Needs Help: Cell Phone

There were days like this where I wish that we had a split or merge tag...

A'ight, so the trope, Cellphone sounds like chairs right? Well, it seems to be a supertrope for cellphones that have creative narrative purposes. But it has a high chance of being used when they don't have any narrative significance and are just simply "someone talked on a cellphone in one scene". Also, it has lot of bullets stating the ways that it can be used.

So, I propose splitting off subtropes and keeping cellphone example-less or only for examples that don't fit any of the subtropes. Here are the possible subtropes I can see being split off based on the bullets and examples:

• Characters who treat their cellphone as if it was the most important thing in the world and are on it constantly, which almost always leads to an insanely high bill. Classic trait for the Bratty Teenage Daughter, Valley Girl and other teenage stereotypes.

• Cellphones are always in a characters possession for a very limited amount time due to the many ways that they can be destroyed to the plausible to the highly unlikely like being dropped in a toilet or being crushed trash compacter. Almost always used to completely isolate characters in an unfamiliar setting to cause suspense.

• Cellphones seem to have reception anywhere even when it should be improbable.

I know there are probably more, but these are the ones I can think of offhand.

Thoughts?

edited 20th Oct '12 5:07:35 PM by Oreochan

Split it up into component parts.

One of the cell phone tropes should be Cell Phones As Status Symbols. Back in the day, cell phones were only in the hands of rich yuppies and drug dealers. Now days, economic standing can be signalled by how fancy/expensive your cellphone is.

Also, social butterfly girls spending all the time on the phone predates cellphones by a long shot. The spear counterpart is the nerdy boy that monopolizes the phone line using his dialup modem to spend time on the internet, usually playing excessivly violent computer games.

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:05:42 AM by Catbert

I know that the first trope I thought of predates cellphones by decades. I just forgot to say that phones in general are used this way. I also have a YKTTW for when phones and cellphones alike that have supernatural or extraordinary powers here. Another subtrope is forgetting to put the phone on silent breaks off suspense or stiffening silence often along with an embarrassing ringtone used for comic relief. So we now have seven possible subtropes, any more?

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:23:04 AM by Oreochan

Cell phones breaking or getting no reception as a Plot-Driven Breakdown is Can You Hear Me Now I think having some more subtropes would help.

Alright, the second could just be when cellphones can get reception anywhere even when it should be impossible, since I don't think we have that. I will also volunteer to create most of the subtropes.

Any good names for them?

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:07:10 AM by Oreochan

I think a lot of examples can probably be cut, as they don't involve more than cell phones being used. That is People Sit On Chairs.

A similar idea to Cell Phones As Status Symbols is that its often Cell Phones As Friendship Symbols. That is, someone with no or few friends is explicitly shown not to have a cell phone. Or a cell with no or few saved numbers.

That's true most of the examples are not that meaningful or used for narrative purposes and are basically a cellphone that appeared in work X, which is a reason this should probably be an example-less subtrope.

edited 3rd Apr '12 12:20:16 PM by Oreochan

It shouldn't be an exampleless supertrope if it's not a trope.

We can, however, split this into tropes and link them through a Cell Phone Tropes index.

We already have Phone Tropes. So how about repurposing Cellphone as an index instead?

edited 3rd Apr '12 12:24:45 PM by Oreochan

I think an index with cell phones would just be a subindex of Phone Tropes, possible just within that page itself. Would it be necessary to have them on separate pages? Several tropes do apply to both, but some are specific to cell phones.

I don't see a trope in this in itself, though.

edited 3rd Apr '12 12:28:16 PM by Feather7603

On second thought it's not really necessary we can just add them to Phone Tropes. Looking at the stats, it has 113 wicks and 66 inbounds. It's been here for over three years according to it's YKTTW and isn't growing very well.

I wouldn't mind cutting Cellphone and have the split tropes take it's place, but we are now wary of cutting articles that have more than 10 inbounds. However 66 inbounds isn't that much compared to other tropes and is bordering on anemic considering it's over three years old. But inbounds are important.

edited 3rd Apr '12 12:46:20 PM by Oreochan

For such a common item like cell phone, I don't think that's a whole lot of inbounds.

-dope slaps self- That's what I get from not getting enough sleep. Anyway, cutting this as not a trope and letting the missing cellphone tropes take it's place is still fine by me.

edited 3rd Apr '12 1:32:18 PM by Oreochan

Making some new tropes to cover the tropey bits and getting rid of Cell Phone sounds fine to me.

If we are concerned about keeping inbounds, Cell Phone can always be turned into a redirect to Phone Tropes.

Turning it into a redirect might work. Which crowner is more appropriate for this, page action or single prop?

Page action.

Options:

1) Turn into index for cellphone related tropes (to be created) and rename. 2) Turn into redirect for Phone Tropes and create new cell phone related tropes that will go on the Phone Tropes index. 3) Do nothing.

Plus any other options that can be thought of.

Page action crowner created.

I think it's pretty unanimous that the first option won.

edited 5th Apr '12 10:29:44 PM by Oreochan

Calling crowner in favor of turning into a redirect.

So when does it get done?

I'll YKTTW the first and second tropes in the OP tomorrow when I get the chance. Although, I can't think of any good names for them...

edited 15th May '12 11:22:59 PM by Oreochan

Any progress here?

Still waiting on this.

"from the plausible to the highly unlikely like being dropped in a toilet"

It's more likely than you think. It happened to my mom. The phone got stuck in the U-joint and we ended up having the take the entire toilet loose, carry it into the back yard, flip it upside down, and poke the phone with a coathanger until it was in a position where I could get a couple fingers on it and twist it around where it could slide back out.