[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/BlueHero45]

I can see why he thought that. Cthulhu's story is pretty short and simple. Started to wake up, weird things happened around the world, hit his head and went back to sleep. Guy is a priest for the great old ones so he's not even the boss.

[u/centauriproxima → u/BlueHero45]

Cthulhu only beat out Yog-Sothoth because he's easier to draw imo

The dragon/gorilla/squid thing is much more marketable than whatever galactic kaleidoscope form Yog is taking that day

[u/BlueHero45 → u/centauriproxima]

Ya I was just thinking the same thing. Many of the monsters are "Undescribeable" while Cthulhu gets a pretty good description that even with a few different interpretations people can still point and say "That's Cthulhu." Lovecraft accidentally stumbled into making a mascot.

[u/PeppercornWizard → u/BlueHero45]

Cthulhu is supposed to be like that but pop culture has fucked it up.

The sketch and what people remember as the description Lovecraft did was specifically of the Cthulhu statue. He describes it in these terms;

Above these apparent hieroglyphics was a figure of evidently pictorial intent, though its impressionistic execution forbade a very clear idea of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful

Clearly the narrator is struggling to actually describe the thing accurately.

When the Big C actually turns up, we get;

Its gelatinous green immensity

The Thing cannot be described—there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order

pursuing jelly

awful squid-head with writhing feelers

the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form

Any depictions of Cthulhu from the idols or glyphs are basically there to demonstrate how they pale against the real thing. My point is pop media never really gets this right. They just make a squid monster and call it a day.

[u/TheSquishedElf → u/PeppercornWizard]

Closest I can compare to the actual Cthulhu description is The Deity from Dredge (lighting is purple but it’s probably a non-descript green from when there’s flashes of lightning)

[u/TheSquishedElf → u/TheSquishedElf]

Wow Reddit sucks. No image for u.