Confusing name: Brainy Specs

This trope is about people faking intelligence by wearing glasses. Unfortunately, it tends to be used as "People who are smart wear glasses." The image picking thread is derailing into a TRS thread, so I'm moving the discussion here.

Thread needs to point to Brainy Specs. (watch this post become irrelevant in five seconds.)

Spectacles Make Me Smrt, as an option to add to those suggested before.

...heh, s'kinda funny that you misspelled Smart.

At any rate, I like that name.

Spectacles Make Me Look Smrt is good...I liked "Do I Look Smart In These Glasses?" on the other thread, too.

The other issue is that we don't have the trope that this sounds like it should be, or if we do, I can't find it.

Nerd Glasses?

Edit: Although that has a bizarrely specific description that doesn't match the name. To the TRS Mobile, away!

edited 7th Jul '11 1:00:58 PM by nrjxll

It's probably under Nerd Glasses or something, which is not exactly the same thing as what this should be. (image I posted in the other thread the glasses made her cuter for a Cute Scientist.)

Anyway Glasses Make The Genius? Instant Genius Just Add Glasses?

Edit: ok really like that last one it gets to point across well.

edited 7th Jul '11 1:06:32 PM by Raso

Nope, Nerd Glasses is a very specific style of round glasses common in anime.

Then it should probably be renamed (if only to Anime Nerd Glasses or something) to convey that.

In fact, I'm going to go make a thread for that right now.

Geeky Glasses? Nvm that's a plot.

edited 7th Jul '11 1:20:17 PM by Raso

Nope, that's a plot where character doesn't want to wear glasses because they think they make them look like a geek.

I'm starting to think that the big issue is that it looks like we have the trope three times over, and instead we don't have it at all.

edited 7th Jul '11 1:21:10 PM by shimaspawn

We have several glasses-themed tropes :p Doesn't it have its own index by now?

Yeah, what we need is the supertrope to all of those things: the very basic "smart people wear glasses". IMO, that is what Brainy Specs should be, and the current trope there, which is basically trying to invoke this trope, should be renamed.

Holy... it's Interspecies Romance all over again. What is with people and their aversion to supertropes?

(If that doesn't mean anything to you, see this thread.)

Yes, yes it is. It's terrible. And we should have a glasses index as well.

I don't know... I guess people have some weird aversion to hierarchies of concepts.

edited 7th Jul '11 1:30:24 PM by GoggleFox

I think that an index would actually be a good first step because it would let us find the gaps that we need to YKTTW. Including the actual trope for smart people wearing glasses.

Yeah, we definitely need an index of glasses tropes. There's a ton of them.

I support the idea of Brainy Specs being the super trope to Nerd Glasses (Anime Nerd Glasses?) and...whatever the current Brainy Specs turns into.

I don't know if it's a supertrope to the trope in question. I think it's more of a sister trope. This trope is based on that trope but one has dumb people and one has smart people and never do the two actually overlap.

This trope is based on that trope but one has dumb people and one has smart people and never do the two actually overlap.

That's not necessarily true. Neither Aion or Shader in Chrono Crusade need glasses—they're both shown not wearing them in their "true" forms—but Aion is The Chessmaster and an Evil Genius and Shader is a Hot Scientist. Neither say so outright, but it's heavily implied they just wear it because they like the look and it fits their archetypes. Satoshi Hiwatari in DN Angel is a 14-year-old college grad and a detective, but he doesn't need his glasses to see, either (although it's implied they serve to hold back his evil side, instead of any sort of "look" he's trying to achieve—so that might be ANOTHER trope...).

Although I guess you're right that "glasses are smart" isn't exactly the supertrope—Really, the problem is that the trope description seems to be, basically "the character doesn't need glasses to see, but wears them to appear smart, or as a fashion statement, or to invoke Meganneko". So really, even the name like "Spectacles Make Me Look Smrt" is misleading since the goal doesn't even have to be to look smart at all...

Hmm. Now I'm wondering if the description needs to be clarified, too. This trope is a mess.

From what I can tell, all the glasses tropes are a mess.

This does not require dumb people though. It only requires that they wear them when needed to look the part.

Like say a teacher that only wears glasses while teaching and no other time.

Or in Negima Eva gets to be the Adviser to a school club so she shows up wearing glasses [1]◊ to look the part.

Prop Glasses? Unneeded Glasses?

edited 7th Jul '11 1:49:02 PM by Raso

Prop Glasses is a good one. That pretty much covers the whole trope and it's immediately obvious.

There we go. Prop Glasses seems great.

Needs a rename, I was confused about what it meant. I thought it meant glasses that look brainy. You know, there are some glasses that are more "brainy" looking then others.