Stock Parody Jokes cleanup

First is complaining and can be cut. Second is valid and can e kept

• Pokémon Sword and Shield are lazily designed and proof that Game Freak cares more about making easy money than making good games.

Is this one just complaining? I see this complaint a lot, but it's usually done seriously.

Looks to be just a complaint. It doesn't even say a joke.

From the same page as the above complaint:

• Genshin Impact: Fans being pedophiles.

Nothing says it's a joke, it's about the fanbase, no context, and I have no word to describe how icky the entry is. Please can I cut it?

Edited by UFOYeah on Mar 17th 2022 at 5:52:25 AM

Parody jokes about the fanbase are valid, even if they're "icky." That said, it is very low on context and why this joke emerged. The stock joke I see about Genshin is more about it being an Allegedly Free Game but it sells cute anime girls.

Thinking about cutting the Ready Jet Go! example^note It was originally multiple examples, but the troper who added them removed most of them from the western animation page, since the only reason the show is talked about so much on the wiki is thanks to Excelsior 123 (incidentally the same person who added the SPJ example) entry-pimping it, and I don't see it talked about much (if at all) outside of the wiki.

I'm not sure if the "Musician is reduced to [their well known song]" entries on the Music page (such as "Evanescence being reduced to "Bring Me To Life"") count as this trope. It feels more like Shallow Parody.

The example, for reference:

• Ready Jet Go!: Carrot and Celery like to kidnap children and take them on space missions without the knowledge of their parents.

I agree with cutting it.

On the same way as the Genshin Impact example mentioned above, Super Smash Bros. haves these two examples:

• Competitive Melee don't take showers.
• Big-name competitive players being pedophiles.

I don't know if those two should be cut or if I'm just bored of seeing people stereotyping every Smash player as either or both those things.

(At least I don't see THAT other more annoying joke/negative stereotype about Nintendo fans on the page...)

The pedophilia stuff was a one-year joke. All the pedos got driven out of the community fairly quickly.

Yes, but I still see communities going around and declaring that every Smash player is a pedophile who doesn't know what deodorant is by default.

I definitely still see "Smash player" as code for "pedo" in some communities (I have never been in the Smash fandom, mind you), similar to "Discord mod" (???) but isn't that more Memetic Mutation?

Didn't we decide at some point that this trope is TSBMS to Memetic Mutation anyway now that the latter was expanded?

As written, many of them are just memes, but there may be potential if we lean more into the "jokes commonly found in a Shallow Parody outside the fandom" angle. If that's even distinct.

I think one of the biggest problems this page had was its description. It was very small, barebones, and vague on what a stock parody joke was like, and it seemed kind of snarky towards the concept in its first paragraph, without trying to explain why these jokes exist in the first place.

So I have revamped the description to explain how there’s nothing necessarily wrong with these jokes, and to give some clear template examples about what most of these jokes are supposed to be like.

If there’s anything about it that you think should be changed/added/removed, say it.

Edited by Rhino8888 on May 10th 2022 at 7:33:19 PM

While the description does look generally better and I don't think any examples are misuse, usually massive changes to the description should be brought up in a thread like this before they are implemented.

Oh, sorry, wasn’t aware

i think "typical jokes that shallow parodies make" was this trope's intention, but in practice it's being misused either as TSBMS for memetic mutation or Complaining About Shows You Don't Like at worst. an important thing to consider is that for a parody joke to be stock, the show needs to be so popular that it's entered mainstream consciousness, and considering how many of these jokes and topics are niche to a specific group of people, that already doesn't fit

I think the issue is that the weight of the word "stock" has kind of decayed on this site, mostly due to Fan Myopia.

Limiting it to Shallow Parody is also a bit problematic for similar reasons- most works don't have shallow parodies or even parodies at all. Plus, why wouldn't normal parody jokes count? Why do they have to be shallow ones?

yeah that's why i think the trope has gotten to the point it has with the misuse — the concept's a bit shaky to begin with. aside from the issue on whether this should be considered a subset of Memetic Mutation or Shallow Parody, there's also the issue of scope; how many parodies making the same joke does it take to make it stock? should it be limited to actual parodies (i.e., works that make these jokes), or does it count if it's just made by outside observers in passing? it surprises me this trope got off TLP with this many issues

Has anyone made a sandbox where we can put examples we think are valid and which ones we think are misuse? I think that could help clear up a bit of confusion.

If not, I can probably start one.

Edited by MrMediaGuy2 on May 13th 2022 at 5:24:47 AM

Found this on the anime page:

• The SD Gundam sub-franchise is kiddy garbage that humiliates its parent franchise, especially SD Gundam Force.

Sounds overly complaining. Permise to cut?

Yes, it's one of those examples that feels more like commenting on the work itself than any specific parodies.

(Irrelevant note: I REALLY need to start up that sandbox page like I promised. The subpages are just getting worse and worse.)

It's been a while since this cleanup was active, but the Star Wars section on the live-action films page has a LOT of fandom drama underneath it passed off as parody jokes.

• Star Wars: See May the Farce Be with You for more information.
  • Darth Vader acting like a stereotypical dad towards Luke and/or Leia. Jeffrey Brown's cartoon collections starting with Darth Vader and Son, which are officially-published, but obviously non-canon, use this concept as the jumping off point.
  • The stormtroopers have lousy aim, sometimes incredibly lousy. Sometimes combined with Greedo being a bad shot to claim he was trained to be a stormtrooper or spent some time as one.
    • The paradox of what would happen if stormtroopers were to shoot at Red Shirts in a hypothetical Star Trek crossover.
  • Ever since the George Lucas Altered Version of A New Hope changed the classic "Han shoots first" version to Greedo shooting first but missing even if he was at point-blank range, jokes about his crappy marksmanship have been made, even in official SW media like the LEGO shorts.
    • Alternately, Greedo shooting first being how Han tells it.
  • Speaking of George Lucas Altered Versions, spoofing the numerous versions of the saga by having George himself or an expy of him change things around because he can.
  • Jar Jar Binks is either violently killed, or turns out to be a Sith Lord (the idea that he was originally written as the latter is an extremely popular fan theory).
  • The Death Star was poorly-designed. This one made it into Rogue One as the rebellion's last great middle finger to the Empire.
  • Jokes about the British colonizing the galaxy being the reason why everyone in the films speaking English.
  • Endless "gay jokes" about C-3PO. Bonus points if he and R2-D2 are a gay couple.
  • Complaining about Jake Lloyd being a bad actor, or complaining about midi-chlorians, or complaining about too much talking, or complaining about too much CGI, or the Toilet Humor, or the arcane politicking, or really anything wrong about The Phantom Menace. Though there has been pushback against these jokes after the personal attacks against Kelly Marie Tran for her performance as Rose in The Last Jedi led many fans to realize that they'd treated PT actors like Lloyd and Ahmed Best (Jar-Jar) the same way, and possibly even set the precedent for the attacks against Tran.
  • Luke and Leia being in an incestuous relationship.
  • Anakin not liking sand.
  • Making fun of how Yoda talks.
  • R2-D2 actually being a huge potty mouth, with the beeping either obscuring it or actually being a bunch of censor bleeps. This is actually implied in the movies, where C-3PO scolds him for bad language at least once.
  • Padme being a cougar or — for Black Comedy — a pedophile.
  • Jedi training academies having sex abuse scandals analogous to the Catholic priest pedophilia scandals in real-life.
  • Anakin was always a child-murderer and was open and gleefully sadistic about it.
  • Darth Maul having survived his bisection in The Phantom Menace has resulted in parodies often making numerous jokes over how he's Half the Man He Used to Be.
  • General Grievous is a Harmless Villain and obsessed with stealing lightsabers.
  • Kylo Ren being even more of an Emo Teen and/or Nerd in Evil's Helmet than he is in the films.
  • Dragging out behind-the-scenes footage from The Phantom Menace to show that Lucas is out-of-touch.
  • The various levels of Fanon Discontinuity among the fandom, particularly on the internet, such as:
    • The ONLY universally accepted trilogy is the Original Trilogy… and even then some fans find reasons to not accept Return of the Jedi.
    • The Prequel Trilogy flat-out doesn’t exist (though some would argue otherwise in recent years).
    • The Sequel Trilogy made under Disney just being glorified fan-fiction.
    • The order in which to watch all the movies, often taken to ridiculous extremes such as "The Machete Order".
  • The Force Awakens is a rehash of A New Hope.
  • The Last Jedi is built around subverting the audience's expectations.
  • The Rise of Skywalker is a rehash of Return of the Jedi.
  • The movies are so Merchandise-Driven they may as well be feature-length toy commercials. Also, mocking the adult fans who buy the merchandise.
  • Everything has an explanation in the Expanded Universe.
  • A parody of Darth Vader having Vader Breath due to being asthmatic or having a helmet with bad ventilation.
  • Someone, often a parody of Darth Maul, having a lightsaber with a ridiculous amount of blades that looks very impractical to use.
  • Pointing out how dangerous the lightsabers would be in real life, such as having someone accidentally cut off their hand with one or kill themselves by activating it while it's pointing towards them.
  • Princess Leia's hair buns being literal bread rolls or big headphones.