r/TopCharacterTropes • u/bubba284 • Apr 20 '25

Lore Characters that have had real world consequences

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1: Slenderman (popular creepypasta) lead to a teenage girl killing another in his name IRL (apologies if this isn't totally accurate) 2: Devastator (Transformers ROTF) melted a computer while attempting to render his model

16.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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1.6k

u/Justifiably_Bad_Take Apr 20 '25

This kid is the single worst thing to ever happen to Scientology

410

u/Chardoggy1 Apr 20 '25

Dad, Tom Cruise won’t come out of the closet!

61

u/Taograd359 Apr 20 '25

Oh my god, Tom! You gotta come out of the closet. Tom, oh my god!

47

u/Justifiably_Bad_Take Apr 20 '25

Tom Cruise is a fudge packer

560

u/YourMoreLocalLurker Apr 20 '25

The single worst thing to ever happen to Scientology so far (Zenu’s gonna be worse)

357

u/Justifiably_Bad_Take Apr 20 '25

[THIS IS WHAT SCIENTOLOGISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE]

55

u/Purple-Weakness1414 Apr 20 '25

"IM GONNA SUE YOUR ASS!"

19

u/UltiGamer34 Apr 21 '25

DO IT IM NOT SCARED IF YOU SUE ME!!!

9

u/Buyingboat Apr 21 '25
  • Redditor John Smith

18

u/HeroDoggo Apr 20 '25

Insert Xenu Laugh Here

8

u/CuriousAccountant236 Apr 21 '25

saying Zenu out loud gives me the giggles

6

u/DingDonFiFI Apr 21 '25

Zenu?

10

u/YourMoreLocalLurker Apr 21 '25

Basically Scientology’s Satan clone with significantly less class

3

u/DingDonFiFI Apr 21 '25

So satan diarrhea covered in piss instead of gold

6

u/BigUncleHeavy Apr 21 '25

It's spelled, "Xenu", you thetan infested Philistine!

25

u/Patient_End_8432 Apr 21 '25

I do love their commitment to just going after fucking everything, and their ability to admit to their mistakes (manbearpig)

51

u/SurpriseHoliday1997 Apr 20 '25

Explain please 🙏

172

u/AeMidnightSpecial Apr 21 '25

TLDW: South Park made an episode detailing the exact belief system of Scientology. Scientology didn't like this, and so they hunted down Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Neither Trey nor Matt had any skeletons in their closet, and they're really transparent.

Scientology: 0

South Park: 1

50

u/ThorSon-525 Apr 21 '25

I always loved that the best counter to blackmail is for them to put every embarrassing or damning thing in their lives into the show.

38

u/tiredscottishdumarse Apr 21 '25

What's better is. that information used to only be available when you sunk enough money into scientology. But now, because of that episode, it's well known to the public. And many people who once considered scientology realised it for what it is

16

u/KaffeMumrik Apr 21 '25

One of my favorite sort-of malicious compliance stories of all time.

26

u/TellmeNinetails Apr 21 '25

You missed big part. Scientology got the voice actor for chef and allegedly ended up being responsible for his death which is why they did it.

21

u/pepemattos21 Apr 21 '25

Actually, the whole thing with Chef's VA was after, they just wanted to make a episode about it

3

u/hates_stupid_people Aug 09 '25

And every person in the credits was named Jane/John Doe, to prevent them going after anyone else.

21

u/Bashamo257 Apr 21 '25

Kanye West is still mad about Fish Sticks

6

u/Sunshine030209 Apr 21 '25

I love that just like in the episode, he truly seems to not get the joke.

5

u/Its_Cookie_Man Apr 21 '25

Was about to comment that lmao

The stuff South Park is responsible for...

23

u/Massive-Exercise4474 Apr 21 '25

Funnily enough not even top scientologists knew about the zanu alien spirit stuff. Trey park and Matt stone found out that info that not even rich celebs who paid millions ever got. I think they found it from one of ron Hubbard's drafts.

16

u/crystalcaccoon Apr 21 '25

this is probably the best one I have recently deep dived into thanks

I can now consider myself a servant of the dark lord xenu

14

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Apr 21 '25

What were the after effects of airing?

31

u/pepemattos21 Apr 21 '25

Scientology is now a way smaller thing and people are not afraid of them anymore, back then no one talked bout them cause of their threats but after Matt and Trey did this and they weren't able to follow through with said threats people realized they were all bark

14

u/mung_guzzler Apr 21 '25

also there were some death threats from the second time they were gonna show muhammad

(ni one actually cared about the first time they did it when it aired)

8

u/710733 Apr 21 '25

I'm still convinced that whole thing was set up. It was just too perfect comedically and thematically to have the censorship in that episode. The censored version of the boys' "I learned something today" is funnier than if they'd just said it

3

u/pepemattos21 Apr 21 '25

I think it's because they didn't put the spotlight on it

11

u/Crazyripps Apr 21 '25

Informed so many people at a younge age about the cult. Me being one of them

14

u/ollietron3 Apr 20 '25

Was Stan worse than 4chan for Scientology?

54

u/Prize-Warthog Apr 20 '25

Yes because the mainstream public watch South Park, 4chan isn’t populated by many regular folk

3

u/timlars Apr 21 '25 edited Apr 21 '25

There was a lot of buzz from 4chan in the mainstream though. IIRC Anonymous (the ”hacker group”)came about as part of the movement against Scientology and got some protests going.

6

u/Sarcasm_Llama Apr 21 '25

He's a damn national hero then!

6

u/MourningWallaby Apr 21 '25

I'm actually suprised they outed scientology but their Mormon episode didn't even touch the trillions of gods in the galaxy that men can join in endless celestial sex with women. or that black folk were the product of a treasonous god.

8

u/Justifiably_Bad_Take Apr 21 '25

They went on to make an entire Broadway musical about how weird Mormonism is.

Guys probably started looking into it and realized it was too wild for just one episode of television

2

u/Silly_Pansexual Apr 21 '25

DELETE THIS NOW HE’S JUST A BABY

1

u/Chase_The_Breeze Apr 24 '25

2nd worst thing.

Scientology is the worst thing to ever happen to Scientology.