Truth be told, it is somewhat vague. It covers the more "soft" forms of mental illness though.
Edited by 37.32.173.8 It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.
"Somewhat vague" doesn't even begin to cover what's wrong with this trope. I'm marking this for eventual TRS'ing.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
No, the trope is about the portrayal of mental illnesses in media.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
X-14: Killer Cheese
Very small, almost trivial thing, but are there any objections to changing "at best amusing, at worst annoying" to "at best amusing, at worst offensive"?
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I get what you're going for here - I don't mean to be preachy, but what may come off as just annoying to a normal person * can be deeply offensive to someone with an actual mental disorder. Sometimes they can laugh at it if it's done in good taste, but if it's just bad form (i.e. they're annoying for having X mental illness and need to cut it out, as if there was a switch they could flip to turn it off...never mind the inherent Insane Troll Logic attached to that sentiment), it's just plain insulting.
Sorry about the wall of text. TL;DR - I wouldn't mind.
I think it's a lateral change personally.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I'm personally against the change because it doesn't fit well within the context.
What that sentence means is that TV portrays mental illness as an "at best amusing, at worst annoying" trait, in ragards to other people. A mental illness can't be "offensive" to a person. A view on race, yes but a mental illness? Doesn't make much sense.
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.
Scalon D. Dragon
In real life, a friend of mine from college who at times was like a sister to me has a son with Asperger's disease, so the idea that Something Awful would go so low as to be so cruel to someone who might have been my nephew in all sense of context had me ask, "When does an 'acceptable target' no longer become acceptable, and when should we stop making them acceptable? When it gets too close to those we love and nobody else gives a damn, only saying 'Grow up and get over it!'"
If that's what we've come to, the only thing I can say to those who like this humor is "Next time put yourself in their shoes for a change, having to face the same hostile circumstances you created for them. Next time think hard before you speak, or you'll be seen as 'Dude a bigot' instead of 'Dude not funny.'"
Truth be told, "Livid" and "enraged" could not have described me with this—instead of Up to Eleven, I was Up to Fifty.
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Amen! I don't mind occasionally joking about some of the issues that come with certain mental/neural/psychological conditions (I joke here and there about my Aspergers Syndrome because it helps me cope with it), but I can't stand the whole "Grow up and get over it!" mentality. It sucks when you're at least sane enough to see that you're not all there, and other people see that too, and they don't show the least bit of compassion for you. When they can't see it, to them, it's easier to forget that it's a problem, right?
So what is the definition of this trope, exactly? Does it cover all characters that clearly suffer from insanity or a mental illness?
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