"You see, Wanda, we'll all terrified of embarrassment. That's why we're so... dead."
— Archie Leach, A Fish Called Wanda
People are emotional beings, and as such, they can have a variety of reactions to various situations.
One such reaction is to be completely and utterly embarrassed when caught doing something that would be seen as silly, childish, and/or completely out of character for the person doing it.
Now, the action in question can vary, depending on the person or situation, but it is almost never an illegal action, and it is seldom an immoral one. It's just embarrassing to be caught at it. Perhaps it's something the person swore up and down they'd never do. Perhaps it's just a silly or immature thing that they would have supposedly outgrown. It could be a guilty pleasure or a strange hobby or even just a random action done on a whim.
The only problem is, there are witnesses, and possibly photographs and/or video (which may further the embarrassment if it ends up on social media). This can lead to teasing, including of the Romantic Ribbing variety, Blackmail, or just straight-up mockery, though some people who walk in on such activities might agree Let Us Never Speak of This Again. In some cases, the witnesses are just as embarrassed by what they saw as the person doing it, with either or even both sides desiring a generous application of Brain Bleach. More violent individuals could resort to trying to "erase" the image from the witness by force. If they're of the more playful sort, they may use a Playful "Perv" Accusation to fluster the witness into thinking they were in the wrong.
Can overlap with Unmanly Secret and Re-creating Musical Shout-Outs. May lead to Sorry to Interrupt.
Compare Embarrassing Old Photo for when the evidence is from someone's past, often an Old Shame. Compare Interrupted Intimacy for another inappropriate thing that characters may be caught doing. Compare and contrast Caught with Your Pants Down for more...inappropriate actions one might be caught at. See Parents Walk In at the Worst Time, where parents trigger this scenario by walking in unannounced. See also Not What It Looks Like, when said embarrassing thing happens to look like something scandalous or incriminating.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: In Chapter 81, Rentarou follows Kishika after she leaves the kendo club’s meeting room. He finds her under a bridge petting herself with a fake hand and listening to prerecorded dialogue of words from Doting Parents. She’s so embarrassed about being seen in a vulnerable state that she asks Rentarou to kill her.
- K-On!: At one point a set of cat ears are left in the club room. All of the girls take turns trying them on, save for Mio, who insists she has absolutely no desire to do so. However, when the others are gone, Mio begins to put the cat ears on, only for Ritsu to walk in on her. Mio quickly shifts them and acts like she was using them as a fake mustache, but Ritsu smugly informs Mio that she's not buying it and her excuse is lame.
- Kubo Won't Let Me Be Invisible: Junta is helping his kid brother Seita do a "transformation" sequence from the young boy's favorite tv show, when he hears his own voice repeating the action. He turns to see that Nagisa Kubo is watching him, and has recorded a video of his act, which she finds cute and adorable.
- Lucky Star:
- More informed in one episode. Kagami comes into her living room to find Konata making strange voices using the electric fan. She chides Konata, but Konata defends herself, saying everyone does it. Kagami instantly denies doing so, only for her father to point out that she did it earlier that morning.
Kagami: [thinking to herself] Busted by Dad. How embarrassing.
- In another episode, Yutaka is sitting in a room, wearing a pair of headphones listening to music. She begins to bounce along to the music, and then she begins singing along with the song. Konata pokes her head out of her room, stating that it's a happy little tune, to Yutaka's embarrassment.
- More informed in one episode. Kagami comes into her living room to find Konata making strange voices using the electric fan. She chides Konata, but Konata defends herself, saying everyone does it. Kagami instantly denies doing so, only for her father to point out that she did it earlier that morning.
- In The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World, Conrad developed an Embarrassing Hobby of collecting and playing with children's toys into adulthood as a way of overcompensating for his Lonely Rich Kid life under his abusive father. His would-be fiancee discovered him with these toys and outed his hobby to the public, with the resulting scandal threatening to ruin his family's reputation. The sheer stress triggered his Start of Darkness when he accepted a Mana Seed from Vidara to create his ideal playground where he'll never be judged again.
- Teasing Master Takagi-san:
- Nishikata is walking to school during a typhoon, and at one point decides to act like he's controlling the wind, only for Takagi to see him acting out with his arms raised into the air. He tries to deny what he was doing, only for Takagi to point out she didn't ask. Along the path to school, Takagi acts out Nishikata's actions to let him know she saw everything until she adds a bit, only for Nishikata to state that he never went that far, then realize he basically admitted to Takagi that the rest of what she's quoted was dead on.
- Another frequent source of embarrassment for Nishikata is his love for the manga series 100% Unrequited Love. It's a girly shoujo manga that most boys his age wouldn't be caught dead reading, but Takagi always manages to catch Nishikata buying the latest volume. She even advises him that if he likes something, he should just admit it, but he stubbornly clings to his denial, which Takagi takes great delight in stripping away from him whenever she is able to demonstrate his love for and knowledge of the series.
Asian Animation
- In episode 11 of 4 Angies, the principal is playing with toys, which he wants kept a secret, and Pui discovers it by accident while searching for him. Pui presses the button to a secret door to the principal's toy room, and the principal, after screaming like a little girl, keeps pressing the button to close it, eventually forcing it down so that Pui can't open the door even though she's pressing the button to open it.
Fan Works
- In Dancing Queen👁 Image
(a fanfic of Ghostbusters (1984)), Egon is shocked at his girlfriend catching him dancing to "Dancing Queen" by ABBA and singing along using a test tube as a Mock Microphone. - Duran and Kiyohime's Omake Theater: Shizuru actually explains that this is why it's easy to tease Natsuki, because she gets all flustered and embarrassed when someone calls her out on her actions, when if she simply admitted to liking certain things, she could cut off teasing. Natsuki remarks, "So, tell the truth and shame the devil?" Shizuru smirks at being referred to as "the devil".
Natsuki: But Shizuru, I've never denied liking fruitcake.
Shizuru: That's true, but, Natsuki, you like fruitcake. I can't help it if you've chosen to be shameless about the one thing that is truly embarrassing. - Riding a Sunset: During the Hard-Work Montage to start building the Autobots' Earth base, Ratchet (thinking he's alone) starts dancing to the music Bumblebee is playing over the speakers. Brawn and Wheeljack catch him. He's angry and embarrassed, chasing them out with a wrench.
- Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: One Omake homages Spaceballs by having Asuka play with dolls of Power Girl, Wonder Girl and Shinji and having Power Girl beat Wonder Girl in a fight then smooch with Shinji... then the real Shinji barges into her room and pretends he did not saw her playing because he knows it's best for him to do so.
Films — Animation
- Robots: While giving Rodney a brief tour of Aunt Fanny's house, Fender accidentally leads him into his little sister's room while Piper is giving herself a beauty treatment. She's embarrassed and yells at him to get out. Fender, being her older brother, takes a moment to tease her a bit before he finally leads Rodney out.
- Turning Red: The girls discover Tyler fangirling (or fanboying) in the 4*Town concert. After getting caught, Tyler gets embarrassed and pretends he's not Tyler. The girls welcome him by the end.
- Zootopia (2016): When Clawhauser sees Chief Bogo is also a fan of Gazelle, Chief Bogo gets embarrassed.
Films — Live-Action
- Babe: After Babe falls sick following running out into a storm, Hoggett tries to lift his spirit by doing a dance jig. Just as he finishes, he turns and finds most of the barnyard animals looking at him through the door.
- Iron Man (2008): Discussed in the form of a Noodle Incident; when Pepper Potts finds Tony having trouble getting out of his latest Iron Man armor, he remarks "Let's face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing".
- Love Actually: After the US President’s visit, the Prime Minister dances through the halls of Number Ten to "Jump for my Love", and finds, when turning and pointing, that a staffer has been watching.
- Proof (1991): Exploited. Martin, a blind man, is sitting on the toilet, reading a book in Braille. His possessive housekeeper, Celia, barges in, takes a photo with a Polaroid and walks out. She uses the photo as a bargain chip to make Martin finally agree to go on a date with her, first describing to him how she could pin the photo to his clothes or hang it on a noticeboard for everyone to see and how people would never treat him the same and he would never find out, preying on Martin's insecurities.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): While Robotnik is waiting for his computer to analyze Sonic's quill, he decides to mess around with a video projector to the song "Where Evil Grows". He doesn't notice Stone walk in on him until he turns around as he's dancing and jumps in surprise.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024): When Sonic and company go to meet up with Dr. Robotnik, who has lost even more of his sanity and has really let himself go, they find him listening to cheesy music and using his huge stomach as a drum. He screams when he realizes who just walked into his lair.
- The Sound of Music: After Maria arrives she is left alone in the entry hall while Captain VonTrapp is summoned. She wanders into the empty party room next door and starts dancing, pretending that she can hear music and is with a partner. This is how the captain discovers her. She's flustered.
- Spaceballs: Colonel Sandurz catches Dark Helmet playing with dolls, specifically having the Dark Helmet doll getting kissy-face with the Princess Vespa doll. Judging by the way he (very unconvincingly) denies having witnessed the scene, this is not the first time it's happened.
- Stardust: When Septimus is trying to take Tristan and Yvaine, he attacks Captain Shakespeare, revealing the latter's crossdressing habits to his crew, to his shame. Or so he thought. As he's lamenting that he was exposed in such a way, one of his crew tries to cheer him up by telling him that they all already knew, though he earns himself a Dope Slap from the others for how he expressed it.
Crewman: It's all right, Captain. We all knew you was a whoopsy. [Dope Slap from other crewmates]
Literature
- Danny, the Champion of the World: Danny's headmaster Mr Snoddy always brings a glass of water into class. One day, Danny walks into Mr Snoddy's office without knocking, and sees Mr Snoddy filling the glass from a bottle of gin.
- The Famous Five: Through the series, Julian is very much the sensible member of the group, and pompous to go with it. However, before this is established, he is caught being overly playful in the first book Five on a Treasure Island. The evening before the Five are planning to explore a wrecked ship, he turns a table upside down with a crash, saying "this is the wreck, we are going to play at exploring it". The crash disturbs Uncle Quentin, who bursts in, is surprised by Julian (rather than George) making such a row, and threatens to keep them all in bed tomorrow if there is any further noise.
- Fire Engine By Mistake: This happens to two important men at the factory: Mr Billings the foreman, and Mr Middleton, the works manager.
- While drinking his tea, Mr Billings thinks of his children, and wiggles his ears, which he never does at work; then sees that Jack the tea-boy is staring at him, and this makes him very angry. Soon after this, he admires the new fire engine, and pulls the hand bell, making people think there is a fire; and again, he is nearly caught by Jack the tea-boy, but then tells Jack off for ringing the bell.
- In his pride at getting away with ringing the bell, Mr Billings does not look where he is going, and walks straight into a door marked "Important Meeting. Private. Do not disturb.", and finds Mr Middleton with his feet up, eating peanuts, which he would not do in front of his haughty secretary. In their fury and embarrassment, Mr Middleton and Mr Billings do not speak to each other again for two weeks and two days.
- Fudge: In the second book Superfudge, Peter comes home from school to see his grandmother (who is visiting) dancing with his baby sister, Tootsie, in the nursery while singing the old song "Toot-Toot-Tootsie!" to her. She's a bit embarrassed when she notices Peter there, but he doesn't hold it against her.
- In his second autobiography Going Solo, Roald Dahl describes the mad behaviour of his fellow passengers on the ship which took him to Africa, when he happened to see what they were doing. He sees a Major prancing naked round the ship's deck in the middle of the night, although the Major does not seem bothered by this at all. Dahl later walks in on his cabin-mate U. N. Savory putting on a wig. Savory is at first furious that Dahl discovered his shameful secret of being bald, but then smugly explains his strategy of hiding this by carrying four wigs, each of a different length, and sprinkling Epsom Salts on his shoulders to look like dandruff.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Downplayed; when Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which he sees himself together with his parents who are actually dead, Harry keeps returning to gaze into it, breaking school rules about being out of bounds. One night, the headmaster Dumbledore surprises him by saying "back again, Harry?". Harry is embarrassed to be caught, but Dumbledore kindly explains the purpose of the mirror, tells him that it will be moved to a new home tomorrow, and not to look for it again.
Live-Action TV
- In the TV miniseries Anne of Avonlea, Anne is feeling overwhelmed at Diana's wedding, so she sneaks away to a hedgerow. She pretends to dance with a man and even holds a one-sided conversation with "him". Then Gilbert discovers her. She's twice as flustered as normal because she's been trying to avoid him.
- Blackadder: A brief moment in "The Archbishop" in the first series. Soon after Edmund, Baldrick, and Percy have come across a replica of Joan of Arc's breasts, Edmund is seen holding this to his own chest, as Baldrick enters.
- The Brittas Empire: In "The Trial", Brittas finds a gun in the lost-and-found box at his office and, thinking it to be a toy gun, starts playing with it. When Linda walks into the office and announces her presence, he abruptly stops his game, suggesting that he's flustered to some degree that he's been caught doing something so childish.
- Drake & Josh: In "The Bet", Drake and Josh make a bet on whether Drake can go without eating junk food longer than Josh can go without playing video games. While Josh is alone in the kitchen, he starts playing with the buttons on the microwave and blender, saying words like "Reheat!" and "Blend!" like it’s a video game. Drake walks in and sees him, and he laughs and calls him pathetic. Josh then leaves (with the blender), and Drake then starts affectionately rubbing some snack cakes and talking to them. It turns out Josh saw that, too, and Josh calls Drake pathetic and laughs at him.
- Fawlty Towers: In "The Psychiatrist", this is almost a Running Gag, as the titular psychiatrist Dr Abbott (or Mrs Abbott) keeps appearing whenever Basil is doing something embarrassing: beating his chest Tarzan style, listening at the door of Mr Johnson's room, shaking Manuel upside down, and finally hopping about with his jacket pulled over his head, and collapsing on his side in a Troubled Fetal Position. Mrs Abbott then looks to her husband for professional advice, who says "I'm on holiday".
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: One of the series' most memorable moments is the first appearance of "The Carlton". While (thinking) he's alone in the house, Carlton turns on Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual" and starts dancing to it while doing the aforementioned dance and using a candlestick as a microphone. Will inevitably catches him. Carlton, embarrassed, turns off the music, hands Will the candlestick, and walks out without a word.
- The Golden Girls: When Dorothy hires a nurse for Sophia, Rose and Blanche both have complaints about her... and in the process imply that they both do rather strange things after dark:
Blanche: Dorothy, at 2 AM this morning I was entertaining a gentleman caller, when she opened the door, at the most inopportune time! I could've lost my balance and chipped a tooth!
Rose: You think that's annoying? She came into my room last night when I was reenacting the gangplank scene from Peter Pan!
Dorothy: What the hell goes on at night in this house?! - House of Anubis:
- Towards the end of season 1, the students are preparing for the prom. Fabian is trying to practice his dancing when Mick — himself recently taught by Amber and Mara — decides to teach him. The two slow-dance together in the living room, believing that they're in private. Unfortunately, their friends creep in to watch and start clapping when they end with a dip. Mick panics and drops Fabian, who pops up awkwardly a moment later, as their friends laugh at them.
- In season 2, one of the tunnel tasks involves a dangerous game of hopscotch with a very specific movement pattern. Nina, Amber, and Fabian practice in the house hallway before the dance starts, and Fabian, normally the Athletically Challenged one in the house, is elated to have gotten it right. His mood is instantly dashed when Alfie and Jerome appear, Jerome mocking him as "a little girl" and Alfie giving him a disgusted, disappointed look. Fabian says that they should stop before he loses any more "street cred", prompting Amber to joke that he had none in the first place.
- How I Met Your Mother: Ted had been working on a model of the Empire State Building, and of course being a rom com fan . . .
Robin: Ted were you just playing out the final scene of Sleepless in Seattle on your model Empire State Building?
Ted: How long have you been standing there?
Robin: A few seconds.
Ted: Then yes, just the last scene. - I Love Lucy: In "Lucy Raises Chickens'', the Ricardos and Mertzes realize they need to do country work to bring income to their household, so they decide to raise chickens and sell eggs. The problem however, is that Lucy and Ethel buy 500 chicks before Fred can finish the coop, and Lil Ricky, coming across the chicks who were put into the guest room, inadvertently lets them loose through the house. The group has to scramble to find them and Lucy, having trouble reclaiming the last batch, acts like a mother hen to get them to follow her...right before a magazine company that wanted to do an expose on their house and a fellow neighbor arrives and catches her in the act of doing so.
- Keeping Up Appearances: Hyacinth is always terrified of herself or Richard being caught doing something untoward, and sometimes she catches Richard doing something overly playful.
- While on the telephone, Hyacinth recalls a time she caught Richard having a childish moment.
Hyacinth: I once caught Richard playing with a Frisbee. He says he had found it, but sometimes I lie awake at night, wondering: did he buy the Frisbee?
- Another time, when Elizabeth is visiting for coffee, Hyacinth looks out of the window, and screams in horror, frightening Elizabeth. She goes outside to see two pairs of feet sticking up over the hedge, and then Richard and Emmet appear, saying "we were trying to see if we could still do it". This comes after Emmet encouraged him to be more playful.
- While on the telephone, Hyacinth recalls a time she caught Richard having a childish moment.
- The Middle: In "The Waiting Game", while Frankie is driving her kids around in her car, she stops at a red light, and Mike unknowingly pulls up next to them. Frankie and the kids are completely shocked to see Mike is singing along to "More Than a Feeling". Once Mike notices them, he quickly drives away. When they all get home, Mike’s family teases him about it while Mike denies it ever happened.
Music
- Koit: At the end of "When She's Not Around", the singer is embarrassed to see his wife come home when he's right in the middle of goofing around in her clothes.
Web Animation
- Teen Girl Squad: In the "Tenthennial Extravaganza in 24 Great Smelling Colors", Strong Bad gives The Ugly One a complete makeover for her Sweet Someteen birthday party, to his own surprise. While the comic initially shows her getting her typical They Killed Kenny Again treatment, he swaps the pages, appearing in the comic as a muscular construction worker, then proceeds to make out with The Ugly One. We then cut to the Homestar Runner universe where he is shown making out with the paper, with Strong Mad, Strong Sad, and The Cheat all looking puzzled at him. He then attempts to eat the paper and claims that it's a slice of pizza, before quickly ending the comic. Strong Sad then asks him if he was "first base-ing it with that piece of looseleaf".
- RWBY Chibi: Averted in the episode 7 skit "Jaune Experiments", Jaune walks in Team RWBY's dorm and decides to play around with their weapons. By the time he gets to Weiss' Myrtenaster sword, the team walks into him imitating her Dance Battler combat style, with a mix of shock (Weiss and Blake) and amusement (Ruby and Yang). Rather than be embarrassed, Jaune responds with a jokingly "Don't be jealous" comment.
- Ex-VShojo talent Projekt Melody has a tendency of having her stream raided at worst timing possible, usually whenever she's talking about something related to her "Yoga" job, leading to some embarrassing moments. One example👁 Image
had her get raided by PorcelainMaid during a birthday stream, specifically around the time she started talking about pig tails.
Western Animation
- Arthur:
- In "All Thumbs", Arthur comes over to visit his friend Buster, and finds the latter playing a video game and sucking his thumb, much to the embarrassment of both boys.
- In "That's a Baby Show!", some of Arthur's friends see him through the window, watching a preschool show called Love Ducks. To save face, he grabs his baby sister Kate and pretends he's just watching it with her.
- Duck Dodgers: In "A Lame Duck Mind", the President of Space accidentally locks himself inside his bedroom closet. While he’s in there, he entertains himself by dressing like his wife and doing a mocking impression of her, but then Dodgers, the Cadet, I.Q. Hi, Manobrain, and the President’s wife manage to unlock the closet door, and see him. The President is scared to see his wife giving him a Death Glare, while I.Q. Hi asks Manobrain to use his psychic powers to make him forget seeing that, which he does.
- Family Guy had a cutaway flashback where Stewie enters in Lois's room asking for graham crackers, only to notice Brian dressed as and pretending to be a woman, much to the embarrassment and awkwardness of both of them.
Brian: Hey.
Stewie: Hey. Playing a little dress-up?
Brian: Yeah.
Stewie: Yeah, good. It's fun to pretend. - Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "World Wide Wabbit", Mac and Bloo shoot video of the usually staid and serious Mr. Herriman entertaining Madame Foster with a cutesy "Funny Bunny" song. They show it to the other friends in the house, and then Bloo posts it online and it goes viral. Herriman is livid when he finds out.
- Gravity Falls: In "Dipper vs. Manliness", when Dipper tries to tell his uncle and sister that he's manly, Stan brings up "last Tuesday's...incident." A Gilligan Cut reveals that said incident was Stan accidentally walking in on Dipper wearing a towel and singing along to BABBA's "Disco Girl" (an obvious parody of ABBA's "Dancing Queen").
- Hey Arnold!: In one episode, while trying to leave school early, Helga runs into the principal wearing a sombrero and carrying two maracas while dancing. When he realizes she saw him, the two decide not to rat each other out and state that they never saw each other.
- Martha Speaks:
- In "Alice Twinkle Toes", Alice is embarrassed at liking ballet because she thinks she's too clumsy to be a ballerina. As such, when her friends see her dancing, she tries to pretend she was just trying to reach her swim goggles.
- In "There Goes the Neighbourhood", Martha is embarrassed when Skits catches her helping Kitten clean himself, as she doesn't want to admit that she's made friends with a cat.
- In "Martha's Dirty Habit", Martha and Danny make a deal where she will give up digging if he gives up snacking. They both run into each other almost breaking the bet and awkwardly try to make excuses.
- Miraculous Ladybug: In "Oblivio", Marinette and Adrien have their memories erased and are being chased through Tour Montparnasse by a faceless akuma called Oblivio who claims to be their best friend. At the end of the episode, Oblivio is revealed to be Nino and Alya, who got akumatized because they were mortified about getting caught playing Super Penguino on a class field trip and wanted everyone to forget that it happened.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In the episode "Spongebob's Place", Squidward does a childish dance when he sees the Krusty Krab is empty, and gets embarrassed when Mr. Krabs, Spongebob, and the Krusty Krab patrons catch him in the act.
- In "Prehibernation Week", one Running Gag is that a background fish is revealed to secretly dress in children's clothes and accessories (like a lollipop and a paddle toy) while riding a tricycle. Whenever this happens, other characters just stare at him blankly while he nervously says, "Uh, I can explain."
- Tangled: The Series: At the end of the episode "Return of the King", Eugene shows his girlfriend some of the old toys that his father gave him. The two, while looking at them, end up playing with the old toys... and are a bit embarrassed when someone walks in on them. Eugene saves face by insisting they were "reminiscing", not playing.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise: In one episode, Strongarm has started using a 24 hour drive-thru carwash late at night (with the implication that it's basically like getting a relaxing massage or spa treatment for a Cybertronian). Sideswipe catches her doing so and uses this to blackmail her into doing the assignments that Bumblebee gives him that he doesn't like. Eventually Bumblebee reveals that he's known about what Strongarm was doing the whole time and was just waiting to see how far things would go, and at the end of the episode, all three of them are shown enjoying the carwash.