This is a mess and needs help to clean it up: Fridge Horror

I and one or two other people have been trying to remove the prodigious natter from Fridge Horror, and in the process I've realised there are deeper problems. To summarise:-

• The aforementioned natter, which is as bad as any I've seen here. Some dedicated help is needed to root it out, possibly equipped with dark glasses so their eyes aren't burned out.
• It would also be a good idea to chainsaw a lot of the examples. The idea of the trope is basically "stuff that wasn't horrific at the time, but you realise either a long time later or soon afterwards has scary implications." But there are examples that it's hard to seriously believe anyone who wasn't very young would see a scary side to - a Skittles advert in Advertising, for heaven's sake - or which are basically examples of fans of a work completely over-analysing it (I mean, even by our standards), as with large chunks of the Film page.
• If we aren't going to do the second, we should consider re-naming it, as a lot of the examples just don't seem truly horrifying.

Views?

EDIT: Please use the link in my post as for some reason the one at the top isn't working.

edited 11th Aug '11 12:03:38 PM by captainbrass2

"Well, it's a lifestyle"

Your title link has a space.

Eh, it's like Nightmare Fuel. Everyone has a different opinion of what's horrifying. As for reading too much into it, the main page said that you (general you) are probably putting more effort in than the creators.

I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.

It appears to have been fixed now.

On-topic, I'm inclined to support a rename, as this doesn't, or at least shouldn't, have to be horrific - it merely needs to be things that are unpleasant when you apply Fridge Logic to them. No ideas now on how to handle the natter mess.

edited 11th Aug '11 1:49:04 PM by nrjxll

Rename, maybe. I don't see how changing the name of the trope will change the basic premise. An Example Sectionectomy, however, would enforce that it is your personal Fridge Horror, and not some objective trait of the work. Further, this stuff is supposed to be on the Fridge subpages. Collecting examples on the actual Fridge Horror page is stupid..

edited 11th Aug '11 2:06:08 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I'm a bit confused by your last comment. There are no examples on the main page anyway, the problem is dodgy examples and natter on the sub-pages.

How we get rid of the natter is by some of us taking time to edit it out, but it will be a big job. There's a lot of it.

"Well, it's a lifestyle"

Okay, then. Sorry, I didn't take the time to look at the articles in detail. Other than cutting it or dramatically excising natter, what can be done?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I think I understand the problem. The horror may be subjective, but the fridge part ain't always. The Skittles advertisements mentioned are a great example of this. There was no fridge logic at all coming into play about what happens with the man who has everything he touches turn to Skittles: he states explicitely in the commercial the horror of his day to day life attached to such a "gift"! Horror? Sure. Fridge-y? Not in the slightest.

Okay, I agree completely that examples of explicit horror cannot qualify as Fridge. That's a very simple test.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I'll try and go through it with that idea in mind as well as looking for natter.

It would help if others could do the same though. There's a lot of examples there.

"Well, it's a lifestyle"

I'll help to clean it up... oh, my poor baby Fridge Horror

Since when did I post on these again?

Okay, brace yourselves, for I have attempted to sweep and dust the Fridge Horror for Real Life, by proposing a new trope:

Fridge Horror Theories. As we all know, most of the Real Life Fridge Horror is just theorizing on things like death and alternate universes. I will collect the ones that aren't actually grounded in reality to see what you guys propose we do with them.

Also, I took the natter/repeated/actually Nightmare Fuel entries. They are:

• Heroin was originally a cough medicine for children.
  • Not only that, but it was used to treat opium addiction before anyone realized that heroin is much, much more addictive.
• The popular Catholic schoolgirl and naughty priest sexual roleplay. Does it seem kinky that it's an adult catholic priest having sex with an underaged schoolgirl?
• Really imagine what would happen if Hitler and his allies DID win the war... slavery (Himmler's ideas of the Poles come to mind), human genocide and the gradual death of ethnic communities, unethical experimentation, forced infertilization, and the euthanization of mental and physically handicapped persons.
  • Also imagine (in a horrible sadistic dilemma) if the holocaust DIDN'T OCCUR. At the time before the horrors of Hitler's crimes became manifest, America and many other countries were engaging in their own eugenics program (by 1924, approximately 3,000 people had been involuntarily sterilized in America; the vast majority (2,500) in California.) Also that year Virginia passed a Eugenical Sterilization Act based on Laughlin’s Model Law. It was adopted as part of a cost-saving strategy to relieve the tax burden in a state where public facilities for the "insane" and "feebleminded" had experienced rapid growth. Had America and other countries not learned of the tragic consequences of Hitler's blood-purity based regime, one might not doubt that it would have committed the same atrocities.
  • A recent book argued that the Japanese were only prepared to resist Olympic, the projected invasion of Kyushu and that Coronet, therefore, would never have been staged. The plans for mass civilian resistance were really desultory and propagandistic. Olympic, it concludes, would have involved 20,000 American fatalities. Given all this, were the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki completely unnecessary?
  • How about the theory that human beings killing members of their own species in wars and genocides actually prevents death by starvation, since most of those people killed in wars and genocides would end up having children, who in turn would end up having children, resulting in a massive over-population leading to, yes, starvation? The human species is basically decimating itself in very cruel ways to escape being decimated by outer forces like sickness and water/food shortage.
• According to the Multiverse theory, every possible permutation of the universe (with out physical laws) exists - and so do all the impossible permutations, and all the versions with completely different physical laws from the outset. So there are basically like an infinite number of you out there, all living slightly different lives. Think of this for a moment. Either:
  • They're all living better lives than you are. Thus: You have the suckiest life it is possible for you to have in any universe.
  • Somewhere, there is a you with a suckier life than you yourself have. How depressing.
  • All of the other versions of you have suckier lives than you yourself have. How really depressing...across all of the infinite possible (and impossible) realities in existence, THIS is the best life you can ever be living??
    • There is a universe in which humans have discovered the secret to travelling between different universes. The version of you that lives in this universe is envious that he/she is not living the best life out of all possible universes, and thus travels to each and every universe where a version of YOU exists, killing off and replacing every version of you to live out every possible life that any version of you could possibly live, and this current version of you could be next.
• Consider human decomposition. There are Shock Sites out there that delight in posting photos of decomposed bodies and for good reason — the human body turns into something quite unappealing if left to decompose out in the middle of a field or at the bottom of a body of water, without the aid of preserving techniques such as those used in the funeral trade. Consider that this is what the human body is made of: all of these fatty tissues and organs that can leak out and ooze, and these brittle bones that can break and turn into a powdery mess. Even the brain, the center for all human thought and what ultimately distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom, can easily turn into a gooey, slippery mess.

EDIT: Collected the theories:

• Scientists are predicting being able to upload our brains onto computers by 2050. They are also predicting advanced cyborgs by then. It's likely that cyborg bodies would be popular. Everything is slowly becoming connected to the internet. So, it stands to reason that our cyberbrains could connect to the internet. Therefor, they could be hacked. You know the awful things cause by brainhacking and computer viruses in Ghost In The Shell? That's going to actually happen.
• Take a moment to imagine that there is no afterlife. That there are no souls. That means that after you die... nothing. Absolutely nothing. And even if you get that, it's almost as if you still think you'll be living or you'll get another life. But what if you don't? Then it's literally NOTHING left. When this hits you, it's one of the scariest feelings you can ever have. And the fact that most people on this site are already in their 20s, 30s, 40s etc, it feels like time has flown by and your already half-way through your life. Then take in account the fact that people constantly die from unnatural causes.
  • This one may be averted. The way computer technology is improving, by 2045, a single computer will be smarter than everyone in the human race combined. Something called the "Singularity" may happen, in which humans will be able to download their minds onto this supercomputer, and live in the virtual world, making you effectively immortal if you choose to be.
• Instead of No Afterlife or Eternal bliss, imagine this: Consider that reincarnation is real. That means that we were all possibly someone else in a past life. What if Reincarnation doesnt obey the laws of time? That means we could very well reincarnate as a past historical figure, or that shmuck who got tortured and killed because he angered the king. Not horrifying enough for you? Then consider this final bit: If there is no limit on reincarnation, and we could all have been someone else, then it's possible that there really is only one "soul" (i.e: we're all the same person, just in different lifetimes). All of those horrible things you hear, they happened to you at one point or another, and will likely happen again. Still not terrified? Whoever this soul is, he is probably completely alone in existence, and all of these lifetimes are just a really tragedic way of escaping that loneliness, by creating duplicates of himself to talk to, to interact with, to love and to be loved. And that sad being...is you.
• Since humanity has developed such powerful weaponry, alien invasions are becoming less feared,but this is before you realize that any aliens that reach earth will be from outside the solar system, and have the technology to travel that far. Humanity doesn't even have the power to put people on our neighbor planet, much less go outside of our solar system, and harsh reality becomes clear: If any alien invasion reaches earth, they will be hundreds/thousands of years ahead of us.
  • Isn't it more scary that we haven't seen any alien invasions? No green men on Mars, no grey men visiting from distant stars... not even any sign of signals or technological development when we look at those stars. The Fermi Paradox: over ten billion years, among a hundred billion stars in each of a hundred billion galaxies, not one seems to have developed a species which shows the level of technological development that we anticipate for ourselves within a few millenia. Either there's some Great Filter preventing most of the universe from developing life with our level of technology, and we just managed to pass it... or there's some Great Filter preventing life with our level of technology from making it much further, and we're just about to hit it.
• According to The Multiverse theory, every possible reality exists. That means that every imaginable Beyond the Impossible Crapsack World with every form of Fate Worse than Death, High Octane Nightmare Fuel and general suffering taken to Beyond the Impossible levels exists, and that there are universes where this is the only thing that exists, and that it is constantly happening to completely innocent people with no chance of changing or even becoming slightly better. A galaxy where everything is trying to eat your soul? It exists. A universe where only innocent people are dragged to hell to burn in incomprehensible agony for all of eternity? It exists. An Orwellian nightmare where free will is repressed? It exists. A world with incomprehensible Eldritch Abominations that can make one Go Mad From The Revelation and hardly notices humanity because of how insignificant they are? It exists. An Alternate History where Adolf Hitler won World War II and exterminated all the non-Aryans? It exists. A world where the internet was never invented? It exists. And those examples are only the ones that can be imagined. There's no telling what possible horrors are unimaginable. And, possibly worse, there are universes where you are inflicting the killing and torture! Even as a child. Basically, take the worst possible thing you can imagine, then multiply it by infinity, and rest assured that there exists a universe where that is a reality. Holy shit.
• Remember how big the universe is, and how humans only inhabit one tiny blue ball in all of the vast, infinite cosmos? What are the chances that you were born as a human? And, consequentially, what would have happened if you had been born as something else, like a little prokaryotic creature in a scientific test facility? Imagine not having eyes, ears, or even the ability to think on a human level. Remember how lucky you are to have been born a human.
• Entropy. The higher it is the less useful energy (as in one that can be used to do anything) there is and the less orderly things become. Second law of thermodynamic dictates that entropy in closed environment can only increase but never, ever get lower, that just physically impossible. Now horror comes when you realize that our universe is a closed environment. Yes ladies and gentlemen the whole universe is basically decaying as we speak and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, nor we will ever be able to.
• We all get that feeling of being watched, when we think we are alone. It horror on two levels. Either A) you are not alone and someone or something is watching you and you can't tell where or B) you have lost grip on reality and are making things up, and this may never stop.
• The idea that there is intelligent life in the Universe, and that it is actively screwing with us for laughs. And worse, that our possible extinction would only be a minor inconvenience, and they would find a new species to play with.
  • The idea that there isn't intelligent life in the Universe, and we are all alone...
• Everything you've gone through is all in your mind. This website doesn't exist in real life, you're not sitting here reading this sentence, and instead you're lost in your own "fantasy" in some mental institution. The people you've befriended aren't real and your life has been one big delusion. And you have no idea.
• There is something called a gamma-ray burst, which is a ridiculously-powerful beam of gamma-radiation that is emitted when a star collapses into a black hole. One beam each is fired from the two poles of the new singularity from a few miliseconds to several minutes. Each gamma-ray burst has more energy than our Sun will have in its entire lifetime. Now imagine such a beam traveling at the speed of light, meaning there's no way you can see it coming. And then it grazes your planet. The side it hits will be instantly fried, the atmosphere in the hemisphere will disappear, and almost nothing will be left but a charred surface with some flora and fauna surviving at the bottom of the ocean. All the people in this hemisphere will be the lucky ones. The other side of the planet will experience boiling (not a correct term, I know) atmosphere that will cook everyone in their skins. Now think about this, for a second: there is an indication that this has happened to Earth before, causing an extinction-level event, wiping out over 90% of plant and animal species. Massive stars collapse all the time, and it's not difficult to imagine one whose pole is pointed right at us (or where we'll be when the burst arrives), like a giant laser beam ready to fire. In fact, one is. In that case, we wouldn't even see the star collapse, as that means the burst has already arrived.
• Fridge Horror comes to Christians when they realise all their non-Christian friends are going to hell.
  • That's really more based on said Christian's beliefs about the afterlife, though, isn't it?
• Many strange and scary creatures have existed in Earth's history, and many strange and scary creatures still exist today. Now imagine what the ones in the future might be like. Or worse, think about how strange alien lifeforms would be.
  • Considering the absolutely horrifying creatures that came after, I'd rather take the extinct species.

So, two walls of text later, what do you guys think we do with this collected info?

edited 18th Aug '11 8:10:17 AM by LordBandanaDee

Since when did I post on these again?

Dump them all in the trash. Most of them are neither "something that you only realize is scary after it's over" or "something that was not intended to be scary but is."

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Most of that can be described by "what is this I don't even". Some of it is interesting, but all of it is just…why.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Is there any reason this trope needs a real life section at all? The entries you listed are strong points in favor of the answer being "no".

Dump what all in the trash?

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

"Delete them" the entries listed.

Fight smart, not fair.

If you think that was bad, that was after I'd gone through that section myself and removed a fair amount of natter and weak examples. Thanks guys! I'll see if I can pass over some of the other pages tomorrow.

EDIT: I did seriously wonder myself whether a Real Life section was justified. I hope no-one takes this the wrong way, but the tone of a lot of it came across as if some kids were sitting round a camp fire trying to make each other freak out with scary stories.

EDIT 2: I have also gone through the Religion page. Even after axeing all the Natter and bad examples I still think a lot of what is left is just too controversial. Do others think that we should cut it?

edited 19th Aug '11 3:42:14 PM by captainbrass2

"Well, it's a lifestyle"

I came to this forum with the intention of making exactly this thread, so I'd be glad to help, if I can. I've been looking at the "Live action TV" section, and particularly the entries from Doctor Who and Lost have a lot of natter in them too. I'd hate to loose it all as some of it is interesting discussions, but the discussions should be moved to a forum thread or to the trope's discussion page, and only a summary of the various fridge horrors be kept on the main page. Basically I'd suggest that: - If tropers can't agree with each other that something is fridge horror (i.e. one person posted something, and the second person posted a response disagreeing), none of it should be shown on the mainpage till they can agree - If tropers add extra details to each other's fridge horrors, merge the two (don't add a comment, but edit the existing one) - Sort the fridge horrors by topic, e.g. by chronological appearance in the series. If one episode invokes two kinds of (valid) fridge horrors, put those next to each other.

I'll help if someone tells me where I'm needed, though I'd prefer to clean up a section about a show I actually know, so I don't make mistakes. (I could do Doctor Who and Lost).

Also, I heard this forum allows a maximum of 1000 threads active at one time, and I don't know if chatting threads count toward that limit too. Otherwise we'll have to double-think my idea of moving the natter to forum threads. (Plus, we better get the issue in this thread sorted out so space is made for new threads).

How about moving the page to Darth Wiki?

The Darth Wiki is not a dumping ground.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Then I give up; just delete the whole thing so the unpleasable deletionists remain happy >_>

Nooooo!

Alt account of Angeldog 2437.

Oh please, please do. I am so tired of dealing with these Natter Magnet pages. Somewhere along the line, it just has to stop being worth it.

edited 29th Oct '11 4:13:37 PM by nrjxll

Strawmanning isn't exactly helpful, deleting natter is. And I like the fridge pages.

I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.