Blame can sting a lot when it’s something we care about. To be blamed for baking an ugly cake would matter a little, to be blamed for being selfish matters more. Similarly, when a stranger blames me for a particular act I might not take it to heart as much as when I’m blamed for the same thing by a close friend. This paper aims to explore what these varying strengths can mean for our understanding of blame, as well as for the existence of various normative categories. In particular, it will look at some of the more extreme cases: cases when we get blamed by bad people, or for bad reasons. I’ll begin by clarifying the ‘bad blame’ phenomenon that I want to pinpoint. Next, I’ll show how we might be tempted to dismiss these cases as not being real instances of blame, either in terms of whether the blamer has the standing to blame or in terms of whether the blame is fitting. Finally, I’ll argue that this doesn’t account for all types of bad blame – and that something different is going on that can actually make genuine blame seem good for us.