Rewrite: Bros Before Hoes

Articles probably shouldn't make you want to strangle their author

Trolls should probably back off. Otherwise give criticism, not lip.

I had never seen that trope before, but seriously, it does need help. If this is a genuine independent trope rather than just part of The Bro Code, the description needs to be rewritten so that no longer appears to endorse the misogynistic attitude it's describing. (It also needs to be indexed and it needs more wicks, but that's beside the point.)

Problems it has:

• The tone. It's misogynistic in the language it uses (bitch? hos? why?)
• It doesn't explain how it's a trope.
• It didn't go through YKTTW — and it shows — it still has lots of jagged edges that some input from more than one person would have smoothed off.
• The examples are all over the place. Lisa Simpson deciding not to marry a guy because he hates her family and doesn't want to have anything to do with them after the wedding is a gender inversion? Really?

I added the Simpsons example. I thought it was close enough: a girl choosing her family over her boyfriend. If it's so bad, I'll remove it.

Looks pretty tongue-in-cheek to me, so I don't really see a need for a full-blown rewrite. It could probably use a clarifying paragraph for those not familiar with the phrase or mindset, and explaining what situations it counts. Also a redirect for the female variation, "Chicks Before Dicks"

And yeah, the majority of the examples don't fit what this should be.

edited 24th Mar '11 3:32:53 PM by Wulf

The description is fine. Tv Tropes is an encylopedia at hart, not a blog, so I pretty much saw it, like every other page. A description of how a trope is used in fiction.

Next you will all whine for Satisfied Street Rat.

edited 24th Mar '11 4:20:01 PM by Cider

It's not a description of how it's used. It's simply a statement of the idea. There's nothing there about how it's used, or what it's supposed to indicate about the character if he does (or doesn't) follow it. It reads like an Urban Dictionary entry.

Wulf— I get that a Self-Demonstrating Article can be a really clever way of showing a trope in action. This one just doesn't work for me, partly because it involves a problematic concept which might need to be handled with more care. As Madrugada points out, it doesn't fully explain the trope, but even if it did have an additional explanatory paragraph, the way it is currently written would still make me cringe . . . and I'd be cringing at the description, not just the trope itself.

Wow, what a fucking annoying description. If I wanted to read an imageboard post, I would log onto an imageboard.

Keep the title, which is one of those silly little things I've heard a thousand times in real life and fiction and thus warrants being chronicled here. Revamp the trope description so it's clear we're merely describing a certain attitude expressed in fiction, as opposed to endorsing anything.

That all sounds fair—save for the name change since the phrase "friends before significant others" just doesn't have the same ring to it. I was surprised to find that some found it as offensive as they did, I didn't consider it offensive, being a woman myself however I didn't put any real effort into the description; my intention was merely to put the trope out there. If you all feel strongly, then change it; it's an editable article after all. I had no intention to keep tabs on it after all, I just thought it was strange that such a common trope had been left out.

...What is this? If that "description" was intended to be tounge-in-cheek, it failed horribly. As it is, the page is just an example of why it's always better to put an article through YKKTW before launching it (I think that should be mandatory anyway).

I removed/rewrote the second paragraph which I felt was problematic and not very explanatory, and indexed it. It's not a particularly complete explanation, but the original trope was just obnoxious.

Much better. Thank you. Locking the thread.