Pity Ploy

A pity ploy (n.) is a term used when someone fishes for affection, compliments, or a free pass to excuse how they act by self degrading themselves to make you feel bad for them. Pity= is what the person wants from you and ploy= is the fact that they came up with a motive and plan to get pity from others. Ergo, the term pity ploy is formed. Don't be this person it's narcissistic.

Friend 1: *sends receipts of an altercation*
Friend 1: "Do you see how this bitch literally pulls an 'oh woe is me' card every time I have a valid point"
Friend 2: "omfg they do that to me too- yeah it's clear that they just wanted to come up with a pity ploy to win the argument"
Friend 1: "I know dude it's annoying as shit"

by Iwillchokeyou September 14, 2022

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pity farming

an exaggerated display of emotions with the intent to garner sympathy for oneself

In “To Kill a Mockingbird” Mayella Ewell engaged in pity farming on the witness stand.

by skuffed_up March 1, 2023

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Pity Shilling

To deflect, knowingly and unknowingly, from the problems one might have with a commercial product/a corporation's unethical behavior by turning it into an overly emotional issue centered around how a high-level executive directly responsible for said problems must have felt.

Originally used on Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch 2 forums to describe the perspective that the game's director, who misled an entire community by lying about a game feature that was heavily advertised when they knew prior to the game's release it was cancelled, must have felt too ashamed to act otherwise.

A: I feel so bad for the game director, they must have felt too bad to tell us the truth...
B: That's pity shilling- feeling too bad to do the right thing means nothing when not doing it means you are misleading people.

by monogrolo May 20, 2023

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