Dirty Social Tricks - TV Tropes

Index of social blow under the proverbial belt: The social counterpart of the physical combat index This Index Fights Dirty.

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Tropes:

• Abomination Accusation Attack— Accusing someone of being some kind of monster.
• The Baby Trap— Someone in a relationship deliberately causes a pregnancy without their partner's consent, in an attempt to bind their partner to them.
• Bad Review Threat— Threatening to give someone's business a terribly negative review.
• Bavarian Fire Drill— Act like you're in charge and people will obey you.
• Bed Trick— X sleeps with Y by pretending to be Z.
• Blackmail— Pay up or someone finds out something you want kept quiet.
  • Fabricated Blackmail: Just because the "secret" isn't real doesn't mean that someone can't do damage with it.
• Blatant Lies— Lies so obvious they lack even a shred of plausibility.
• Briar Patching— Deliberately using Reverse Psychology to gain a desired result.
• Bride and Switch— The bride isn't who the groom thinks she is.
• The Cake Is a Lie— Someone lies about the reward that will be given for completing a task.
• Calling the Cops on the FBI— Hindering covert law enforcement by making them suspicious to regular cops.
• Chewbacca Defense— "Winning" a debate through failing at logic.
• The Compliance Game— Someone tries to get someone else (usually a kid) to do something by passing it off as a game.
• Confession Deferred— Lying until either threatened or assured no harm would come from telling the truth.
• Consummation Counterfeit— Falsifying Bloodstained Defloration
• Contraception Deception— Lying to a sexual partner about one's fertility or use of contraceptives.
• Contrived Clumsiness— Publicly doing something nasty to someone else and pretending it was an accident.
• Crocodile Tears— Pretending to cry in order to gain others' sympathy.
• Dissuading the Property Buyer — Using various sabotages and tricks to prevent a property from being bought.
• Divide and Conquer: Keeping people divided and disunited, and therefore easier to control.
• Extended Greetings— Someone introduces themselves in a lengthy fashion.
• Fabricated Evidence: Creating fake evidence to support a lie.
• Faked Food Contaminant: Faking something disgusting in one's food to get a free meal/damage the restaurant's reputation.
• Fake Pregnancy— A woman lies about being pregnant.
• False Rape Accusation— Someone accuses someone else of rape, even though that person is innocent.
• Frameup— Framing an innocent person.
  • This Bear Was Framed— Making a murder look like an animal attack.
• Gaslighting— Changing things around behind someone's back to make them doubt their own sanity.
• Guilt-Tripping— Invoking guilt towards another person for a past wrongdoing.
• Horror Disguised As Play— Tricking a child into believing that something horrific they observed or experienced was "just a game."
• Intentional Mess Making— Dirtying or breaking something on purpose.
• It's a Costume Party, I Swear!— Someone is invited to a party, being told it is a costume party, and shows up wearing an elaborate costume, only to find out the party wasn't a costume party.
• Insidious Rumor Mill — Using lies and manipulation to turn everyone against someone else within the same social circle out of spite and vengeance.
• Join or Die— A villain makes an "offer" for someone to join them, or else that someone will die.
• Lending a Backhand— A character gives "help" they know is harmful.
• Leonine Contract— A bargain in which one side has no choice.
• Loophole Abuse— Blatant cheating through semantics.
• Malicious Slander— Lies and rumours spread to discredit someone.
• Marrying the Mark— Entering a relationship with someone to con or commit a crime against them.
• Model Scam— Pretending to be a person of taste and/or influence in order to take titillating pictures of another.
• Motivational Lie— Lies used to motivate someone so they can more effectively deal with a hardship.
• Moving the Goalposts— Continually changing your standards so people will never be able to meet them.
• Nonconsensual Pornography: A person creates and releases porn of someone else without the latter's consent.
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization— A rapist claims their victim enjoyed it, and therefore it was fine.
• Obfuscating Disability— Pretending to be disabled or embellishing one's preexisting disability, often to their own personal gain, specifically for sympathy and/or money.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse— An offer where the choices are "Accept or die".
• On the Rebound— After going through a bad breakup, someone very quickly jumps into a new relationship.
• Painless Death for a Price— Someone on death's doorstep is offered a Mercy Kill in exchange for something valuable.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat— Social situation presented as a battle.
• Personal Dictionary— Forcing your opponent to accept your strawman as valid in order to debate you at all.
• Playing the Age Card: A character forces someone to show respect by using their greater age.
• Playing the Family Card— A character manipulates someone by using family ties to guilt-trip them.
• Playing the Victim Card— A character uses their victimhood to resist taking responsibility for their actions.
• Police Brutality Gambit— Employing a Wounded Gazelle Gambit against authority figures to avoid punishment.
• Politeness Judo— A character gets their way simply by being polite.
• Post-Rape Taunt— A rapist taunts the hero by gloating (and lying) about how the victim "loved it", or commenting that the victim "was disappointing".
• Propping Up Their Patsy— A culprit proclaims the innocence of another suspect to conceal their own culpability or further their own agenda.
• Pushing the Debt: Saddling one's own debts to an unfortunate patsy.
• Quote Mine— Certain parts of a quote are omitted to make it sound like the author meant something different from what they actually said.
• Recorded Spliced Conversation— Passing off a modified recording of an individual as a live statement.
• Revenge Porn Blackmail: Threatening someone via indecent material of them.
• Restricted Rescue Operation— A rescue operation is hindered by outside forces.
• Sadistic Choice— Someone is forced to choose one of two terrible choices, mainly resulting in Morton's Fork.
  • Suicidal Sadistic Choice— ...or in death.
• Scarpia Ultimatum— "Have sex with me, or else your loved one gets it."
• Self-Defense Ruse: Falsely claiming self-defense to justify a murder.
• Sexual Extortion— Withholding something from a target until they agree to sex.
• Slipping a Mickey— Putting a knockout chemical into someone's drink.
• Sudden Contest Format Change—Changing the entire format of a contest or competition in the middle of it.
• Suddenly Significant Rule— When a rule or law that is usually not given much thought is suddenly invoked.
• Threatening to Cut Ties: Threatening to cut ties with someone as an intimidation tactic.
• Unsuspectingly Soused: Someone drinks a beverage unaware there is alcohol in the drink and become intoxicated. May or may not be the result of someone planning a Date Rape.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?— Someone resorts to violence to end an argument, but manages to make the other person feel guilty about it.
• Withholding the Cure— The cure really works and it is what people really need, but someone is keeping it from people for their own selfish reasons.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit— Pretending to be a victim to manipulate others.
• Wounded Gazelle Warcry— The weakest combatant rushes into harm's way to motivate the others into action.

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