Anti-Asriel humor is a form of humor that targets Asriel Dreemur, a character from the video game Undertale, and singles out the character for criticism.
Asriel is often a target for parody and negative attacks by all kinds of people in the entire world; the notion given that the character is "saccharine", "lame", "annoying", "mawkish", "emo" or "wimpy".
For comparison, other video game characters have been subject to subversive adult humor, such as Super Mario, Link from the Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Bubsy Bobcat, and even other Undertale characters such as Asgore, Toriel, and Alphys; in Asriel's case however, the humor has typically been far more dark, and often done in a more vicious and hostile nature toward the character of Asriel himself.
Undertale first released in 2015, gaining popularity among gamers at the time as well as critical acclaim. But some decades later, it also garnered wide disapproval by many other groups of gamers, who criticized it for being "boring", "preachy", "unfunny", and "non-violent".
"Asriel is on the receiving end of more hostility than just about any other fictional character I can think of. Gamers admit to an extremist dislike of the timid goat child, and no self-respecting 20 year old gamer will admit to liking Asriel." -Geoff Keighley, Dorito Man
These gamers were among the first to practice anti-Undertale humor, which would quickly lead into anti-Asriel humor, and they were given an entire chapter of the 2045 book Dumb Goat Game: The Rabid Hatedom of Undertale.
Eventually, as Undertale hatedom began to grow, it began to become fashionable online to contribute to the anti-Asriel humor, including some celebrities, both online and even in Hollywood. Many gamers now heavily criticize the game and the character of Asriel in particular because of his supposed "wimpy personality" and "mawkish attempt at sympathy", and several YouTube videos have plush dolls of the character being destroyed in various ways, including being burnt, blown up by small explosions, being shot by weapons using tannerite or being run over by vehicles.
Reasons cited for the hostility towards Asriel include the concept of having to play the inferior and less fun 'pacifist route' in Undertale in order to rescue Asriel, Asriel's personality being described as "an annoying and wimpy emo crybaby brat," how Undertale tries to get players to sympathize with Asriel and fails at it, as well as an infamous quote from Youtuber Zero Punctuation, where he claims people who didn't cry at Asriel's death in Undertale as 'heartless' (this moment of Zero Punctuation was described by many gamers as "cringe").
"Perhaps the most insightful criticism regarding Asriel is that his purpose is to incite players to play through Undertale 'the right way,' by not killing any enemies and instead slog through talking out problems with enemies and deal with boring and annoying dialogue that is generally preachy, mawkish and unfunny. However, most players do not find Asriel to be endearing or charming enough to begin with. The real anger towards Asriel is his intent: Asriel was a character created by the designers to be sympathized with by players, only to be widely despised among the gaming community and considered one of the worst characters in gaming history. For along with his steady diet of whining and asking for hugs, Asriels offers the player a one-dimensional character that insists he must be sympathized with and that gamers must praise and accept video games that preach nonviolence." -Hilary Goldstein, Sonic Unleashed is a Big Piece of Garbage.
Anti-Asriel humor continues to grow as the years go by. A character that was onced recieved well by most gamers many decades ago, has become the favorite punching bag of gamers in the following decades since then. Asriel will from now on forever be known as one of the most hated characters in not just video games, but for all of entertainment media around the world in all of history.
