Is there a word, phrase, or trope for an idea that gets more popular the more it fails?
Is there a word, phrase, or trope for an idea that gets more popular the more it fails?
Yes I know, your least-favorite idea goes here. But seriously, someone must have come up with the concept before. Like a bad get-rich-quick scheme could fall into this category, where joining the scheme makes people lose money and become more desperate, so they become more likely to do desperate things like invest more in the scheme. But it can apply to a number of other bad ideas.
That's the "sunk cost fallacy"
Sunk cost fallacy is definitely a subtype, but I'm going for I guess the more general concept of an idea that becomes more popular the worse it does
I don't think it is a subcategory I think it's the term you're looking for.
The actual phrase has its origins in a financial sense but the way it's used nowadays is much more broad. You can invest time, money, emotion, identity etc and it's still the "sunk cost fallacy" if it keeps failing and you keep going.
Sunk cost fallacy is when you use previous expenditures to justify new expenditures so as not to "waste" the previous expenditure. It doesn't imply the idea gets more popular like op is looking for.
"Streisand effect" comes to mind, but like "sunk cost fallacy" it's just an example of something "becoming more popular the more it fails."
Conservativism.
That's more of a mental disability
"Its Morbin Time" comes to mind
Springtime for Hitler. Somewhat fits. It's an intentional failure that succeeded.
Popular boondoggle is a term we used to use at work. I've never herd it used outside that job though.
Sunk cost fallacy is probably the most obvious one that springs to mind. Not unlike gambling in a sense, people feel they just need one big payout to win it all back and then some, so they keep betting, hoping that this time things will go in their favour.
Sounds about right. This keeps happening at my job, executives throwing good money after bad in an attempt to get some return on their investment. If we had just cut our losses years ago we'd be in a much better place now.
There's a certain amount of Gambler's Fallacy in this, too: I'll keep going, because it's going to turn around.
Yeah, I think it's the really the Gambler's Fallacy, even if OP doesn't describe gambling. It's the idea of "It's my turn for success to come soon -- I'm due for my turn!"
The term isn't quite as specific as you want, but it sounds like a positive feedback loop? (the linked article even gives ponzi schemes as an example)
Feels like there ought to be a term... it's kind of a mix between "vicious circle", "feedback loop", and "echo chamber".
There is the sunk-cost fallacy, but that is more about investments. I don't know if it's refers to popularity like OP wants.
I world call that "failing upward" which is fucking up your job such that you get a promotion.
It can be a thing for more skilled labor jobs. You csn be just okay at say.... running machine shop equipment. You break more stuff and make more blem parts than most of the people in the shop. But it seems like you have a grasp on the overall processes and can type well.
Boom now you're not working on machines but managing machinists. Ordering what they need, stat tracking, scheduling, product contracts etc.
Ponzi scheme? Multi-Level Marketing? Pyramid scheme?
Sunk cost fallacy?
Quicksand.
Perhaps the closest term is "cognitive dissonance." I don't think current usage best fits your description, although the original event that inspired the term certainly does.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html
Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen.
While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to “put it down to experience,” committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).
I don't know if the 'wanting is better than having' trope is the best fit but it's a decent fit and kind of caters to the social aspect of what you're describing. You know, some shiny trendy new thing and everyone's chasing after it and as people get it they're sorely disappointed, but it doesn't dissuade others one bit (sometimes the reaction from the initial acquirers causes even more appeal to those who don't have it) , until everyone is all disappointed. And then the moral of the story plays out in the resolution
I would usually refer to such a thing as a "Producers" (like the play) but that is specifically for bad ideas that suck for a majority of people but benefit a few; like the plot of the play where they make a flop to get more money than they would with a hit.
Being a straight, white man /s