Truth In Television - Television Tropes & Idioms

Once in a while, a TV show does something that actually happens in Real Life. Rarely, other shows pick up on this, and you then get a recurring trope that accurately reflects the real world. Listed here, for your convenience, are some examples of those.

The Dark Side of this trope occurs in Ripped From The Headlines.

When it's the exact opposite, you've got a bad case of Reality Is Unrealistic. If people fall for it, it's because TV Never Lies.

The Bastard Spawn of these two tropes gives us Inspired By.

Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Public colleges in Mexico often have an Absurdly Powerful Student Association, capable of granting all sorts of suspicious favors to those who have the appropiate connections.
Acquired Situational Narcissism
Afraid Of Needles: Belonephobia; the plague of the Big Damn Heroes.
Age Appropriate Angst
Air Hugging
Air Vent Escape: Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers escaped Alcatraz using this method.
Alcohol Is Poison: Pregnant women briefly become teetotalers.
Alien Lunch
All Part Of The Show
Along Came A Spider: The Zodiac Killer
And Ninety Nine Cents
And The Winner Is: Much to the embarrassment of whoever stands up.
A Team Firing: Happened to a remarkable degree in World War Two, due to the natural human aversion to killing.
Attention Whore
Ax Crazy: to the great dismay of many
Awesome Moment Of Crowning: Most memorable moments in history qualify as these for somebody: check the page.
Badass Boast: Samurais in feudal Japan started their duels by telling their own and their ancestors' achievements.
Batteries Not Included: Childrens toys eat batteries the way kids eat candy after Halloween.
Bedouin Rescue Service: Real Bedouins have a code of honour that mandates this.
Beeping Computers: Windows Vista's UAC, and to a lesser degree, Ubuntu Linux's gksu.
Berserk Button: Just about everybody has one. Some of us don't know it or try to keep it locked down.
Bigger Is Better
Boxed Crook
British Stuffiness (see National Stereotypes). Brits are more private and reserved than Americans, but it does not always derive from arrogance.
Buried Alive
Burn The Witch
Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie: anyone who asks to be buried In Space, for instance.
Busmans Holiday: Carpenters spend their time off fixing the house, IT staff spend their time at home on a PC, and bus drivers travel by bus.
But It Really Happened: because, sometimes, it did, just as the creators said. We just would prefer not to know all the gory details.
But We Used A Condom: To the sorrow of many, and the existence of quite a few.
Calling Your Attacks: Martial arts practitioners believe that expressing certain phrases or vocalization help build up chi or ensure proper breathing
The Captain
Cardboard Prison: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, a Mexican drug lord, managed to escape a maximum security prison with very little effort.
Ceiling Banger: What apartment dweller hasn't had to deal with noisy neighbors?
Chewbacca Defense: If the defense does not make sense, you must acquit.
The Clan: It has once been much more common than it is now.
Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: What you'll suffer the day you'll fail to pay the power bill, causing the power company to leave you unplugged for 3 working days with no access to TV Tropes.
Comedic Sociopathy
Computer Equals Monitor: Some people seem to actually think the monitor is the computer. Check out the link inside to see some funny examples.
Conjunction Interruption: I bet your dad has used it.
Convicted By Public Opinion
Cool But Inefficient: Several armies have used awesome but inefficient weapons to lay fear on enemy lines.
Cool Chair: Thrones. Duh.
Could Say It But: We could tell you where to find examples, but they're already on the page.
Crystal Spires And Togas: Pick any high-rise development from 1990 and after. Especially Santa Fe, Mexico City◊, Puerta de Hierro, Guadalajara, Mexico◊, and Dubai, UAE◊.
Dead Artists Are Better: Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, a picture by Vincent van Gogh, was never bought when he was alive. In 1987, almost 100 years after his death, that same picture was bought for $39'921,750 dollars in an auction at Christie's.
Decade Dissonance: Compare Hong Kong to the Guangdong province just over the border, or downtown Rio de Janeiro to its slums.
Delegation Relay
Depraved Homosexual: Jeffrey Dahmer, among others.
Diagonal Cut: Real-life iaido practitioners actually cut up inanimate objects for practice, in exactly this fashion.
Did I Just Say That Out Loud: Broadcast/"open mike" variant. One of the most well-known examples was by none other than U. S. President George W. Bush, who referred to a New York Times reporter as, and I quote, "A major league asshole" during the 2000 presidential campaign.
- In all fairness, not wrong
Dream Within A Dream: Sometimes overlapping with All Just A Dream.
Drowning My Sorrows
Dude Not Funny: Real life is Serious Business.
Dungeon Masters Girlfriend
Emergency Services
Emergency Weapon: Every half-decent army gives its soldiers at least knives for backup, and even the ones that don't still equip their soldiers with hands.
The European Carry All: Just check out this "one leg pant", or as most people would call it, a skirt.
Evil Power Vacuum: Anytime a dictator or a really powerful dude is deposed. Colombia, for example, sank in a chaos of guerrillas and rival crime lords after Pablo Escobar got killed.
Explosive Overclocking: In memory of all those who turned their CPUs into grilled silicon after overclocking them to 6 GHz.
Extreme Graphical Representation: LainOS is a FreeBSD-based operating system whose goal is to recreate the extreme graphical pizazz of the computers from Serial Experiments Lain.
Famous Last Words
Fan Girl
Fatal Flaw: All humans have one (or more).
Fence Painting: arranged by recruiters for militaries, fraternities, and sororities.
Feuding Families
Firing In The Air A Lot: There are several real-life cases of people getting killed by it.
First Person Camera: just look at youtube videos of Iraq, 9/11, or the Virginia Tech shootings.
Fonzarelli Fix: Don't tell me you've never whacked your TV when it failed.
Forbidden Fruit
Foreign Sounding Gibberish: Known in business as "foreign branding", and in everyday life as "Häagen-Dazs".
Freeze Sneeze
Freudian Excuse: Used in many a court case
Freudian Slip: Whether or not you give any weight to Freudian psychology, it happens.
Full Name Ultimatum: My mom's done it, so has yours. Sadly, people rarely use it on their parents.
Funny Money: Happens due to hyperinflation; as of right now (June 2008), about one billion Zimbabwean dollars are worth one single US dollar.
Fun Size: kittens, puppies, and the like. It wouldn't work in art if it didn't work in life.
Future Imperfect
Game Of Nerds: America's "pasttime" is popular among the genius set, what with its love of statistics and all.
Gentle Giant: Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, a Hawaiian singer famous after his hit "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Andre. A great many others, many of whom probably edit this wiki.
George Jetson Job Security: Oklahoma, Indiana and an increasing number of other states now have fire-at-will laws which allow employers to fire employees without explanation or advance notice, except as mandated by federal laws.
Going Postal
Great White Hunter: Jim Corbett was a naturalist and conservationist who hunted big cats that had turned man-eater.
Grumpy Old Man
Hammerhead Snark
He Knows Too Much: The reason the FBI has the Witness Protection Program.
Holier Than Thou: We've all met or heard of someone who was a total jerk or hypocrite about religion.
Humiliation Conga: A criminal once tried to trick someone into sending him an Apple PowerBook G4 he bought at eBay. He ended up receiving a binder with keys glued on the inside covers. Read the full story here!
I Always Wanted To Say That: You know you've done it.
I Coulda Been A Contender: Bill Butterfield was so bitter about his football career ending in high school that he tried to push his son into athletic success. The results weren't pretty.
I Know Kung Fu
If Jesus Then Aliens
If You Ever Do Anything To Hurt Her
The Illegal
Implausible Deniability
Insufferable Genius: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Is That Cute Kid Yours: Check the discussion page for examples.
Its A Small Net After All: in Mexico, everybody uses MSN Hotmail, MSN Spaces, and MSN Messenger, thanks to an alliance between Microsoft and Telmex, the latter a nigh-monopolical telco led by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world.
Its Not You Its Me: You'd be surprised how much this line gets said in Real Life breakups. Heck, you've probably used it (or will use it), too!
Joker Jury
Jump Off A Bridge Rebuttal: Used by your dads and my dads
Kangaroo Court: Unfortunately.
Killer Rabbit: A great many animals are meaner, sharper, or more poisonous than they look. This is why you don't play with wild animals. Don't believe us? Try to cuddle a panda. On second thought, don't.
Lensman Arms Race: World War II and the Cold War. Consider: the Germans only made very primitive payload rockets with long range work somewhat in WWII, and America couldn't launch a rocket as far as 1957. We were on the moon a decade later. And of course, nothing says "my kung-fu is better than yours" like the ever-more-powerful nuclear weapons tests of the 50s and 60s.
The Libby: The stuck-up popular kid who won't invite you to parties unless you're "cool" enough...there's one in every crowd.
Locking Mac Gyver In The Store Cupboard: Surprising but true. The most memorable case would be John and Clarence Anglen's and Frank Morris' escape from Alcatraz (as hard as it is to believe someone would actually fall for the fake-dummy-head-in-the-bed trick.)
Loners Are Freaks: People often wrongly jump to this conclusion when dealing with loners in real life. *Unfortunately, incidences like the V-Tech Massacre do little to rectify this*.<--An edition proving people wrongly jump to this conclusion.
Lost Wedding Ring
Love Hurts: A list of personal examples would likely be the largest and most soul-crushing page on the wiki.
Love Martyr: Nothing to laugh or smile about in real life.
Loving A Shadow
Luxury Prison Suite: As noted, the Hotel Escobar
The Mafia
Maam
Mary Kay Letourneau Teaches Here
Meddling Parents: You've probably had these or know somebody who does.
Mission From God: From Joan of Arc to Osama bin Laden, religion has been a powerful motivator.
Mistaken For Special Guest (See Guy Goma for an example)
Mistaken Nationality (far too common)
Modesty Towel: Force of habit and shyness will often lead to this being used even when there is no reason for it.
Monster Clown: Coulrophobia
Moral Guardians: Futurama parodied PETA's practice of trying to get "liberated" carnivores to live on a vegetarian diet. These people also make a handy Straw Man for people who have a beef with some aspect of censorship.
My Car Hates Me: Otherwise, we wouldn't have tow trucks.
Mystery Meat
Nightmare Fuel: Locked-In Syndrome. Global Warming. Nuclear war. Leprosy. Jack the Ripper. The goblin's gonna getcha if you don't... watch... OUT!
Normally I Would Be Dead Now
No You Hang Up First
Oblivious Adoption (at least in the animal kingdom)
Obsolete Mentor
Operation Blank
Whoa Bundy
Path Of Inspiration: Church of Scientology
Pepper Sneeze
Phenotype Stereotype: Happens in many places apart from Japan. In Mexico, for example, white people are automatically assumed to be American, Canadian or German.
Playing Sick
Porn Stash: You know what you're hiding deep within your closet, drawer, or hard drive...
Post Robbery Trauma: Something far more serious than it seems on TV. This troper had his Minidisc player mugged on the street, was always on the lookout during one full year after that, and the day his socio-historical context teacher sent him to the lowest ghettos of Guadalajara, he was so scared he was always grasping his swiss army knife.
Powder Trail
Pretty Fly For A White Guy
Push Polling
Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits: Is there a chapter in the Mexican 19th century that doesn't has one of these?
Rain Of Arrows: A key strategy of the English during the Hundred Years' War.
Raised By Wolves: There's a few examples: Kaspar Hauser, Genie, and a feral French boy. None of them ended up that well off.
Relative Error: Siblings get mistaken for lovers in real life a lot, oftentimes to the disgust of the siblings.
Ring Ring CRUNCH
Rock Beats Laser: Though not common, superior tactics or sheer weight of numbers have defeated superior technology.
Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment
Runaway Bride: One of this troper's friend's grand-mother did that: She left the groom at the altar and ran away with his witness who was also his best friend. And they all lived happily ever after (except the groom).
Sand Bridge At Low Tide: Mont Saint-Michel, a French islot near the coastline of Normandy
Seinfeldian Conversation: It is arguable that there is nothing more realistic than this trope.
Senseless Violins: The 2008 Northern Illinois University shooter managed to bypass the campus security by packing a pair of shotguns inside a guitar case.
Scope Snipe: Carlos Hathcock pulled this off during the Vietnam War
Screw Politeness I Am A Senior
Screw The Rules I Have Money: Because only the richest can bribe their way to victory.
Serious Business: We don't know where to begin with this one.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: as noted in the entry, Williams Syndrome
Shattrath City: New York, London, Tokyo, Milan, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Frankfurt, Mexico City, Chicago...
She Is Not My Girlfriend: At least four separate editors have had this happen to them. Check the page.
Shrinking Violet
Somebody Else's Problem: Most notably the case of Kitty Genovese
Smite Me Oh Mighty Smiter
Snipe Hunt
Somethings Different About You Now
Spock Speak: Asperger's Syndrome and legalese (though usually not to this degree)
Star Crossed Lovers: "Things just didn't work out."
Stealth Hi Bye: It happens when you're distracted and don't notice when someone is entering or leaving the room.
Street Urchin: One of the most serious social problems everywhere in the world.
Surrounded By Idiots: Everyone who's ever had a day job can attest to this.
Sweet Polly Oliver: Joan of Arc, Mulan (the REAL one)
Taught By Experience: You know that your mistakes have left a mark on you, probably a scar.
Televisually Transmitted Disease: Strangely, most of the miraculous recoveries you see in medical dramas actually have happened.
The Password Is Always Swordfish: the most common password...is "password".
Theme Naming: The Emperor Constantine's children.
This Is Not A Drill
That Poor Car
Too Dumb To Live: We've all met them at some point. Rad Girls(NSFW)
Too Many Cooks Spoil The Soup
Trash Of The Titans: As you can see in this site.
True Art Is Incomprehensible: This is one of those annoying ones that reinforces itself.
True Art Is Offensive: See above.
Ugly Guy Hot Wife: Because women are far more attracted to money and power than physical looks. Oh, and guys really are shallow bastards.
Ultimate Job Security, unfortunately.
Undisclosed Funds: Talking about money was once viewed as crass, so people used these methods to do so.
The Unpronounceable: Indians working in call centers with American customers typically use adopted "American" names.
Upper Class Twit: Paris Hilton. 'nuff said. Buddha was also one of such before leaving his castle.
Urban Segregation: The Independencia Avenue in Guadalajara, Mexico divides the city in two: the West side is the rich side, home to all the trendy malls, while the East side is the poor side, filled with gritty factories and impoverished ghettos.
Useful Notes: Useful because they're true.
Utopia Justifies The Means: Hitler, Mao, Robespierre, Pol Pot...
Verbal Tic: Francophone Canadians often say "là" ("there") at the end of each sentence, Mexicans do the same with "wey" and "ese" ("dude" and "this"), Argentinians start their phrases with "che", and United Statesians use "like", like, every five words. And not just, like, the Valley Girl types. Most famously...
Violent Glaswegian: Glasgow is the murder capital of Western Europe.
Wacky Marriage Proposal: Geeks love asking their soulmates in ways like that.
Walking The Earth: Hitchhiking is about Walking The Earth for a while, finding all sorts of small jobs, with nothing but a backpack, enough money to stay fed, groomed and with a place to sleep.
We ARE Struggling Together
Weekend At Bernies: Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang
Well Intentioned Extremist: The real world version is a lot scarier, actually.
We Sell Everything: Wal-Mart.
Why Couldnt You Be Different: If you haven't experienced it yourself, you probably know at least one who's going through it
Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: Phobias are common, even silly ones.
Wiper Start: To the embarrassment of many a new driver.
Wishful Projection
Worthless Foreign Degree
Wretched Hive: Mogadishu, Somalia. Everywhere in the United States.
Wryyyyyy: see Calling Your Attacks above
Yaoi Fangirl: You know who you are.
Yiddish As A Second Language (What kind of schmuck needs this one explained, anyhow?)
Your Other Left: Far, far too often. The bane of those giving directions over a mobile phone.
Yuri Fanboy: You know who you are too!

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