for sports towns like Cleveland and Buffalo will laugh at them.
    • Buffalo Bills and Sabres fans. Their championship drought is as long as Cleveland's, and haters of those teams will often say things to remind them of their misery like "Wide Right", "No Goal" and "Music City Miracle" to intimidate their fans.
    • In baseball, despite the team's success, Oakland A's fans are Acceptable Targets for being stupid enough to support a dead-broke team that will ALWAYS lose their best players to free agency. Taunts along the lines of "we can afford (insert name here), he's ours now, enjoy your rookies".
    • Fans of all of Philadelphia's sports teams tend to be depicted in a less-than-flattering light, although that doesn't have as much to do with the Philadelphia teams' success as it does the fans' behavior. In the 1970s, the Philadelphia Eagles' fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus. On July 25, 2009, the Phillies played a home game against the St. Louis Cardinals, and a couple of fans had started flashing a laser-light in the Cardinals' batters eyes for a couple of innings--no wonder the Cards had gotten some 7 runs behind. After the game, some Phillies fans attacked a small group of people who were wearing their Cardinals jersey, and one young man was killed. Classy.
    • On a related note, specific sports trades, especially in pro football. Depending on the state (or even city), Brett Favre is either a traitor and should have never come out of retirement or a complete hero. Needless to say, arguments on either side tend to escalate quickly.
    • Fans of any team that left their town. Even if the move was due to Executive Meddling and such, many will blame the town's citizens and the fans for making them move, saying "They didn't support them"...even if they did.
    • In hockey, Toronto Maple Leafs fans.
    • In The World Cup, fans of the Netherlands; which their team having an 0-3 record in the finals in which some people have given them the nickname of the '“Neverlands”, as well as fans of England; whom their team have not been able to come through in recent times since their championship in 1966 despite much hype.

    New York Yankees Fans

    At the other end, those teams (and their fans) that are deemed to be too successful, are often regarded as Acceptable Targets by rival fans and media. In fictional works, these teams are seen as the Opposing Sports Team.

    Real Life

    • In the MLB, the New York Yankees. Some may consider that the Boston Red Sox are also this now that their team has ended its "curse".
      • If it is acceptable to bash Red Sox fans, it's not because they're a lost cause. Though you can still bash them for constantly gloating about how great their team is. (To be fair, those other guys are equally annoying.) Reached critical mass in 2004 when the Red Sox and Patriots both won championships.
    • In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers.
    • In the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and to a lesser extent, the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots.
    • In the EPL, the so called "Big Four" clubs, which are Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and especially Manchester United, who are stereotyped as only following them because they win regularly, while the team itself and its international following is often jokingly referred to as 'the only team with no supporters in its home city' or similar.
    • In the AFL, do you barrack for Collingwood? Guess what - everyone hates you. No, seriously, everyone. Every ARF fan, ever, hates you more than they hate every other fan of every other team, combined, to a factor of infinity. That is how thoroughly Collingwood is despised in Australia.
    • In the Olympic Games, anyone that roots for the United States and to a lesser extent, China and Russia.
    • In NASCAR, Jimmie Johnson. His 5 consecutive championships... has not gone too well with other racing fans to say the least.
    • In the NHL, there are the Detroit Red Wings, mainly due to the fact that they have been one of the more successful teams consistently in the past two decades. To a lesser degree there's the Pittsburgh Penguins, which is mainly due in part to Sidney Crosby playing for them.

    Professional Wrestling fans

    Feel like coming out of your steel cage closet and admitting you're a fan to, say, your boss?

    Real Life

    • Here's how bad it was at one point: a gentleman was once trying to avoid admitting that he was watching wrestling when he was discussing how he saw a local hero, Lance Storm, on television; instead, according to Storm, he claimed that somehow, while channelflipping, he came across the channel showing the programme just as Storm was in the ring. Storm figured the odds of that are remote. And the worst part? The fan was talking to someone he knew to be Mrs Storm.
    • A few years back, the worst thing that could be said to wrestling fans were the typical homophobic jokes that we're all familiar with, but since the Chris Benoit incident pro wrestling and the sport itself have been put into a much nastier light.

    Bodybuilders

    Doesn't help much that they use steroids, or that everything about the lifestyle strikes some people as Ho Yay.

    People who prefer media free of sex and/or violence

    Unfortunately, all people who uphold this preference tend to be lumped in with Moral Guardians - even if those are just personal preferences, and they have no intention of pushing those personal preferences onto other people. Heck, even if you just say you'd like a little less sex and violence in entertainment, you'll be accused of being some right-wing anti-sex prude who obviously doesn't know what "real" entertainment is. Dear god help you if Values Dissonance of any sort comes into play.

    Real Life

    • This is taken Up to Eleven if you have any interest in playing Visual Novels that aren't about lawyers.

    Fans of a Dead Horse Music Genre

    At least, the people who like the latest teen pop have an excuse of "following the crowd" - but if the music is no longer even popular, then what's their excuse? Surely, it can't be because it just so happens to be the music that they derive personal pleasure from. No, of course not! It's because they're too stupid and misguided to know any better.

    Real Life

    Trainspotters/Railfans

    They have become a byword for all pathetic, pointless hobbies.

    People who obsessively play online games

    Especially stuff like World of Warcraft, which is the biggest target. For some reason, partly due to New Media Are Evil, it's seemingly perfectly acceptable to blame any addictions to online games as the fault of the game itself - whereas doing this for just about anything else (namely blaming the murder on the murder weapon and not the murderer) usually results with people not taking it seriously.

    MMORPGs

    • The Fan Haters will have you believe everyone who plays World of Warcraft is a min-maxer or one of the hardcore raiders which some of the players themselves hate.
      • It doesn't help that the ones who are hardcore "Stop Having Fun!" Guys min-maxers who call everyone who isn't a "noob," and will heap obscene amounts of venom on anyone who doesn't want to sqeeze every last iota of DPS out of their gear/gems/enchants/talents/rotation.

    Gun hobbyists

    Either right-wing nuts, terrorists in training, or tragedies waiting to happen.

    Real Life

    Men who knit

    Men who knit are frequently compared to homosexuals, old ladies, or old lady homosexuals. Despite the fact that a girlfriend would probably love to have a guy that can make gorgeous accessories for her from scratch.

    Films

    • John Spartan of Demolition Man was turned into one of these during his sleep. He was baffled when he admitted that the first thing he wanted to do was knit. He even knitted a sweater for his partner.

    Video Games

    • Deconstructed with Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4: he's a misblamed delinquent, who has underlying fears that he isn't deemed manly because he likes to sew, paint and the like, but it turns out he's just afraid of being rejected. As the protaganist, you get to help him get over his concerns.

    Tabletop Roleplayers

    All 30-year-old man children who have no social skills and will live in their parents' basements as long as they can. More modern interpretations don't even let them get to be out of their teens, but they're just about always socially stunted nerds, and girls are mysterious-nigh-mythical creatures to them; certainly no girl would ever be caught playing a tabletop RPG. They also wear silly hats while they play. Which brings us to the Brotherhood of Funny Hats, though it's rare to see this nowadays...

    • When the occasional tabletop gaming female does appear, she's either a fat, unattractive, overdramatic emo-girl (there's a lot of overlap with anime fangirls here), or a tomboy who's probably a little lesbian.

    Fans of "That Other Football"

    For most, if not all of the world, the most popular sports in a specific nation will usually include one game that is called "Football"...and usually only one sport at that although in rare occasions two. (ex. Association Football / Soccer and Rubgy Football in the United Kingdom, American Football in the United States, Gaelic Football in Ireland, and Australian Rules Football in Australia). However for some reason, it seems to be taboo for one to like two or more football codes, especially one that is considered "foreign". In Australia for example, most of the country is either divided between Rugby and Aussie rules, with soccer being an afterthought (outside of the national team), while in the US; outside the US Mens (and sometimes Womens) National Team, soccer is not seen well as a spectator sport compared to American Football, and it is hard to find someone to openly say they are a fan of both Football and Soccer (or even just soccer for that matter). Of course, since there are quite a few sports that claim the name Football, there are quite a few heated arguments among the fans of each sport on which sport really is the "Real" Football (Soccer vs American Football debates especially), with plenty of eloquent and well-researched arguments to make their point.

    For the record, if you were wondering where all these sports called "Football" came from, in the 19th century, kids played their own versions of football however they felt like it. But soon after, there was a call in England for standardizing the rules of Football, which of course led to lots of arguing. In the end the arguers settled on two games: Rugby Football and Association football. Not long after, other organized sports based on these two sports as well as others were formed (Australian Rules Football, American Football, Gaelic Football, etc.) and all of these "Football" sports have since gained a foothold in sports culture. Of course since there are quite a few sports that claim the name Football many of these arguments continue on to this very day.

    Literature

    • In the Harry Potter universe, the book Quidditch Through the Ages has a section dealing with the status of Quidditch around the world. Americans (and not just the US, all of the Americas here) apparently prefer the game Quodpot, a sort of hot-potato game involving a Quaffle that has been tampered with and explodes - an obvious joke on Americans who prefer American football to soccer. It was mentioned that Quidditch was starting to get popular in the Americas, although rather slowly, which is similar to the Real Life situation of soccer in America.

    Live-Action TV

    • CBS's Jim Rome is considered to be Soccer's most outspoken hater who tends to be hell-bent on demeaning the sport, its players, and its fans whenever a soccer story is mentioned.
    • Daniel Tosh has had a few things to say about Soccer.
    • Sports Nation’s Colin Cowherd and occasional guest host Skip Bayless often make comments about how they dislike soccer whenever soccer clips are shown.

    Web Original

    Western Animation

    • In an episode of The Simpsons the crowd at an international match starts to complain that the game is so boring. A soccer riot eventually breaks out when everyone fights on who is the first to leave. Perhaps best represented by a scene where Kent Brockman and a Spanish announcer deliver the exact same commentary on the game, Brockman sounding like he's two seconds from nodding off while the Spanish announcer sounds like he's drunk too much coffee.

    Real Life

    • In short, the Internet Backdraft related to this is way too common across the internet across all sides. Even in This Wiki, fans tend to get rather snobbish in editing Football-related articles to demean fans of other football codes.

    Fantasy Sports Players

    They are often accused of bringing "nerd-like traditions" into sports fandoms, and cheering when they are "not" supposed to cheer.

    Other

    Women who don't like clothes (or shoes) shopping

    Even though this, technically, a traditionally feminine gender norm - this is one trait that will be expected in women, even by other women. Women who don't fancy spending an entire Saturday in a shopping mall are often treated as being socially aberrant. In some cases, even mothers will express concern over their daughters' lack of interest in clothes or shoes - and may attempt to "correct" that. Also, while men may not care so much about the "women hanging out at a shopping mall" aspect, many will act as if women not caring about looking fashionable is some sort of affront to them. "How dare you not care about making yourself look good for us?" But for other guys, it's Fetish Fuel!

    Fans and artists of media intended for Teenaged Girls

    See also Girl Show Ghetto.

    Examples of this include: Twilight, Justin Bieber, pretty much any Boy Band, and pretty much anything from Disney Channel (such as Hannah Montana... and Miley Cyrus, for that matter).

    If a form of entertainment is manufactured with this demographic in mind from the beginning, it is immediately shunned and becomes an object of ridicule, often sight unseen. Even if something was liked and respected before it had fangirls, it is written off as valueless the moment the squeeing starts. Treating these series with anything other than total disdain (even indifference) can get you branded as a complete idiot who has no idea what True Art is, a brainless zombie who only follows what is popular, or a fifteen-year-old girl.

    • Forget teenagers, this includes media intended for girls of any age. Even media that only looks like it's meant for girls.

    Men who keep cats as pets

    This is often judged as profoundly effeminate and bad (the two often overlapping due to homophobia).

    • Right-Hand-Cat?
    • Men who don't like dogs often get this attitude as well.
      • And pity the boy who doesn't like dogs. Barring allergy, there is apparently no excuse for a boy to not like dogs.
    • And woe betide the poor guy who loves dogs - but they happen to be the "wrong" dogs. Like a chihuahua or shih tzu instead of something "macho" like a pitbull or doberman.

    Mimes

    See also Everyone Hates Mimes.

    Historical Reenactors

    Creepy, Always Male ultra-nerds who live in the The Theme Park Version of another time period because the present does not suit them. Often casting themselves as the Politically Incorrect Hero to hide their bigoted attitudes behind faux Values Dissonance.

    Literature

    • Discworld parodied this with the Battle of Koom Valley. The men all get prepared to symbolically refight the battle, while the women stand around looking annoyed because they can only be wenches, 'that being the only job available to them in the olden days.'.

    Live-Action TV

    • An SNL sketch featured John C. Reilly as an actor at Colonial Williamsburg who felt attitudes about slavery in the Eighteenth century justified pushing around his black co-workers. Even in e-mails.
    • A You Go, Girl! episode of Ellen had the titular heroine trying to join a reenactment as a union soldier, when the only roles open to women were nurses and camp followers.
    • Mark on Peep Show makes friends with Daryl who's into history as much as he is. One scene features them both at an event, dressed as German soldiers when Daryl starts making racist remarks. Marks starts joining in, thinking it's just role-play, only to discover his new friend really is a white supremacist.
    • A truly terrible Mad TV skit had some white people meticulously recreating the atmosphere of a 1950s diner just so they could have an excuse to harass black customers with various passive-aggressive remarks. Reaches its nadir when one of them drags out a fire hose and threatens to spray down the blacks if they don't stop complaining (which is not only so exaggerated that it's offensive, but references something that happened in the 1960s).

    Western Animation

    Stan: It’s not a Civil War reenactment. Those things are for historians and people who hate blacks.

    • South Park had the entire confederate Army of reenactors get drunk on schnapps, overrun the union, and fight, still drunk, all the way to Washington DC. This is all a plot by Cartman, of course, to win a bet.
    • An episode of King of the Hill featured a Renaissance Fair with a Straw Misogynist as king, claiming "historical accuracy" as an excuse to treat the female performers like slaves.

    Real Life

    • Played some role in the 2010 election for Ohio's 9th Congressional district. The Republican/Tea Party candidate, Rich Iott, was revealed to belong to a WWII reenactment group which portrays an SS division. The extent to which this affected the result was unclear, but the resulting controversy was damaging.

    Hobbyist Musicians

    They're not very good, but insist on inflicting their music on their friends, and probably on practicing in the middle of the night when their neighbours are trying to sleep. For bonus points, they either play an insanely loud electric guitar, or an instrument that sounds really discordant when played badly, such as the violin, the bagpipes, or the accordian.

    Literature

    • As well as many digs at folk-music (a Take That Me, since Sir Pterry's a huge fan in real life), Discworld includes two shots at accordianists: it's one of the tax officer's faults in Interesting Times, and in The Truth, William worries that if the paper names members of the Ankh-Morpork Recovering Accordian Players Society, they'll complain.

    Live Action TV

    • Pheobe's music in Friends. Also Ross's peculiar keyboard arrangements, and his attempt to learn the bagpipes.

    Radio

    • In the Hamish And Dougal episode "the Vampire of the Glen", there's a gag about "Count Cardula (Dramatic Accordian Sting) ... the accordian player" who tortured people by playing the accordian at them.

    Anime Fans

    They are almost always portrayed to be either basement-dwelling, obese, unattractive losers or over-obsessive, annoying, immature halfwits who speak Gratuitous Japanese and are trying to act Japanese. So, if you like anime, expect to have a lot of crap thrown at you.

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