TV Tropes meta thread

I found something in an episode of Ed Edd 'n' Eddy that I've been considering adding to its Radar page, but I at least asked if it was worthy of an entry on the show's discussion page. The problem here is that unless the work is super-mega popular, the discussion pages here are a barren wasteland.

Oh God yes. There's no visibility for the discussion pages at all. I've suggested in the past that there maybe be a section of the forum for that, but it that wouldn't work, then, I dunno, maybe a page with discussions on it can have a notification in a little sidebar or something at the top (e.g. "This page has 3 discussions") for people who are logged in.

I remember way earlier in the site's life when rather popular pages would always have hilariously internetty arguments in the discussion pages. Those would be funny to read.

Some tropers are a bit extreme about the Tropes don't apply to real life thing. This strikes me as strange as some trope sections have real life examples (some even had real life sections before they were taken out) and then you got some tropes that have some basis on reality.

Thing is, tropes are ostensibly a narrative device. When something that seems to align with a trope happens IRL, well, it's not really a trope, because real life isn't a form of media, but instead just coincidentally events aligned in a way resembling a trope.

Exactly as Odd has put it. While they may be inspired by real life but folks are overly eager to shoehorn fiction into real life.

Some of the entries here Accentuate the Negative to a point that you'd think some moderately famous youtube reviewer wrote them.

We do seem to enjoy a bit of self-flagellation don't we.

Why is every almost every single trope related to philosophy negative?

philosophy gets a heavy amount of derision anyway

Philosophy is a great source of inspiration. And fiction thrives on conflict and disaster. So you find your plots by studying a bit of philosophy, and then write you post-apocalyptic armageddon.

That's the greatest incentive to study philosophy I've ever heard.

The website's got a lot more moderated. Earlier threads often have explicit NSFW links or text. And there are features in the old website that would seems strange today (fetish threads, pornographic works, and a lot of First person.).

I have seen plenty of cropped porn images for avatars in Forum Games though so it's not all gone....

Ones that still show sexual stuff in general are fairly easy to holler, at least. May have to give the page and numbers, at best.

This site is pretty countercultural, almost in an annoyingly smug way at that. Pretty much there seems to be an obsession with anything outside the norm, while anything within it is subject to derision or mockery.

I don't think that's unique to TV Tropes specifically, but among nerds on the internet in general. And as TV Tropes is basically one big gathering of such nerds, well...

edited 16th Dec '16 11:13:00 AM by PhysicalStamina

And politically, if one happens to either be a conservative or simply not alligned with hardcore progressiveness, then that someone might do better by not bringing it up or by simply lurking.

I also dislike the occasional smugness and simplification (towards the various reasons that people voted for controversial decisions or candidates, and said people themselves) that sometimes happens, as you said.

edited 16th Dec '16 11:24:15 AM by Quag15

I do not perceive this site to be countercultural in any meaningful way. But I confess a lack of understanding of the term. I mean, the site is progressive, but half the united states is progressive and half of europe.

There is a major countercultural movement built out of populism that seems to be building momentum all over the world. But this site is opposed to that.

I think this site is pretty moderate in terms of internet culture. Now, the other forum I am on is way more countercultural. Anti authoritarian sentiment is all over the place. (In fact the place is is devoted to a practise that would cause most of the world to think you are crazy.)

I mean, it seems like anything considered entertaining from an outsiders perspective either receives no attention or is outright mocked. Take Football for instance. Most tropers I think would just call it sportsball and have a sort of glee that they don't understand it at all.

And it goes beyond media too. Like Quag 15 said it seeps into politics here as well. The US Politics board has just turned into one giant echo chamber of the Far Left. Pretty much it seeps into everything. Go to Writer's Block for instance. Most questions there revolve around deconstructions of long standing and well-appreciated themes and showing their "dark, gritty" side, characters with disabilities, and LGBT stuff. There's this fascination with polyamory over there that I just don't understand, and again, anyone who questions it is typically mocked, even if it's not anyone in specific.

None of this is an inherently bad thing, but sometimes I think tropers try to hard to be outside the norm.

There are not really that many far left people here. I think I and one other person would go full green party here. It really feels moderate left, at least the last time I checked. The US politics thread is way to busy for me.

Now the sports ball thing, fair cop. But that really is a universal with nerds except sports nerds. With one strange exception, I think pro wrestling is popular here.

It's definitely a bit on the liberal/progressive/whatever side of things compared to society in general. (Well, some societies. What does "the norm" mean in this context btw?) It's kind of unevenly spread out across the subforums though. And in some ways it's still annoyingly conservative, imho.

I don't think counterculture is really related to political inclination...

Perhaps not directly, but definitely to some degree. The Hippie movement in the 60's for example was a countercultural movement that was also closely tied to a rejection of the political climate in America.

edited 16th Dec '16 1:07:44 PM by randomdude4

Well, most tropers are nerds. I don't think most of them really care about sports much. That's not something particularly specific to TVT or anything, just a natural consequence of who we are. I agree that holding any particular attitude beyond indifference is silly but I honestly haven't seen much in the ways of snobbery (I've seen "sportsball" mentioned a few times but I find that more tongue-in-cheek than derisive).

I kinda get what you mean, but I'd just like to offer my two cents:

In some areas like LGBT and characters with disabilities, society in general doesn't really give a shit about it in any meaningful way (in a sense you are correct that this is countercultural). Problem is that if you're in those minority groups and care about stories it's likely that this stuff WILL matter to you and you're probably gonna get very tired of people constantly dismissing its importance and spouting platitudes about why it's not REALLY important.

This can make discourse difficult if you genuinely don't understand what the big deal is and have no real malice, because the viewpoint those people have is conditioned and built on a bunch of personal experiences and ideological structures which are, again, very countercultural and not exactly something that seeps into mainstream society in an easy to understand way.

I think at best both parties have some reason to feel the way they do, but my sympathies are going to lie more with the people who are more collectively marginalized, aka the people who care about those subjects.

In this specific regard I don't really think it's about feeling special or wanting to buck the norm for the sake of bucking the norm, so much as trying to do something that is important for you personally. Exceptions stand where applicable but you get what I mean, hopefully.

Also, TVT has been pretty "left"-leaning for as long as I've been around, the climate in the OTC board is really nothing new.

edited 16th Dec '16 1:30:09 PM by Draghinazzo

Without meaning to complain, but what Quag says is ultimately the main reason why I don't much particiate in places like OTC.

I'm an economist by trade and while vaguely socialist (albeit supporting a couple of policies some call centre-right) but I doubt I'll be too well received there.

There is an unfortunate echo chamber effect I've noticed in many threads all over though, but then fandom can be an echo chamber.