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Author: DmM

Jun 29th 2012 at 10:51:47 AM

Thanks! I went for that name because it was the best I could find that wasn't as generic as "Animal Relationship Motif". I mean, I'm no expert on when something becomes a meme, but the Carlos/D.A. peregrine falcons gag has been bouncing around the internet for so long that it must be getting close to meme status, so I figured it was the least obscure TropeNamer. Also, unless we're going to suggest that ViewersAreMorons, why should we assume that they'll think this is just about birds? Do people think StupidJetpackHitler is about stupid Hitler on a jetpack, or Hitler on a stupid jetpack, or Eva Braun saying "Stupid jetpack, Hitler"? Should we call it NazisWithAdvancedOrScienceFictionTechnology? Do people think IdiotBall is a dumbed-down version of CalvinBall? (Or, indeed, that CalvinBall is a team-sport that was only played by 16th-century Swiss protestants?) Is IdiotPlot a plot written by an idiot, a plot intended to be understood by idiots, the kind of criminal scheme comedy incompetent mooks come up with or a plot about idiots? Why does AvengersAssemble have a pagequote from Buffy? Surely she never teamed up with IronMan? (now, there's a fanfic...)

I know I'm being a bit over the top here, but half the joy of ThisVeryWiki for me has been discovering new works through trope names, page quotes and so on. Besides, as a self-professed semi-nerd, if we're gonna name tropes after obscure cheesy 90s fps games, or let Joss Whedon have about a million tropes named by his works and/or with pagequotes from his works, why don't we remember that there are gonna be plenty of people reading those entries who won't get the reference, and change them too?

Again, I know this is a bit unreasonable of me, and I swear as I sit here typing this I'm not angry, not annoyed, just vaguely irritated. It's just (and I'm not picking on you), that I've seen a lot of this happening on YKTTW threads recently. It hasn't happened to me (and there's a perfectly reasonable name-change debate going on on one of my threads here, currently called ShipTeasePileUp '''Edit: now called CastawayOfTheShipTeasePileupResolution''') but I've noticed a lot of people replying on threads with "this name is too specific/too obscure a reference" and I've found myself thinking "well, there's a good dozen launched pages with more obscure/specific names than that..."

I end up thinking it's just ComplainingAboutTitlesYouDontLike (why isn't that a trope lol...) Just because you don't get the reference doesn't mean other people won't. Now, I'm not saying this applies to you, RJSavoy , in fact, your comment indicates that it doesn't, but such comments have annoyed me to the point where I'm taking the attitude that if people want blanded-out hyper-general cover-all-the-bases trope names, we should start with the ones that are already on the wiki. It'd spoil the fun though... think about it: the most memorable trope names are the ones with a sense of humour and/or a specific image/work associated with them. (What would we have to rename IndyPloy? MakingItUpAsTheyGoAlong?)

@ Randomsurfer: I can't believe I forgot that! Phoebe's claw-holding gesture makes for quite a memorable moment...