Misused: New York Is Only Manhattan

Note: This thread was proposed by ~The Mayor of Simpleton, who gave permission for others to make the thread.

The problem: New York Is Only Manhattan is a trope about portrayals of New York City as consisting exclusively of Manhattan. The description is a bit confusing—it says that NY is only portrayed as Manhattan, then lists other places characters could be from that aren't Manhattan. But for the sake of this thread, we'll assume that only Manhattan qualifies, as stated in the name and Laconic.

A Trope Talk thread back in March noted that many examples are aversions. This got me interested—what did the rest of the usage look like?

The wick check: I did a wick check, checking all wicks but Sandboxes. Full results in the check, but here's the quick totals:

• 12/55 examples, or 21.82%, were correctly used
• 15/55 examples, or 27.27%, were aversions
• 9/55 examples, or 16.36%, were misused in some way
• 4/55 examples, or 7.27%, were ZCEs or potholes
• 3/55 examples, or 5.46%, were unclear, and
• 12/55 examples, or 21.82%, were not classifiable.

Totaling correct and incorrect examples together, that's

• 12/55 examples, or 21.82%, correct, and
• 31/55 examples, or 56.36%, incorrect.

The wick analysis: So obviously there were a lot of aversions. Of the misused ones, much of the misuse was either references to other parts of NYC than Manhattan, or fictional versions of NYC used rather than the real deal. The large number of unclassifiable wicks also might indicate that this trope isn't doing well, having been launched in 2017 and only amassing this number of wicks.

The possible solutions: I've got two.

• We could expand the trope to a more general idea of New York State only ever being portrayed as New York City. Fictional examples could also possibly be included in this expanded trope.
  • On one hand, the trope would still be saved, and this is a possibly valid phenomenon. On the other hand, this would probably require a TLP drive (or worse, yarding) for examples due to the large number of aversions. Additionally, this possible new trope might end up being The Same, but More Specific to Big Applesauce, which New York Is Only Manhattan is already pretty close to being.
• We could just cut or disambiguate the trope. Possible disambig tropes could include Big Applesauce, New York City, New York State, and so on. The latter is the option I personally prefer for this trope, assuming we can find enough tropes for a disambig.
  • On one hand, this would resolve the issue of this trope being The Same, but More Specific to Big Applesauce, plus would address the tropeworthiness problem of New York Is Only Manhattan. Additionally, wick cleanup wouldn't take long due to the small number of wicks. On the other, we might be losing a potentially legitimate phenomenon by doing this, that phenomenon being the one mentioned in the other solution.

What does everyone else think?

Thanks for opening this Gaston!

12 correct (New York is only New York City) examples is a piddly amount, and I think it's worrying that many of them are shaky (absence of mentions of other places in New York City doesn't necessarily mean the narrative considers them to not exist) or considered justified.

Edited by Tabs on Jun 3rd 2022 at 11:44:39 AM

The correct usage is actually Manhattan depicted as the only part of New York City. Usage to refer to New York City in general as being the only part of New York State is misuse.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 3rd 2022 at 1:44:15 PM

I think it's because some people see Manhattan and NYC as interchangeable things. Heck, I'm from NYS and even I do that.

Guh. Crossing that part out. My point about the low number of correct examples is still valid, I think.

I'm not entirely sure if there's a an equivalent for a specific part of Chicago being depicted more than others. I'm from downstate Illinois and I'm more likely to think of how the pizza and hot dogs there have a bunch of toppings piled on.

I'd rather cut than expand mostly because I don't think a place being reduced to its most populous city is NYC specific. MA is Boston. Illinois is Chicago. Nevada is Las Vegas. Maybe that warrants a new trope about that but [[shrug]] I'm not so tied to the idea that I'm going to push for it.

^ Relationship to Britain Is Only London?

I think expanding isn't an option because the trope is very specific, so including anything besides Manhattan would effectively kill the trope. Not confident about disambiguating or cutting, since there is a trope here, but I'd rather analyze why is has so many aversions. Disambig if everything fails.

New York Is Only Manhattan and Britain Is Only London together sound like a missing subtrope of Small Reference Pools, and Britain Is Only London may have the exact same issue, but I'll hold on on that thought since it has no wick check.

Maybe there's a broader trope for when people think of an area's city over the actual area itself? Like a weirdly specific version of The Theme Park Version for areas?

Maybe we just need a broader trope for the idea like what we did with Supernatural Is Purple and Supernatural Is Green?

I'd also say it's missing a supertrope where several places are known for their most popular cities. I'm not a fan of cutting this trope so far. Maybe disambig?

Another option would be for someone to take the Missing Supertrope to TLP, and while we're waiting for that to happen, we can close this thread and revisit the subject after the supertrope is live. (This is similar to what happened with Bald Black Leader Guy, minus that trope having a prior thread, as far as I know.)

Alternatively, we could disambiguate this while still taking the supertrope to TLP, and the supertrope could be added to the disambiguation page after it's launched.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 5th 2022 at 3:43:36 AM

The first option sounds great.

Well, it's too soon to make a crowner anyway, so let's see if anyone else has any feedback or ideas.

Bannered this as I apparently didn't do that.

Are we able to make a crowner now?

Do we have any options other than what I listed in this post?

Those options would work for a crowner IMO.

Ah, regarding New York Is Only Manhattan having a lot of aversions (and non-Manhattans), is it a problem? We can declare "straight examples only" on it while at it if it's an issue.

Nah, we have the bold part of Averted Trope already, and other ways to play with the trope are possible.

Yeah, ideally, we shouldn't have to say that we don't want aversions except in certain cases, but some people really like padding out example lists.

I think we can call. It’s been long enough.