Misused: People Sit On Chairs

Hey, you thought this was incorrectly used on YKTTW and the forums a lot? Well it's also misused on the main site as well.

Some wicks think this means something is "too common to trope" (doesn't help that some think Too Rare To Trope is the direct opposite of this, when that page just notes it's related). That is not possible, as even a universal purpose is still a purpose. We need a predefined message that no trope is too common. Some think this means it's too common to list examples, either straight uses or any uses. That one can be solved by having a couple messages that actually are for such instances.

This might need a rename. There are a few redirects that can do this, but if not, I suggest No Purpose No Trope.

Checking 25 wicks out of 78, with 712 inbounds.

Correct use

• Calvin and Hobbes
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette
• Furniture Tropes
• Is This Tropable
• No New Stock Phrases
• Nonhumans Lack Attributes
• Sphere Eyes

Thinking it's about really common or broad tropes

• Headscratchers.Action Girl
• Blatant Lies
• Domestic Abuse
• Gender Dynamics Index (an action character is still a trope, even if a guy)
• Men Act, Women Are
• Missing Supertrope
• Sleeper

Thinking it's too common to list examples (either at all or just straight ones)

• Anime Theme Song
• Every Helicopter Is a Huey
• Invulnerable Knuckles
• Police State
• Sliding Scale of Animal Communication

Troper just deciding a trope doesn't have a point

• Laconic.Bi The Way
• Meat Versus Veggies (at least when it comes to real life, which still has reasons for why people do such things)

Not sure (might actually be correct)

• How Did We Miss This One
• Mirrors Reflect Everything
• Rinne no Lagrange (seems to be a joke inclusion rather than seriously trying to use it)
• PlayingWith.Shaped Like What It Sells (not sure about the context)

edited 27th Feb '12 9:40:03 AM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

How will changing the name fix that misuse? You yourself say that the problem is other messages that we don't have. Changing the name of this one won't solve that problem.

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

I've been wondering about "Too Common To Trope" lately, myself. Something that isn't chairs — it does serve a purpose — but it happens so darned often that said purpose is taken for granted. Like Speech Bubbles.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

• I added a clarification on How Did We Miss This One. I think that's how it was supposed to be interpreted, and then it's correct.
• Mirrors Reflect Everything is correct.
• Rinne No Lagrange is maybe sort of correct, on a meta level. There's a lot of chairs, so the pun is obvious. However, they're also just there artistically, and don't actually have a meaning in themselves. No meaning I know of, at any rate, so it's actually fitting.
• PlayingWith.Shaped Like What It Sells seems incorrect.

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• Anime Theme Song should probably be Omnipresent Trope. There is a reason to have a theme song for an anime.
• Every Helicopter Is a Huey is correct. Just having a helicopter in a movie isn't a trope. Having one for a specific meaning is, but that's not what the sentence is referring to.
• Invulnerable Knuckles is probably wrong, as it refers to the trope itself. The trope itself is really an aversion trope, in that using it is a combination of Conservation of Detail, Artistic License, and the Coconut Effect. Sort of. However, it usually doesn't have a meaning in itself.
• Police State isn't really a trope IRL. It just is. The phrasing says the use of chairs is wrong, but it's actually correct in relation to RL.
• Sliding Scale of Animal Communication isn't as much of a trope as a scale, as the name implies. Only humans being able to talk isn't a trope, though, so the usage is probably correct.

---

Otherwise I mainly agree. Headscratchers.Action Girl and Sleeper may be debatably correct, though.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

It might be a better idea to create Too Common For Examples (or something similar), so that People Sit On Chairs doesn't get misused as that.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

"How will changing the name fix that misuse? You yourself say that the problem is other messages that we don't have. Changing the name of this one won't solve that problem."

One misuse is due to a lack of a message. The other misuse is due to misreading the trope period. The message I proposed for that was a counter, not a way to fill in a gap.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

I think that what must happen is this:

1. If something's attracts Trope Decay of a predictable nature - split the Trope Decay off in a new trope.
2. If the name is a problem (and I don't see how that would be the case here - you'd be a bit careless at calling something too frequent "Chairs"), rename it.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Sleeper and Missing Supertrope are both linking to "Chairs" while referring to something not having enough meaning to be a trope. Singling them out for also calling occurrences "too common" (which Sleeper certainly doesn't do at all) just seems like a moot point because they're still on message (and, therefore, correct).

edited 27th Feb '12 10:46:39 AM by SeanMurrayI

That was a goof. I meant to list those in the "correct" section.

Well one of this a legit thing (too common for examples), and the other is not legit (too common to trope). We cannot split off the latter, as it's wrong.

Also, I noted the latter attitude before we made this page, and some just latched onto it. This needs a name that made it clear it's not about being common.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Personally, I'm more bothered no so much by the "Too common to trope" assumption, but the assumption that anything that isn't pure fantasy or an innaccurate potrayal of real life can't be a trope, not to mention the correlating assumption I sometimes see that trope descriptions needs to be written in a "Don't those stupid writers know reality doesn't work like that?" tone.

There is no such thing as "Too Common To Trope". There is such a thing as "Too Common For Examples" - like Did Not Do The Research, that's why I'm suggesting a split. People Sit On Chairs might be swapped with one of the redirects - Too Meaningless To Trope?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I would read "too common to trope" as shorthand for "too common to be meaningful enough to be a trope"

I get the impression from reading People Sit On Chairs that while being "too broad" or "too common" aren't problems for trope concepts in and of themselves, a concept can still be so broad or so common that it just isn't very meaningful or worthy of a page, and that would be "Chairs".

edited 27th Feb '12 11:28:10 AM by SeanMurrayI

I think it probably has to do with the osmosis of the concept; it's difficult to prove whether or not something has "meaning" if it's not already self-evident, but it is much easier to claim something is common (despite the fact that could easily be covered by Omnipresent Trope). This is mostly because some people don't think that fiction has any real "meaning" at all, and differentiating between one kind of non-meaning and another is splitting hairs.

That said, the premise of the entire site IS that media has meaning, so a renaming/redefining probably isn't necessary on those grounds.

What would differ Too Common To Trope from Omnipresent Trope?

I'd prefer to create a trope called Too Common For Examples.

If things still don't get better after that, then I could consider a rename of People Sit On Chairs, but not really before then.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

Again, reading Too Common To Trope as shorthand for "too common to be meaningful enough to be a trope", I see the difference being one between 'things that happen normally or incidentally during the storytelling' that can also be spotted with incredible frequency (characters entering/exiting scenes, characters who have jobs or occupations, Walking, etc.) and storytelling elements that very importantly comprise the rudimentary backbone of storytelling itself and are, therefore, nearly always found in stories (The Protagonist, Dialog, Plot, etc.).

edited 27th Feb '12 11:46:22 AM by SeanMurrayI

Too Common To Trope is either a misnomer (a trope isn't defined by commonness) or Too Common For Examples. It isn't Omnipresent Trope due to the "trope" part. It can be People Sit On Chairs but only by coincidence - commonness is not what "chairs" make.

Incidentally, "Aversions and Subversions-only" is also Too Common For Examples - well, straight ones anyway.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I don't really see how common something is affecting how much of a trope it is. Either it's meaningful or it's not, no matter if there's just one example or just one work without the example.

Edit: Too Common For Examples would be pretty much Examples Are Not Meaningful To List.

edited 27th Feb '12 11:48:04 AM by Feather7603

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

"I would read "too common to trope" as shorthand for "too common to be meaningful enough to be a trope""

Sill wrong. That implies there is some connection between meaning and frequency. That's a logical fallacy. It might even stem from the inverse appeal to popularity notion, thinking that if everyone does it, it's wrong somehow. In this case, if every show does it, it magically has no purpose.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Too Common For Examples and Too Common To Trope are two completely different things.

One describes a concept that is distinct and important enough to storytelling to merit having a page (Characters, Plot, other Omnipresent Tropes) but is so commonly found that listing examples is pointless.

The other describes a concept that is so commonly found in storytelling but so incidental and meaningless to document as an occurrence in storytelling that it's not even worthy of getting a page.

^The latter's actually People Sit On Chairs.

And again, "commonness" is something different from "no meaning in storytelling", which is what PSOC is.

Or that. Misleading name. "Commonness" doesn't matter.

edited 27th Feb '12 11:59:05 AM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

But Too Common To Trope is a bad name for the latter concept; it's not that it's too common to be a trope, it's that it's Too Meaningless To Trope.

edited 27th Feb '12 11:58:18 AM by lebrel

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

'...[T]hings that happen normally or incidentally during the storytelling' can also be extremely common occurrences in works.

If you want to argue over language and semantics, perhaps Too Frequently Incidental To Trope would be more letter accurate; nevertheless, it is possible for certain occurrences that are incredibly common to find in storytelling to not be deemed tropeworthy.

That it is, but it's being limited to the ones that describe things commonly spotted in stories.

edited 27th Feb '12 12:04:19 PM by SeanMurrayI

"The other describes a concept that is so commonly found in storytelling but so incidental and meaningless to document as an occurrence in storytelling that it's not even worthy of getting a page."

"perhaps Too Frequently Incidental To Trope would be more letter accurate"

You're still assuming frequency has any inherent connection to meaning. Again, it does not work that way.

If everyone does something for a reason, even 99% of every work ever made, that is still a reason.

Incidental, that's valid. Frequent is not.

edited 27th Feb '12 12:05:31 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Can be, but is just a coincidence when it is.

Anyway, this looks like a "Missing Predefined Message Syndrome" to me. People Sit On Chairs can stay for things that are meaningless, Too Common For Examples (Or Too Common For Straight Examples) is to be made for things that have meaning but are too common to be "normal" tropes, since from Dragon Quest Z's statistic it seems that that is what PSOC is being misused for. Then clean up Chairs and move anything "too frequent" over to Too Common For Examples/Too Common For Straight Examples. That page should explain how to deal with stuff that is, well, Too Common For Examples.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

No, I'm stating that 'things that happen normally or incidentally during the storytelling' can also be extremely common occurrences in works.

Something incredibly common to spot in fiction can also be so incidental, general, broad, and bland that it is, essentially, meaningless and not worth developing a trope page around, period.