[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/Few-Advantage2538]

Also from Pokémon, zeraora, known by some as zero aura

[u/Heliozen → u/Few-Advantage2538]

Zeraora could have become popular if it was a regular pokemon instead of a mythical. People won't care for a pokemon they can't have in their team

[u/TheKingsPride → u/Heliozen]

Tons of mythicals are very popular, but most of them are cute. This thing goes for cool and flops

[u/Conocoryphe → u/TheKingsPride]

Deoxys was pretty popular in gen 3, and its design is definitely more cool than cute.

Though unlike Zeraora, it was a really unique Pokémon at the time with its form change gimmick, its min-maxed stat spreads, and its origin as a mysterious alien (the Deoxys movie and a handful of gen 4 game events also helped).

Zeraora was just yet another humanoid furry Pokémon and doesn't really have anything to set it apart from others. It's just there.

[u/Elihzap → u/TheKingsPride]

I'd say that people don't care for cool mons that they can't have in their teams. it's a different feeling, cute mons get a pass if they're in movies and plushies and such.