Narrow Use of a Common Phrase: One Of Us

One Of Us is typically used in the context of someone in a higher position trying to relate to the common people. The article as of now does this, but only if you're a "geek". The thing is, not everyone who visits this site is necessarily a geek or likes to be identified as one, and if the target audience is really meant to be everyone rather than just nerddom, this page is one of the major things presenting the wrong impression.

The trivia behind this page is pretty entrenched into the wiki, though, so I think that the current page can be split off into something along the lines of Famous Geek while One Of Us can be used for the general definition.

I'm pretty sure you've got it backwards; one of us is when a subculture relates to an important or highly visible person.

One Of You would be the other way around.

Well, okay. Generally, when someone refers to a politican as "one of us", it's from the voters' point of view (or at least the pundits).

Right, not from the politician.

Well since this is about real life celebrity nerds, then the name should reflect that.

I would support a rename to Celebrity Geek or something of that nature. I've always opposed treating TV Tropes as a fandom/nerdom site.

Throwing in my support for a rename. Agree with the thread starter completely.

Then prove misuse.

Whether or not you want this site to be about geeks and nerds is not relevant. Listing tropes, and analyzing storytelling devices is geeky. The "us" in the name reflects that, and refers to one of a crowd whom you wouldn't expect to be a member. This is a piece of trivia relevant to the troper hivemind in a way that "so-and-so is a steelers fan" isn't.

Police the myopia, break down the elitism, and expand the vision. But to deny the geekery that formed and propels this site is to reject reality.

From a descriptive standpoint, most editors of TV Tropes are nerds. No one is going to deny that. However, what I'm talking about is a proscriptive standpoint: whether we want to create the impression that TV Tropes editors should be nerds or not - and the answer to that question is an unqualified "no". This site should be open to anyone with an interest in tropes, regardless of whether those tropes are from anime/fantasy/video games or from "classical" works and Lit Fic.

Having a page called One Of Us that's about famous geeks exclusively seems to be to be adding that proscriptive element - "we" are geeks, and if you aren't, then this isn't the place for you. It's a mindset that does exist and needs to go, and while this page may not be a particularly severe case of it, it still does display it.

Yeah, I've gotta say, the current title is quite an assumption.

You're right. TV tropes editors are nerds, if by "nerds" you mean "fanatic documentarians," but that's not the definition that the One Of Us page uses. I've seen One Of Us used whenever a celebrity's a fan of something geeky, not when they analyze things closely. When an actress turns out to lead Dungeons And Dragons games, or when some actor likes to dress up as a comic book character. Even things like being a "Japanophile" or a fan of Michael Jackson.

This is wrong on a couple of levels. For one thing, there is no "us" that likes all those things (even though many of us like some of those things). It wrongly suggests a homogeneous real geek culture. It makes us look geeky, in the wrong way - yes, we're obsessed with media, but no, most us don't relate to, say, card role playing games. And it ostracizes anyone with something more useful to contribute than new geek content.

Also, the page now covers three tropes:

• 1. Celebrity likes geeky things.
• 2. Celebrity has referenced TV Tropes.
• 3. Celebrity was a hardcore fan of a work and then ended up a part of it.

The latter two things probably deserve their own pages. Definitely more so than the first one does. And either of them could take the name One Of Us, and the name would suit either of them better than it would the list of celebrity geeks.

edited 5th Nov '11 3:32:58 PM by Routerie

One Of Us would be a good title for a page about famous people who've visited and/or frequented the site. The other two should be split.

edited 5th Nov '11 2:10:41 PM by INUH

I agree, both about the multiple possible definitions and about this statement:

Only Hollywood thinks all geeks are created equal. Speaking personally, I am literally a card-carrying nerd, but I am not really a fan of any of the "geeky" interests I listed in my previous post. That's another mindset I think needs to go from this site.

Incidentally, some part of me wants to call your definition 2 "Notable Tropers".

Close. My definition is "enjoys learning" and "collects trivia about a certain thing". We are all joined under the banner of "we want to learn". Anyone who visits the site is also a nerd. Sport trivia buffs are nerds, people with personal libraries are nerds, and people who look stuff up on the internet are nerds.

I've seen One Of Us used to mean "is a troper", which is even more narrow than "is a geek", but doesn't make assumptions about who's visiting the site.

Don't know if I've seen definition 3 used, though, perhaps because we already have Promoted Fanboy.

^Wow, so anyone who has ever used Wikipedia is a nerd?

edited 6th Nov '11 2:29:21 PM by MorganWick

Under that definition, yes... but not only is that not the "common" definition of nerd, it's not the one One Of Us is using, so I don't see how it's terribly relevant to this discussion.