To-do list:

• Move examples to a trope on the Hollywood Nerd trope page if they fit, and remove them if they don't. For reference purposes, here's the list of tropes on the disambiguation page:
  • Adorkable: A dorky, unpopular character is considered cute/appealing by the audience.
  • Cool Loser: A character is treated as an unpopular loser even though they have many qualities (physically attractive, has a "cool" hobby, is social and charismatic, etc.) that should have made them popular.
  • Endearingly Dorky: When a dorky character is considered cute and appealing for their dorky qualities in-universe.
  • Hollywood Homely: A character said to be plain/unappealing in-universe, even though they are portrayed by a conventionally attractive actor.
  • Nerd: A usually intelligent but socially and/or physically awkward person. Often a Bully Magnet in high school settings.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: Nerdy characters are considered attractive in-universe specifically because of their nerdy qualities.

Original post

According to the description, this trope is supposed to describe when a nerd in media is superficially portrayed, such that we the audience are told and shown by how the other characters treat this character that they are a Nerd, but there isn't really anything about their behavior/their interests/what that character engages in that indicates they are a nerd or at best, those things are superficial. Despite that, other characters in-universe still treat the character as if they are no different from any other Nerd: ugly, undesirable, socially inept, etc. In other words, it's a version of "telling not showing," with the character often being styled similar to a stereotypical Nerd, but there isn't much the character actually does to necessarily warrant the label.

However, a lot of the examples (if they aren't ZCE, of which there are many) are just conflating this trope with Hollywood Homely, i.e. this character who is supposed to be a Nerd (and therefore unattractive) in-universe is played by an attractive actor. (This is likely because being attractive is part of the Hollywood Nerd, but it is not the totality of the trope.) A good chunk of the remaining examples remove the in-universe perception all together (i.e. that other characters must treat the Hollywood Nerd like a Nerd in-universe), which ends up amounting to "this character has [what I the troper have determined to be] nerdy qualities/interests and is cute." And there are several other examples that actually highlight the inverse of this trope: a character who is shown to be a nerd or geek due to their interests and habits, but are still considered attractive, social, and desirable in-universe, sometimes because of their nerdy tendencies, but often in spite of them. And then there's others that simply conflate Hollywood Nerd with Nerd, which may be a remnant of a past version of the trope. There's plenty of overlap with the types of misuse but the overall point is that none of them are actually the trope as described.

A wick check on 51 pages (below) shows 0 correct uses, which is not...great. (FWIW, on page examples fair slightly better with 6 (out of 74) fairly correct uses but the overall problem still persists. See sandbox.)

My advice: This trope for the most part seems to be a combination of Nerd and Hollywood Homely so discarding the trope and moving whatever examples are salvageable to the respective pages may be for the best.

Given how many times this trope has been to TRS since its inception (this would be the third I think), I'm not so sure it's workable at this point.

Wick Check: 51

• Correct: 0% (0)
• Hollywood Homely Conflation: 20% (10)
• No In-universe context: 18% (9)
• Unacknowledged Inverse: 2% (1)
• Ambiguous: 2% (1)
• Conflating with Nerd: 29% (15)
• Zero Context: 29% (15)

Examples are listed as - Work Page, Page Where Trope Is (If Not On Main Page), Name of Character (if on a character page): copied example

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 16th 2022 at 6:06:36 AM