Misused: Adorkable

If it becomes YMMV, any examples that are stealth fan reactions would have to get moved to the YMMV subpages, and legit in-universe examples would have to get the "invoked" tags. That clarify things?

edited 20th Mar '13 2:31:48 PM by TotemicHero

And what would the description be clarified to? It already makes it clear that this is about a combination of "Adorable" and "Dork."

That is clear as an explanation of the word's origin but not as a trope's definition.

What is adorable? Is this about characters that you find adorable (no use at all), characters that audiences at large find adorable (an audience reaction, more useful, but harder to pin down) or characters portrayed as adorable / that other characters find adorable?

What is a dork? Are smart, confident spies dorks? Are power metal bands in general dorks? What about Leonardo Di Caprio, Angelina Jolie, "Most of the models from Victoria Secret" or "You and everyone you know" (all of whom are currently listed as examples?

But we're not defining what dork means in this context. Socially awkward, nerdy, shy, goofy looking, what? I think we know what the adorable means so if we want to fix the description we need to make it clear what we're actually talking about in regards to dorky behavior.

I'm not sure we do know what "adorable" means.

Take Zero Dark Thirty. As I said earlier, Jessica Chastain's character isn't sexualized / romanticized at all. But someone thought she qualified as an example. Because they found the actress or character attractive? We don't want to document that - we've stripped examples from many pages that turned into that sort of thing.

I'm not sure there's actually overlap with Nerds Are Sexy. That's an in universe reaction trope.

As for what people misusing adorable that sounds like shoehorning, but we can work on that if it actually does seem to be a recurring problem.

I thumbed up the new crowner option about Zero Context Examples, and thumbed down the one with "direct readers", since it's all apples and oranges.

Making it in-universe only sounds good. Does that really conflict with "Clean up and clarify the description, and clean up the examples accordingly?"

No - it's a specific way of clarifying the definition. We can clarify it further.

For example, am I right in saying that this trope has nothing to do with the the character being intelligent or having geeky interests, which have their own tropes? So, the current photo caption is misleading in potholing to Geeky Turn-On and Nerdgasm?

edited 22nd Mar '13 5:12:24 AM by AmyGdala

Is the crowner not working right for anyone else? My votes are logged as being basically the opposite as how I would have voted and I can't change them.

Yes. Seems like an anti-sockpuppet tool working badly.

Thread

edited 22nd Mar '13 9:31:54 AM by SeptimusHeap

Well. Can't vote. Amazingly useful crowner this is.

Yeah, this was the first crowner to break.

I don't think this trope should be YMMV...it's fine the way it is...it just needs to be cleaned up. The writers of the shows probably intend for the characters to be Adorkable. I think that characters without akward or dorky traits should be removed.

Cleaning up the trope is a better solution. Being "Adorkable" is actually personality-based to me, not a fan reaction.

That's pretty much exactly what I think about this trope. I fail to see how a character whose dorkiness/clumsiness makes them endearing rather than just awkward is a fan reaction, especially considering how this trait tends to be pointed out in-universe.

I fully support making this in-universe examples only; that is other characters find a socially inept or otherwise "dorky" character attractive. This would also purge the Real Life section. Otherwise this is Swooning Over Characters You Like.

I agree with those posts above. In-universe examples only, which means good context. A major clean-up is required. I would be merciless. If anyone added it as Zero Context Example, too bad.

I fifth this motion.

I sixth that notion.

If the trope does become in-universe, I can purge the majority of the western animation ones. However, I don't think it should be in-universe. I just think that we should remove the fan reaction ones and remove the characters that do not have awkward or dorky traits.

I'll seventh the motion.

I think this limit will still include most examples where the writers wish to generate the reaction in the audience. In most such cases, they include a character who feels the same way.

Requiring in universe acknowledgment? Eh... I'm not so sure about that. Is it overused? Certainly, but even when it's incredibly clear that adorkableness is the point of the character it's usually not pointed out. We need to remove fan reactions and require the examples to explain things.

I also think the description isn't very good.

edited 10th Apr '13 7:23:10 PM by Arha

If we say there is nothing in-context that requires Adorkable to be in use, then by definition it becomes a fan reaction trope and therefore we would have to leave everything as it is. Recognition by other characters in some way is the only way to prevent this.

Maybe "In-Universe reactions" is not the right way to draw the line (ie someone expressly saying "You're cute and dorky") but certainly there has to be some acknowledgement that they are attractive to others in a Give Geeks a Chance angle rather than a macho/feminine way.

Well, to be clear what I meant: of course no-one has to say "oh, character x is so clumsy and cute, I find him absolutely adorkable" to qualify. But there should be some proof in the example write-up that they are slightly strange, weird, geeky and the like, and that other characters consider it endearing or are amused by that behaviour.

I agree that it can verge on being an audience reaction. I'm not sure how to distinguish those.

I think I'd like to have Zero Context entries commented out.

edit: It looks like each of us wrote a similar post at the same time.

edited 10th Apr '13 7:55:55 PM by XFllo