[Interesting Trope] Attempts at fanservice/virality that failed not because they were hated, but because nobody noticed them or cared at all.

[u/mp3help]

1) Hoopy the Hoop, Portal (2007) When you defeat GLaDOS and her room is destroyed at the end of the game, debris rains down in the final cutscene, including a big metal hoop that bounces around a bit. Developer Erik Wolpaw said the team dubbed it "Hoopy the Hoop" and expected it to become the big meme of Portal. Of course, none of the fans paid much attention to the hoop since "The Cake is a Lie" became the biggest meme of the game, and overall one of the biggest video game memes of all time.

2) Burgh, Pokemon Black and White (2010) When designing Burgh, developer Yusuke Ohmura said Gamefreak had many of their female employees give input on his design to create their ideal handsome man. However, as someone who's been in the Pokemon fandom for almost 3 decades, in the 15+ years since Pokemon Black and White released, I have personally never seen any fans swoon over Burgh, or even mention him in general. If anything, characters like N and Colress are far more well-known within the fandom as the most handsome and beloved male characters of Pokemon Gen 5.

[u/ApartRuin5962]

"A panel of Japanese women were asked to design the ultimate attractive man"

Picture is clearly a stereotypical lesbian woman

[u/Timekeeper98 → u/ApartRuin5962]

They got it right with Rika in Gen 9. She consistently wins top 3 in female fan polls of Most Attractive Characters.

[u/blackjackgabbiani → u/Timekeeper98]

And not just of Pokémon! She won the yumijoshi poll of who Japanese women fantasize about for three years in a row. The first victory was when her game was out for just a few weeks. As of the most recent poll she's down to third, after a Detective Conan character and Pokémon's new hotness Corbeau.

[u/Accelerator231 → u/blackjackgabbiani]

Who's the detective conan character?

[u/mal99 → u/Accelerator231]

Taka'aki Morofushi, apparently

[u/blackjackgabbiani → u/mal99]

Ah thank you. I can never remember his name 

[u/SplitGlass7878 → u/Timekeeper98]

Rika is just an incredible design. Whether she would have ended up being a girl, a guy or an enby, people would have gone feral.