Does this need to be YMMV?: Genius Bonus

Of course it's not always clear what is a bonus, but there can be some guidelines that make it objective.

It becomes a case of what the trope is in an ideal world and what it's used for in practice. In practice it tends to get used to toot tropers' individual horns.

The whole page reads as a list of easter eggs, shout outs, and callbacks. Perhaps this is one of those pages that's best left without examples?

If it keeps examples, pop culture references and anything that would be covered in a high school level class should be omitted.

This should either have examples removed or be a YMMW trope. There's a lot of difference in between what people consider Genius Bonus. For example, there's the commonly cited example of the Haruhi novels: Some people have difficulty understanding the mathematics while other people view it as quirky on the part of the author but perfectly straightforward.

What if we limit it to Word of God stating that the writer thinks this is obscure? HBI2K calls some of these "2 percent-ers" over how much of the audience thinks will get this. And yes, there are plenty of examples of this on DVD Commentaries.

Isn't it strange that Genius Bonus is marked subjective whereas the more negative version Viewers Are Geniuses is not?

edited 9th Aug '11 5:21:50 PM by nabaduco

Genius Bonus strikes me as trivia. Viewers Are Geniuses strikes me as not showing something, but having it happen.

I'd suggest changing it to Trivia instead of YMMV... And talking about Viewers Are Geniuses.

I think it might be better to split what kind of reference is being made. Or just make it the opposite of Small Reference Pools.

I don't think this needs to be YMMV either. Especially because, as mentioned above, Viewers Are Geniuses isn't YMMV. It seems to me that the two tropes are similar enough to both be valid. I do agree that it's misused, and for the same reason that a lot of tropes are misused: immature tropers wanting to post something to feel cool, in this case something that wasn't immediately obvious until they researched on Wikipedia.

edited 28th Nov '11 8:09:23 AM by Martello

I always thought it was YMMV for the portion of defining what counts as "genius" or "expert knowledge" as opposed to "generally known".

I do think the name falls way into Tropes Are Not Good. I would like to rename this to Obscure Reference, and simply make it the inversion of Small Reference Pools.

Or if people can't agree on what is obscure, then make a Super-Trope for types of references (classic literature, math, physics, webcomics, etc.).

I like the sound of Obscure Reference.

It is a term I've heard before in this context, so it would have the association meaning going for it.

I'm cool with it, my only problem being the separation between that and Shout-Out.

My issue is who determines what counts as "obscure".

The same issue exists with using "Genius". At least "Obscure" doesn't imply that actual high level intelligence is necessary to understanding.

Well we would have to determine what falls under Small Reference Pools, and anything outside of that counts.

I don't think you can equate genius with obscure automatically for a name change. I wouldn't classify for example, a message hidden with accurate Binary coding as "obscure" because most people are at least passingly familiar with 0 and 1 meaning things to computers... but translating the message itself requires at least researching binary in more depth then reading the wikipedia summary.

Likewise that kinda of thing isn't really YMMV because it either exists or it doesn't.

So something along the lines of Easter Egg and Shown Their Work would be a starting point. An accurate reference or joke that requires knowledge of a field, college or higher level education, or real research to figure out, because if you got this instantly from your general knowledge... you're a genius.

(I do not deny this trope is overrun with bad examples though and needs somebody going through with the delete-whacker to trim it down. It needs that in any case)

edited 4th Dec '11 11:48:39 AM by gs

"An accurate reference or joke that requires knowledge of a field, college or higher level education, or real research to figure out, because if you got this instantly from your general knowledge... you're a genius."

No, you're psychic. If you have no means to get a reference, you cannot get the reference.

Actually you have a mean. You used your actual, perhaps only common knowledge to extrapolate and discover this bonus. Having knowledge ≠ Knowing how to use it. So if you got the reference, you are doing something very good.

I strongly reject changing the name to Obscure Reference since that one is something completely different, not to mention it would invite more nagging and natter than this one does. I think GB should be moved to Trivia though. As for whether it is objective or not, I'd say it is objective — that out of four "geniuses" one did not get the bonus does not make it YMMV.

The name does fall kind of foul of Tropes Are Not Good, but I dislike Obscure Reference for the two reasons already mentioned: firstly, that it sounds too similar to Shout-Out, secondly that "requires specialist knowledge" does not necessarily equal "obscure"; even if you were to claim that all examples of the former come under the latter, the reverse is certainly not true. For instance, including an Easter Egg referring to some underground Swedish black metal band is highly obscure, but I wouldn't say it counts as "specialist knowledge", at least not the kind required for this trope as currently defined.

Whether or not we rename it, though, I would support moving this trope to the trivia section, since to my mind the precise line that separates it from Viewers Are Geniuses is whether the 'intellectual' titbit in question is actually necessary to understanding the plot or not; in short, whether it isn't trivia or in fact is.

I agree completely. This is a trivia trope.

I still think it would be better to split into types of references, as those would be objective and clear.