Topic: Adding a bait_and_switch tag?

Posted under General

A bait_and_switch tag sounds like a good idea. However, I don't know about your example... I think I'd call that blue-balling the viewer. Where it's implied (or expressly stated) something erotic is coming for the viewer that's simply denied at the end. A bait_and_switch would be where one thing is implied (or expressly stated), but an (initially) undesired alternative is given. Something more like this:
https://twitter.com/tarako658/status/1406971107769389065
(where the zeraora is expecting to hook up with a female lopunny, but upon meeting up at a love hotel, it turns out to be male).

I'd be cautious about tagging based on the viewer's expectations, since that would be dependent on the viewer. The zeraora for example is clearly caught by surprise, ending up in a gay hookup instead of the expected straight one. Even if the viewer knew it was going to happen, the character was clearly bait-and-switch'd. In contrast, with post #2652250 some people were caught off guard that Ivy is male, while it was never stated or implied otherwise (some may consider "Ivy" to be a feminine name, others may not; there were actually some hints it was going to be gay, though it was easy to miss before the artist showed more clearly what was written and the notes were added), but it was still played as a surprise when revealed. For some it may have felt like a bait-and-switch, while others realized what was coming, and yet others didn't know for certain. At what point would it become a bait-and-switch on the viewer?

Pup

Privileged

watsit said:
A bait_and_switch tag sounds like a good idea. However, I don't know about your example... I think I'd call that blue-balling the viewer. Where it's implied (or expressly stated) something erotic is coming for the viewer that's simply denied at the end. A bait_and_switch would be where one thing is implied (or expressly stated), but an (initially) undesired alternative is given. Something more like this:
https://twitter.com/tarako658/status/1406971107769389065
(where the zeraora is expecting to hook up with a female lopunny, but upon meeting up at a love hotel, it turns out to be male).

I'd be cautious about tagging based on the viewer's expectations, since that would be dependent on the viewer. The zeraora for example is clearly caught by surprise, ending up in a gay hookup instead of the expected straight one. Even if the viewer knew it was going to happen, the character was clearly bait-and-switch'd. In contrast, with post #2652250 some people were caught off guard that Ivy is male, while it was never stated or implied otherwise (some may consider "Ivy" to be a feminine name, others may not; there were actually some hints it was going to be gay, though it was easy to miss before the artist showed more clearly what was written and the notes were added), but it was still played as a surprise when revealed. For some it may have felt like a bait-and-switch, while others realized what was coming, and yet others didn't know for certain. At what point would it become a bait-and-switch on the viewer?

The original example I tagged was this one, with the thumbnail being the first part then immediately swapping to the cartoon stick insect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkj6dllShao

I definitely see your points though, and I hadn't thought about that. I was more thinking where the start of a video is what you'd expect, for maybe 5 seconds, before swaping to something more troll-y. Though as you say it becomes unclear where it actually starts to be towards the viewer with your example.

While writing this I just remembered there's a misleading_thumbnail tag, which would have fit that last example perfectly, though looking at those I'd say the majority of them aren't misleading at all, which definitely highlights the problem with it.

Even if we said it was only for videos, with that definition, I think we'd still see a lot of posts where people disagreed on if it warranted the tag or not.

  • 1