Diary of a Wimpy Kid/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is Greg really a major Woobie who suffers both being The Unfavorite and being bullied in school or is he an Unreliable Narrator who over exaggerates the cruelty he suffers to downplay his own Jerkassness?
  • He's a kid; it's probably a little of both.
  • This makes more sense if you assume The Movie is the actual depiction of events, since many scenes had to be changed for dramatic tension (eg. Greg writes that he scared kindergartners with a worm, which led to his expulsion from the Safety Patrol, while in the movie he abandoned them in a pit at a construction site.)
• Big Lipped Alligator Moment: In the movie, Rowley and his mother dance to "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys. Not only is it a BLAM, but when compared to the books Rowley's parents don't seem Beastie Boys types.
  • A few books often have 'mini-plots' which have little to do with the main plot. Justifed, since this is intended to be a journal.
• Crazy Awesome: Roderick at times. Greg also does this in The Getaway, leading the police on a high-speed boat chase, getting to swim th the dolphins, and throwing Isla De Corales into chaos by accident.
• Downer Ending: The fourth book ends with Greg and Rowley's friendship temporarily in shambles and Greg's vacation being absolutely atrocious.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Fregley is a pretty popular character with fans.
  • Rodrick has a legion of fangirls.
    • Blame Adaptational Attractiveness in the movie for that.
  • The movie-only character Angie.
• Even Better Sequel: Many find the second movie to be better than the first.
• Fridge Brilliance: Read the books and you will notice that Rodrick, Rowley, Manny, and Fregley are all drawn in a rather unflattering style. This makes sense because Greg doesn't like them and wants to depict them negatively.
  • Uh, Greg does like Rowley, he just doesn't always treat him the best.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The books and the first movie are extremely popular in Singapore. It's actually so popular among Singaporean crowds, Fox decided to release the sequel over there 8 days before the US and the rest of the world.
• Ho Yay: From the movie:

Rowley: Hey Bryce, cute butt!

• Hilarious in Hindsight: The comic strip Wacky Dawg, stopped being funny when the comic stopped making jokes and was about the dog essentially became a mouthpiece for the opinions that the creator had - sounds kinda familiar when you think about it, doesn't it?
  • In the 3rd book, Greg said that in the future, everyone will have a personal robot that tells you whatever you need to know. The iPhone 4S, anyone?
• Jerkass Woobie: Let's not sugar coat it. Greg is lazy, self-centered, a mild example of a Ted Baxter...but he suffers from Middle Child Syndrome, gets picked on by bullies at school and Rodrick at home and Rowley's parents consider him to be a bad influence on their son. It's really easy to see why he's prone to Jerkass moments. Not to mention that little if any of his plans are successful, which in really turns him into a Iron Woobie.
• Nightmare Fuel: The picture of Alfrendo on page 188 of Cabin Fever.
• Moral Event Horizon: Manny leaving the whole family to die in Cabin Fever.
• Older Than You Think: The defense that "It's a journal, not a diary!" was used by another 11 year old kid before Greg existed.
  • Also, the aforementioned Wacky Dawg incident actually happened in real life Newspaper Comics decades before the first book.
• The Scrappy: Manny and the Pig.
• Squick: In the second movie, Greg eats the melted chocolate on his butt because everyone thinks it's poop and he wants to prove it's chocolate.