Stop Being Stereotypical

"Never never never be ashamed you're Jewish, because it's enough that I'm ashamed you're Jewish."

—Farber, You Could Live If They Let You

A member of a social/racial/sexual/political/recreational group criticizes other members of their group for perpetuating behavior that mainstream society deems negative. The reproach may be anything from gentle needling to a knockout punch to a high-profile rant against the transgressors. Whatever the form, the Stop Being Stereotypical message is usually one against those actions that are embarrassing the group and hinder their efforts for wider acceptance.

Typically, this may reflect divisions of class (such as quieter black people complaining about the "ghetto" behavior of unruly blacks), gender expression (such as gender-conforming gays complaining about "flaming" gays), ideology (such as religious people railing against "fundamentalists"), or conformity to mainstream social rules (such as fanboys complaining about peers who won't even bother with personal hygiene). Whatever the group involved, the criticism is generally not of the behavior in itself, but of the way it "makes us look bad."

If the criticism is leveled by a character in a work, it may be a Very Special Episode or an Anvilicious Author Tract. Might also be done by a Real Life creator as an attempt at reforming the group.

Telling others to Stop Being Stereotypical is not always presented in a positive light. The person making the criticism might be presented as being overly submissive to the norms of mainstream culture. A common response to "Stop Being Stereotypical" is "I don't care what they think." Both sides may end up calling each other Category Traitors. The recipient of the criticism will be accused of hurting the group by making them look bad while the one who gives the criticism might be accused of being a Boomerang Bigot or an Uncle Tom.

Note that there is nothing limiting a Stop Being Stereotypical message to any particular type of assembly. Mathematically speaking, any sufficiently large crowd will have outliers who act against the group's interests and serve as the target of such a message. For example, most sports fans are simply enthusiastic supporters of their team, but all fans get a black eye when a few Fan Dumb members go overboard and start riots if their team loses (or wins).

Also see Broken Base, a common place for enthusiasts to sling such accusations against each other; and Vocal Minority which emphasizes that the stereotypes are the tiniest but loudest part of a given group; Don't Shoot the Message is the ideological variant of this, when the person complaining supports what's being said, just not how it comes across. Compare My Species Doth Protest Too Much when non-humans come on to the scene, and Self-Deprecation for the comedic cousin. Compare Cultural Cringe. Contrast with Boomerang Bigot and Klingon Scientists Get No Respect, who aren't stereotypical and get flack for it.

Examples of Stop Being Stereotypical include:

Comic Books

  • Occurs in the final chapter of Gene Yang's American Born Chinese. Danny (a Chinese-American originally named Jin Wang) attacks his "visiting cousin" Chin-Kee, a buck-toothed slant-eyed Engrish-speaking caricature, for being a perpetual embarrassment. It turns out Chin-Kee is actually the Monkey King, trying to get Danny/Jin to accept the Chinese heritage he had rejected after a falling out with his stereotypically nerdy Asian best friend (and a desire to date a Caucasian girl).
  • Dork Tower has done several strips where the characters and/or the artist (who are all avid Tabletop Games players) call out other gamers for their lack of social skills (civility, personal hygiene, inappropriate clothing, etc.), especially at conventions.
  • From the DC Elseworlds series Kingdom Come:
  • In Maus, Art Spiegelman calls out his father for behaving in a very stereotypical miserly fashion since he worries how this will affect people's opinions of Jews. Justified Trope: his father explains it as a result of being in the Holocaust, rather than a normal part of his personality. It's also averted: His father's wife comments that she, and a number of Holocaust survivors they know, didn't react that way.
  • This trope is a big part of the premise behind the X-Men - humanity in general fears mutants because they see them as dangerous and violent, and the X-Men take it upon themselves to police the mutant population, stopping evil mutants whose actions confirm anti-mutant prejudices.
  • As Deadpool put it: "Holy crap you're an Arab living in America and you're a terrorist?! That's so disappointingly stereotypical and racist!"
  • Sistah Spooky once chewed out Empowered for crying because she was "reinforcing stereotypes about female superheroes". Slightly hypocritical since she seemingly spends every tiny second the two of them are in communication range trying her best to make Empy cry, but then that's Sistah Spooky for you.

Film

  • Occurs in Crash when the movie producer tells Ludacris's character "You embarrass me; you embarrass yourself."
  • First Time Felon: Calhoun, explaining his views to Yance, quotes Chris Rock:

Calhoun: "There's a war going on in this country. It's between black people and niggers.

  • In Tropic Thunder, Kirk Lazarus criticizes Alpa Chino for using the N-word, a word which is used to "keep our people down." Hilariously, Lazarus is a white man playing a black man in the movie-within-a-movie, while Alpa is actually a black person.

Kirk: [with tears in his eyes] For four-hundred years... that word has kept our people down..
Alpa: ... What the fuck...?

    • "Whoa, whoa. What do you mean, 'you people'?" "What do you mean, 'you people'?"
  • This is the theme of A Soldier's Story as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning play it was based on, A Soldier's Play.
  • In Be Cool, celebrity music producer Sin LaSalle chastises his cousin (a rapper) Dabu, when the latter pulls up to Sin's house in a big black Hummer, with spinning rims and rap music blasting from the stereo.

Sin: "Man, why you gotta reinforce the stereotype? I live here. I'm on the neighborhood watch."

  • In The Nutty Professor, Professor Klump is a morbidly obese man looked down on for his weight. His family is also morbidly obese and portrays fat people as loud, obnoxious, lazy slobs who eat only junk food. After having a nightmare where he became a Godzilla-style caricature of a fat person, he decides to invent something that will get rid of his excess fat since he's too ashamed to be affiliated with anyone as heavy as himself.
  • Subverted in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Kumar is reluctant to become a doctor as he thinks it's an Indian stereotype, but later decides that he wants to become a doctor regardless of whether or not it's stereotypical.
  • In Madea's Family Reunion, the black wedding planner says that she can hardly work with black people because they are ignorant.
  • In A Christmas Story, the manager of the Chinese restaurant gets frustrated and embarrassed when his employees are trying to sing Christmas carols for their customers and keep having trouble with the Ls.
  • In The Way, Martin Sheen's character has his backpack, which also has his dead son's ashes, stolen by a Roma (Gypsy) boy. Though the boy gets away, his father drags his son back to return the pack and complains that his people have a hard enough time being smeared as thieves without his stupid son proving the stereotype true. To make up for it the father invites the pilgrims for a get-together, where he advises Sheen's character to go an extra distance to a seaside church to honor his own late son and has his thieving son carry the pilgrim's pack for him to the city limits as punishment.

Literature

  • In the Discworld novel Men-At-Arms, Detritus the troll tries to use a Stop Being Stereotypical speech to defuse a riot between a gang of trolls and a gang of dwarfs.

"Hah, I been a man only hardly any time," said Detritus, "and already I fed up with you stupid trolls. What you think humans say, eh? Oh, them ethnic, them don't know how to behave in big city, go around waving clubs at the drop of a thing you wear on head."

  • From The Madness Season comes Daetrin Haal, a vampire who doesn't like being called a vampire, who consciously avoids transforming into a bat even when it would be helpful because it's too much of a stereotype.


Live Action TV

  • 30 Rock has this with Tracy and Toofer. Tracy also mentions a shadowy group called the Black Crusaders led by Lester Holt, Jesse Jackson, Condoleeza Rice, Bill Cosby, and Gordon from Sesame Street, an extremist version of this trope that targest black people whose actions make other black people look bad.
    • In another scene, as Frank leaves a gay bar full of stereotypically gay-looking men, one man shouts to Frank to come back sometime in a very effeminate voice, prompting his dance partner to berate him for "making us all look bad." They then return to bumping and grinding.
  • On the topic of Bill Cosby, there was a Mad TV sketch where he (played by Orlando Jones) was shown proposing a show to prove he was actually black, and not an Uncle Tom. Unfortunately (like Bamboozled), the show becomes a huge success, much to his horror.
  • This is a recurring theme on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
  • In an episode of Psych Shawn and Gus hire an Asian-American assistant and assume he knows about the Triads simply because of his ethnicity. While he finds it offensive, he begrudgingly admits that he does know enough to get the case started, seeming genuinely disappointed that he was able to help.
  • ABC's hidden-camera show What Would You Do features an actor posing as a Christian shop owner subjecting two Jews (also actors) to an anti-Semitic rant and shows other people, many of them Christians, angrily standing up to him. A psychologist on the show explains that people tend to get angrier about negative behavior when it is displayed by members of their own group.
  • The primary catalyst for William Hung's fame and notoriety was the fact that he was a walking Asian stereotype.
  • Jocelyn Jee Esien's sketch show featured the character of Fiona, a woman who believes that her all-white coworkers don't know she's black. Her sketches always involved another black person, like a courier or handyman, showing up in the office and Fiona berating them for their "stereotypical" behavior because she does not want her "secret" to be found out.
  • This occasionally happens to Frasier and Niles Crane on Frasier, when they're around people even more snooty than themselves. Emphasis on the occasionally, and it should be mentioned that they're not so much bothered by extreme snobbishness as much as stereotypically insincere snobbishness: They have a genuine passion for all things high-cultured, intellectual, and ultra-refined and are disgusted by people who fake it.
  • Will & Grace has an episode where Will (reluctantly) takes Jack to his new gym and is embarrassed by Jack's usual ridiculous over-the-top Camp Gay behavior, muttering in annoyance to someone else "Sometimes I just wish he wasn't such a fag." Jack overhears and is both hurt by Will's comment and clearly a bit ashamed of its accuracy.

Professional Wrestling

  • A very annoying real life phenomenon that, given the lack of Fourth Wall, directly affects wrestling. WWE's most recent example, R-Truth, is a black parolee with piercings, braids and tattoos who likes to dance performing rapping. Instant Ethnic Scrappy to the "Smart" Mark community, never mind that Ron Killings actually pursued a recording career before entering the wrestling business and still does music on his own time. While he did serve time in prison, that's not really part of his character. All in all, the R-Truth character is pretty tame given that race relations in wrestling tend to be a good 20–25 years behind the curve.
    • Many Japanese wrestlers also get labeled as too stereotypical, even the ones who are actually from Japan, and pretty much any tag team with shared ethnicity is thought of as a "race tag team" regardless of whether or not they use their ethnicity as a defining character trait—Unless they're white (and not Canadian). Of course there are a number of teams that do use their race as such, and it's usually terrible: e.g. Cryme Tyme, promoted as two large black men from Brooklyn that steal... and that's it, and Harlem Heat who, while featuring stars Booker T and Stevie Ray, were initially promoted as a pair of wrestling prisoners, led to the ring in shackles by a white southerner.
  • Inverted, in a sense, in the spring and summer of 2005, when the "Arab" "Muhammad Hassan" (actually an Italian-American named Mark Copani) and his valet Khosrow Daivari (who was actually Persian) appeared on the pro wrestling scene. A proud Arab-American from Detroit, Muhammad Hassan was full of anger and resentment against the prejudice faced by Arab-Americans during the War On Terror. You'd think he was an assimilated, Westernized ethnic Arab who despised fundamentalists, right? Well, no: Hassan was a Muslim extremist (though most Arab-Americans have historically been Christians or Jews) who proudly wore a keffiyeh and chanted like a muezzin while being carried into the ring on a litter like a sheikh by men in black catsuits and ski masks. Even as the other WWE Superstars assured him that they hated him due to his being an "asshole American" rather than an Arab-American, Hassan just became even more angered: He despised "normal" Arab-Americans for being too cowardly to embrace their ancestral culture and instead sucking up to European-Americans.


Video Games

Heavy Weapons Guy: Why does everyone think I like this Tetris? It is just stacking!

    • Tycho assumes the Heavy's Drink Order would be vodka; turns out he's partial to a peach bellini.
      • Also the assumption that everyone had regarding the Heavy being the Dumb Muscle, rather than the Genius Bruiser that he is - he just doesn't know English well enough to shed the assumption.
    • Pretty much every second conversation with the Heavy is dedicated to this.
  • Garrosh Hellscream of World of Warcraft is utterly loathed by fans for making the orcish race less like blizzard orcs and more like Tolkien orcs.
  • In Mass Effect 3, Garrus Vakerian (A Turian) and Tali'Zorah vas Normandy (A Quarian), members of alien species that are based on dextro-amino-acids instead of levo-amino-acids like humanity, joke about the importance of making a good impression for "dextros" on the rest of the galaxy.
    • Also a major character point for Wrex. Like many other krogans, he fights as a mercenary to get his need for violence out and earn his share of credits; unlike most other krogans, though, it's because he gave up on plans to help lead the krogans out of the mess the genophage had left them in after seeing how the species wasn't going to put aside its ways easily. If he lives, he ends up assuming a position of leadership in his clan, and by the third game, looks poised to bring about a new future for krogans everywhere.


Webcomics


Web Original

  • The Onion played this for laughs in its article "American Muslims to Fort Hood Shooter: 'Thanks a Lot, Asshole.'"
  • Moviebob made a video discussing how gamers should avoid the negative stereotypes associated with them.
  • Alyssa Milano, a proud Italian-American, made this Funny or Die video as a Take That against the cast of Jersey Shore, who she feels embodies the worst stereotypes of both Italians and New Jersey. In this case it's not even a case of "stop being stereotypical" so much as it is "stop following that stereotype because it's not even your stereotype." The stereotype created by the Jersey Shore cast more originates from Long Island, where the vast majority of the Jersey Shore cast are really from, most of them aren't even Italian at all. It leads to this because many people from New Jersey have taken on this image despite it being idiotic.
  • Todd in the Shadows once applauded the band Far*East Movement for defying the stereotypes about Asian-Americans. Like "intelligent," "respectable," and "good at music."
  • Alfonzo Rachel often criticizes his fellow black people for living up to their negative stereotypes, and it seems to be a major theme of his videos. It's also inverted in that he himself had been accused of "acting white".
  • Zinnia Jones had a rant about the Unfortunate Implications of this in his video Gay People Who Hate Gay People, mostly the fact that some Invisible to Gaydar people hate Camp Gay people for being effeminate, obviously gay or flamboyant because it gives people a "bad impression of what gay people are like", and that it's hindering the acceptance of gay people. The Unfortunate Implications of that attitude basically says that if you don't act "straight", then you're somehow not deserving of equality.
  • A variant in "Super Smash Brothers Brawl Taunts: Part 3": Bowser calls Peach out for "setting women's rights back about 400 years" by listing several of her traits, like slapping opponents, wearing heels, having a plethora of crops, and her powerful rear. Peach responds by angrily whacking him with her Frying Pan of Doom and says she got it from her kitchen.
  • Repeatedly used on this very wiki. The prevalence of autism-spectrum disorders among the userbase and the Sonichu article turning into such a cesspool of vitriol it had to be locked are definitely not coincidental.
  • The Nostalgia Chick, in the Spice World review, angrily tells one of the Spice Girls to stop talking, since it's "bringing down the property values of vaginas everywhere."
  • A video titled "Sakuracon Teh Comic" has a bystander angrily shouting at a group of people who are overenthusiactic about the things they like in Japan such as sushi, their music, anime and manga, dubbing them as "weeaboos". This lampshades the real life phenomenon of people who act like this in an exaggerated manner.

Western Animation

  • The Boondocks: An episode has MLK Jr. surviving his gunshot wound in a comatose state for thirty years before awakening. He is branded as anti-American for suggesting non-violence in the wake of September 11, causing a large drop in popularity, and holds a conference at a local church that devolves into a stereotype-fest. Irritated, he uses the word "nigga" (admitting it is the "ugliest word in the English language") and indicts the audience in an angrier, more formal version of Chris Rock's original rant. This is a recurring theme in Aaron McGruder's work" One controversial set of the original Boondocks newspaper comic strips had black contestants compete on a reality TV show to work for Russell Simmons, only to discover all the contestants were rude and lazy.
    • In another episode, R. Kelly is brought to trial over accusations of urinating on an underaged girl (mimicking the real-life sex scandal). The prosecutor has mountains of evidence against him, including a video of R. Kelly committing the act, turning to face the camera, and answering a phone call where he promptly states his full birth name, profession, and social security number. Despite this, R. Kelly's lawyer distracts the jury from the fact that he's guilty and convinces them that the whole trial is really about racism, and that the system just wants to keep R. Kelly down because he's black. A boom box is revealed, an R. Kelly song begins to play, and everyone in the courtroom cheers and bursts into dance. Huey shuts off the boom box, walks to the front of the courtroom, and delivers this Crowning Moment of Awesome:

What the hell is wrong with you people?! Every famous nigga that gets arrested is not Nelson Mandela! Sure, the government conspires to put a lot of innocent black men in jail on fallacious charges. But R. Kelly is not one of those men. We all know the nigga can sing, but what happened to standards? What happened to bare minimums? You a fan of R. Kelly? You wanna help R. Kelly? Then get some counseling for R. Kelly! Introduce him to some older women! Hide his camcorder! But don't pretend like the man is a hero.
(walks off-screen, walks back on-screen)
And stop the damn dancing! Act like you got some goddamned sense, people! Damn.

  • In an episode of South Park, Kyle becomes horrified when his cousin comes to visit and turns out to be an outlandishly exaggerated embodiment of Jewish stereotypes, which threatens to undermine the good name Kyle has been trying to give Judaism in the town. Stan points out that Kyle has become a self-hating Jew, which is itself a stereotype. It's then inverted at the end of the episode when the boys find out that Kyle's cousin is rich, so they want him to hang around, but he refuses and wants to go back home. He wants to go back because in his eyes, the protagonists are "a bunch of hick jock stereotypes" since Kyle's efforts to get his cousin to be less stereotypically Jewish included trying to get him to play football.
    • In "Christian Rock Hard," Token ends up doing this to himself:

Cartman: Okay, give me a bass line.
Token: I don't know how to play bass.
Cartman: How many times do we have to go over this? You're black; you can play bass.
Token: You know, I'm getting sick of your stereotypes.
Cartman: You can be sick all you want; just give me a goddamn bass line!
Token: (immediately launches into a skilled bass line) Goddammit.

    • In a related variation, the students get a trip to the Museum of Tolerance. One section has sculptures depicting damaging racial stereotypes, like the crazy terrorist Muslim, the greedy covetous Jew, and the sleeping lazy Mexican, the latter of which actually turns out to be a janitor napping on the job.
    • In the episode involving the blood feud between the owner of City Wok (a Chinese man) and the owner of City Sushi (a Japanese man), the City Sushi owner stereotypically commits ritual suicide out of his great shame at being naive enough to believe that the City Wok owner was an actual Chinese man rather than a Caucasian man with multiple-personality disorder. As he's falling to his death, he berates himself for being stereotypical.
  • When "Asian Reporter Trisha Takanawa" meets David Bowie on Family Guy, she throws away her microphone, grabs his leg, and offers to make him fishball soup.

Tom Tucker: Thank you, Trisha, for setting your people back a thousand years.

Real Life

  • One of Chris Rock's most infamous comedy routines is "Niggas vs. Black People," a rant on how a few blacks perpetuate negative media stereotypes and mess things up for everyone else. He later stopped doing the piece for fear that some would interpret it as a license to use racial epithets. Sure enough...

"A nigga will say some shit like, 'I take care of my kids."'You're supposed to take care of your kids, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? 'I ain't never been to jail.' Whatcha want, a cookie?! You ain't supposed to go to jail, you low-expectations-having motherfucker!"

"We're not just voting for [Obama] 'cause he's black, we're voting for him 'cause he's black and qualified. That's why we're voting for the motherfucker. Yeah. That's why we're behind him. It's not like we're voting for Flavor Flav. (imitating) 'Yeeeeah, boooooy! Flavor Flaaaav!' Hey, I love Flavor. Lovin' him for 20 years. I love the 'Flavor of Love' show; I think it's quite entertaining. But Flavor Flav must be killed. In order for black people to truly reach the promised land, Flavor Flav has to be shot. These are important times! We got a black man runnin' for President! We don't need a nigger runnin' around with a fuckin' clock around his neck and a Viking hat on his head! 'Not this year, Flav, put a suit on! Nigga, put a suit on!'"

    • Like the Bill Cosby example, there has been backlash from that; primarily by Jesse Jackson, who criticized his fatherhood speech as "talking down to black people".
  • Bill Cosby provoked a Real Life Flame War in 2004 when, during a celebration of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, he criticized African Americans who put higher priorities on sports, fashion, and "acting hard" than on family, education, self-respect and self-improvement. Some celebrated his speech as lending a dignified public voice and face to sentiments that had long existed within the black community, while others accused him of being patronizing to lower-class blacks or even of Uncle Tomfoolery.
  • The religious principle in Judaism known in Hebrew as "Kiddush HaShem" (sanctifying God's Name) and Hillul HaShem (desecrating God's name) is the idea that you shouldn't bring shame upon your people or, for religious Jews, upon God. The Yiddish expression "Shandeh far di Goyim" ("scandal before the Gentiles") references this, and would be leveled at Jews who are representing their community badly to the outside world. It was famously hurled by Abbie Hoffman at the Jewish judge of the Chicago 7 trial.
  • In many Islamic communities, especially in the West, there is a cultural movement to avoid outwardly protesting things that offend Muslim sensibilities. This mostly stems from wanting to avoid the idea of all Muslims being fiercely religious, easily angered, and prone to violence.
    • Likewise, several studies have shown that women who list Islam as their religion, performed better than virtually all other students on questions engineered to require extensive, rote memorization. The post-test interviews revealed that many of these women studied aggressively for the test for fear of doing poorly and reinforcing the "all Muslim women are uneducated" stereotype.
    • In the midst of the 2005 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, the Muslim community was divided between those who felt the cartoons were deeply offensive,[1] and those who said the protesters were overreacting and made the whole Muslim community look like a bunch of dangerous fanatics.
    • They did another one where an Arab angrily decries Western movies as depicting Arabs as violent psychos, and threatens to blow something up if Hollywood doesn't change its tune.
  • Some atheists despair that Richard Dawkins is perceived by the public as an unofficial spokesperson for atheism. He's often viewed as needlessly antagonistic and condescending towards people of faith, and as occasionally over-emphasizing the virtues of science.
    • Christopher Hitchens, who held similar views prior to his death, called himself an "anti-theist" to differentiate between simply not believing and considering faith itself pure undiluted evil. A really good example of the condescending atheist type he went after is The Amazing Atheist, who will post videos tearing down the viewpoints of non-atheists with plenty of scorn heaped on top.
    • The same goes for a lot of atheists who disapprove of real-life Hollywood Atheists and similar Atheistic "figures."
    • A lot of atheists tend to despise Family Guy because Brian, the only acknowledged atheist in the entire show, acts like an egotistical prick who only cares about his own happiness, a stereotype most atheists have been trying to tear down for decades. You might be supposed to take him seriously, or perhaps he's meant to satirize "bad" atheists; regrettably, the show has never been clear on this point. Atheists who like to go further than Brian do not help. At all.
  • Most Christians also feel this way about Jack Chick, Fred Phelps, and their ilk.
  • People who consider their positions important, whether for a certain religion or against all religion, tend to have much more disdain for those who refuse to take a real stand than they do for each other. People who call themselves Agnostic are seen as actively refusing to take a side and tend to bear the brunt of this, though just as many count them as 'quieter Atheists' and leave it at that.
  • Religious scientists and skeptical theists, such as deists, tend to hate the extremists on both sides acting like science/logic/reason goes hand-in-hand with atheism; that also includes those who know that "evidence against" and "lack of proof" are very different things. Just because you cannot find proof for a hypothesis doesn't mean it's disproved: It just means you don't have any proof and it can't be considered a theory.
  • Some Young-Earth Creationists have called out Kent Hovind for his use of misinformation and weak arguments against evolution.
  • Comedian and radio personality Steve Harvey has criticized the misogyny in modern hip-hop music with the admonition, "black men, we are the only race of people that degrade our women in our music." Which is, strictly-speaking, not true; however, the prevalence of the theme in modern hip-hop - itself a Stop Being Stereotypical moment for artists who want to move beyond the now-mainstream violence - means he may have resorted to hyperbole because he thinks that Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
  • In Miami, most Hispanic students look down upon Hispanics they see as stereotypical and reinforcing negative stereotypes, referring to them as either "refs" (immigrants) or "chongas".
  • Many gay people hate Camp Gay for this reason. Indeed, every June (when most cities have their Gay Pride parades and festivals) there's bound to be a dozen Straight Gays complaining about the visibility of Drag Queens and Leathermen, forgetting that most homophobes are not picky in their hatred.
  • This is how many vegetarians, animal rights activists, environmentalists and other animal lovers react to PETA.
  • Negative portrayals of the Furry Fandom in the media sparked the formation of groups such as Burned Furs and Furs Against Furs to lash out at the fetishists and fringe elements in the community, ostensibly to protect its public image.
    • Many furs also cringe when others blatantly flirt or act upon their fetishes in public and cause drama, traits that are commonly seen in the negative side for sex groups period.
  • This can be safely generalized to all super-nationalistic people from any country, and those who hate that particular country beyond reason and can't stop bashing it. The pattern is pretty much the same.
    • Many Americans, especially those who wished to be liked by foreigners, feel this way about the Flavor 2 Eagle Land types. See Cultural Cringe.
    • On the same token, non-Americans who harbor no ill will towards Americans feel the same way towards other non-Americans who treat Americans as an acceptable target. Unfortunately, both the Flavor 2 Eaglelanders and the American-hating foreigners are the Vocal Minorities that are vastly overrepresented on the internet and in the media. Perhaps they are Not So Different.
  • Conservative feminists tend to argue that more liberal feminist groups act as stereotypical radical man-haters who are ruining things for all women. They, in turn, are accused of validating the negative stereotypes to perpetuate their own ivory-tower self-righteousness. It's uncertain if this is a case of Stop Being Stereotypical or a Broken Base arguing over who are "real" feminists.
  • Fans of alternative and underground music do this to both "posers," who perpetuate the idea that alternative subcultures are superficial faux-dissent, and to elitists, who perpetuate the (not incompatible) idea that alternative subcultures are composed of snobbish misanthropes. Punks, in particular, widely despise Real Life examples of The Quincy Punk, who can embody both versions of the undesirable.
    • There are many who hate that screaming in metal has become so popular. This is because it's become a stereotype of the genre and has ruined a lot of the variety the genre used to have.
  • People who are into video games sometimes feel ashamed to be a gamer, or lash out against those who fall under the stereotype of foul-mouthed 13-year-olds or obese adults who live in their parents' basement. This dislike often extends to the Console Wars and its associated Fan Dumb as well as the casual gamer/hardcore gamer split.
    • The above is a major factor in regards to any news report of a young adult male going on a killing spree. "He played video games" is among the various phrases that gamers hate to hear uttered in connection with it, due to the Hitler Ate Sugar trope.
  • PC vs. Console: Level-headed PC gamers hate being lumped in with the basement-dwelling segment who disparage anything console, sink thousands of dollars into unnecessary upgrades just to "keep up" and writing off those who don't, and aggressively considering PC gamers superior to console gamers. Similarly, console gamers hate being lumped in with the 13-year olds screaming derogatory remarks over XBL/PSN or homophobic/misogynistic frat boys with a collective IQ in the single digits. Unfortunately, magazines and other media that cater to gamers only reinforce these stereotypes.
    • And of course there are actual teenagers or frat boys who may be good gamers and decent guys, but who are assumed to be 13-year-old brats or douchebags thanks to those who actually are.
  • && Many gamers don't admit they're gamers because they wish others would Stop Being Stereotypical. Especially since they're the ones further justifying the "belief" that Gamers are morons, Entitled ones at that.
  • Mixed Martial Arts fighter Rashad Evans used this against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson during the hype going into their fight.
  • One interesting example of this was BET's Read A Book(semi-NSFW version linked) music video, advising the network's viewers to read books, buy land, and drink water. One news network, for their segment, gathered a group of non-Stereotypical black people for a focus group who said the content of the video worried them. Specifically, they were worried that kids might see it. The network apparently didn't inform them that it aired on a programming block kids shouldn't be watching anyway.
  • Many manly men are proud of the male stereotype and are baffled by other men who try to deny the stereotype or view it as being negative. They'll even take offense to women who give men the "benefit of the doubt" and don't assume that the stereotype applies to all men. "So, in other words, you don't like men to be men?" The increasingly common phrase this group use is the "pussification of men".
    • The Terror Dream, Susan Faludi explores how the media used the September 11, 2001 attacks to promote this stereotype.
  • Women have gender-wide stereotypes as well, but are often more divided over what those stereotypes are and whether or not they're good or bad.
  • Some people who are either overweight or obese will groan at the sight of another fat person eating tons of fattening foods since many believe that fat people are fat because all they do is eat greasy foods all day. While this is the case for some, others with medical reasons for being overweight - or those working to change themselves through healthy ways - dislike being tarred with the same brush.
  • Within the BBW community, some women have expressed disdain for other overweight or obese women who are quick to have sex with any man who shows interest in them. This disdain also extends to men who expect fat women to have sex with them at the drop of a hat. At issue is the stereotype that fat women are easy and desperate due to lack of options, and therefore fail to hold themselves and their suitors to the same standards that their thinner counterparts expect.
  • Dave Chappelle left his own show when he felt that his comedy employed too many negative black stereotypes.
  • Female metalheads often get irritated with "metalhead girlfriends", who only listen to heavy metal because their significant others do, blaming them for being the reason why female metalheads aren't taken seriously enough in heavy metal communities. On the same note, some tough-looking female metalheads assume that any female metalhead with otherwise feminine traits must be a "metalhead girlfriend." Conversely, some feminine female metalheads blame their tough-looking counterparts for perpetuating the stereotype that female metalheads are unattractive.
    • This dynamic is depressingly common in most historically male-dominated hobbies/fandoms.
      • Of particular note is the online gaming community, especially MMOs. Many female players express disdain toward women who only started playing because of their husbands or boyfriends and who often play the healer for said husbands or boyfriends... which often happens because female MMO players are often stereotyped as healers. In World of Warcraft, a sizable chunk of female Blood Elf Paladins who choose The Medic role fall into this stereotype and become Acceptable Targets. At the extreme end you get female players who refuse to be healers at all, even if their class is capable of it, because of this stereotype.
      • Before online gaming there was the old "DM's Girlfriend" stereotype from D&D and other tabletop role playing games, which also annoys female players who enjoy playing healers; it can also affect female players whether or not they play a healer class, particularly if their character is female as well.
  • The Silent Majority of anime fans don't like it when certain Otaku take the Fanatic part of Fan too far, considering them embarrassing and believing that they give "otaku" a bad name, thus being portrayed negatively in pop culture. Of course, the word "otaku" already has negative connotations in Japan, something that's generally overlooked when it's appropriated by the Western fandom.
    • Same goes for yaoi fans in general regarding the parts of the fandom who embody the Frothing Yaoi Fangirl stereotype.
  • This was common during the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s, and to a point continues today. And that's all we will say about it.
  • Many Child Free people feel this way about Child Haters because of the stereotype that all Child Free people hate children.
  • Many instances of Fan Dumb can turn into this, particularly when it comes to shipping: "Reasonable" shippers feel uncomfortable about being lumped with rabid shippers, often casually mentioning that they do like the character who often gets killed in order to set distance themselves from the irrational fans.
  • Gingers hate this guy.
    • Redheads, on the other hand, aren't terribly fond of the "ginger" slur. Shockingly.
  • Called "niggerism" in black circles.
  • Members of any political party often take pains to dissociate themselves from the more extreme elements within their political party. Unless, of course, they're pandering to said element for votes.
    • This zig-zags every election cycle: During the primaries, the candidates will delve deeper and deeper into their party's philosophies, going farther and farther away from the moderate view. If they secure the party's nominations, they immediately become more and more moderate during the actual campaign in order to appeal to the large number of independent voters, many of whom feel that both parties should Stop Being Stereotypical.
  • Reportedly, a lot of lower-class Indians really didn't like Slumdog Millionaire because they believed it portrayed their lives as so much worse than they actually are.
  • Spike Lee has referred to Tyler Perry's movies as "Coonery buffoonery." Perry responded with "Go straight to Hell."
  • Asian-American comedian Eliot Chang says that whenever he passes a car accident, he says to himself "Please don't be Asian, please don't be Asian..."
  • The Where Da White Women At? trope from all sides. Black women who consider it an explicit insult that "their" men are dating outside their race, Black women who are tired of Black women who consider it an explicit insult that "their" men are dating outside their race that reinforce the Scrappy side of Sassy Black Woman driving Black men away, IR couples who're together out of love rather than superficial skin color hate IR couples who're together solely because of skin couple, both Black women and Black men tired of white people assuming an IR relationship gives them automatic street cred and vice versa. Whew!
  • A certain amount of this came out to play during the run up to the 2012 Academy Awards in regards to the film The Help. A few people criticized the film for showing most or all of the African-American cast in stereotypical roles of servants. On the other side, multiple black entertainers basically cried Political Correctness Gone Mad, and basically said to stop being so hypercritical of black actors who take "bad" roles like housekeepers because it does more harm to Black artists than good (Aisha Tyler specifically mentioned that actors aren't able to simply take roles because they're good or interesting, they always have to be cautious of the perception of the role and its implications.)
  • This poem by a Christian is a call to other Christians to Stop Being Stereotypical.
  • William "Billy D" Usher started the website One Angry Gamer as an alternative to corporate gaming news reporters whom he felt held contempt for gamers (calling them racist, sexist, homophobes and more) what he perceived as their obvious left-wing political activism. He then became an amalgamation of every gamer stereotype imaginable, both in his articles and in his social network interactions, and developed a right-wing bias that gives reason to every slanderous anti-gamer article ever written.

If I live to be a hundred, I will never understand why there are some who are so stereotypical. It's almost as if they want to be seen badly.

  1. ↑ The later allegation that some actually racist caricatures were mixed in before showing them to religious leaders, if true, probably didn't help
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