In-universe trope or fan reaction?: All Girls Want Bad Boys

I was scrolling down this page a little while ago and I noticed that many (If not most) of the entries are not about characters falling in love with the "bad boy," but fans falling in love with the bad boy. They talk about how popular the character is, about fandom size, etc.

I was under the impression that the trope was about when a character within a series falls for the bad boy love interest, intrigued by their dangerous nature and "Daddy wouldn't approve" lifestyle, preferably when there is also a "good boy" love interest to be rejected at the same time. I'm scrolling down now and the third entry on the page (The third entry! We didn't even get into double digits) is a "real life" example from Digimon. Three more stops down (Inu Yasha) is the same thing, talking about Sesshoumaru's appeal in the fandom. It also talks about Captain Jack Sparrow's fandom appeal (Admittedly incorrectly as well, since after a sentence of how Jack is hot it points out that this trope is not applied in the movies, since Elizabeth marries good boy Will), the exploding female fanbase of Twilight, etc.

Most of these entries seem to apply to Misaimed Fandom or Draco in Leather Pants, talking about fans falling in love with the bad boy character, as opposed to characters within the work falling in love with the bad boy.

How should we proceed?

edited 3rd Sep '11 8:13:59 PM by JBK405

In-universe. Fan reactions are just that. But the trope is an in-universe device.

Clear out the fan-reactions, and leave an edit reason that the trope is for In-universe uses only.

edited 3rd Sep '11 8:15:16 PM by Madrugada

Will that solve the underlying issue, though? My concern with things like this is that, if all we do is cut them, the fan reactions will return in a few months anyway.

I have no ideas on how to stop that - I just think it's a concern that should be mentioned.

edited 3rd Sep '11 9:26:17 PM by nrjxll

This is an old, old trope, and the name is well-established. All we can do is keep it clean of the fancruft.

I cleared it as far as the end of the Literature folder..

edited 3rd Sep '11 10:14:33 PM by Madrugada

Bad examples lead to more bad examples. If the bad examples are purged, it's a lot less likely that people will be inspired to post their own, similar bad examples. It may or may not be enough, but it's certainly worth a try. If they keep coming back, we can try adding an "in-universe examples only" notice. If that doesn't work, then we may have to try something else, but we'll worry about that if it happens. No need to borrow trouble.

Well, this is going nowhere. Close it.

Has somebody cleaned out the bad examples yet? If not, tag this as pending-final.

I wouldn't mind making it in-universe only...

Tropes should be assumed to be in-universe only by default. They're tropes because they're devices used in storytelling.

True. Fan-reactions are labelled as "YMMV" nowadays anyway.

Chunked out the fan reaction examples.

It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on it, and clean any new ones out as they appear.

Locking the thread.

edited 1st Oct '11 11:17:14 PM by Madrugada