Does not show the trope.: Aluminum Christmas Trees

The title doesn't help, but that's for TRS. The point is this trope is a reaction, so we might need a comic with some dialog of a person thinking a true thing has to be false (preferably paired with a Real Life picture of that very thing).

The page image works just fine.

edited 27th Oct '11 9:08:40 AM by Madrugada

Yep. The current image demonstrates the title, but not the trope. I'm thinking Ozy And Millie has numerous examples, even if most of them are fictional. I'll see if I can dig something up.

edited 27th Oct '11 9:16:21 AM by Spark9

The image is all right.

How is it all right? It just shows a tree, when the trope is people thinking that a show made it up.

People thinking that something is fictional when it really DOES exist.

Look at the quote. "Roadrunners are real?" by Homer Simpson, who's only knowledge about the bird known as the roadrunner comes from the Looney Tunes character.

Just as the image depicts how people might think that Aluminum Christmas Trees don't actually exist, when in fact they actually do.

edited 27th Oct '11 12:30:11 PM by DRCEQ

No, the image shoes that pink trees exist. It does NOT show someone going "that is clearly fictional".

Ok, you have a point there.

I think the page image is fine. This is another case where the image example is a meta example, because what it's doing is showing you that something people widely believe to be false really did/does exist in real life. And that's precisely what this trope is about—things people assume are too absurd to be real, but nevertheless they are.

I think that challenging the current image and wanting to replace it with an image explicitly showing someone thinking it's fake misguided for that very reason; the trope is about the reactions of real people, not in-universe people. It's demonstrating the trope by showing something that you, the reader, would probably dismiss as fake/impossible.

edited 15th Nov '11 2:11:20 AM by TrevMUN

Just because the trope is about real people does not mean not showing a reaction makes the picture work.

And you're trying to paint not showing the trope as "meta", when it's trying to justify just a tree and a caption.

So find something that you think will work.

You stand a much better chance of getting a new picture if you offer something you think is better, rather than simply saying "I don't think that one is good, somebody go find something I like better."

I'm not doing that. I'm stating it's not showing the trope. The caption has to give all the context. That's JAFAAC (or tree and a caption in this case).

You're stating that it's not showing the trope while simultaneously not doing anything to change it for the better.

In other words, you're saying, and I'm sorry if I make you sound whiny, "It sucks! Change it!"

Um, making a thread stating we should get a proper picture somehow didn't become doing anything?

And last I checked, claiming it doesn't show the trope was a claim against the validity of a picture, not whining.

How come my arguments in this thread are suddenly treated the opposite of what they mean on these forums?

I think the sheer absurdity of a pink aluminum Christmas tree makes the image work. It's something just about anyone can see disbelieving if they weren't shown photographic proof.

Considering how much the description goes into detail about the pink aluminum Christmas tree and how it ties to the Peanuts cartoon, I don't have a problem with it.

Perhaps we could at least pair it with a subtitled screencap of Lucy mentioning this. This does require something being mentioned in fiction after all.

The current image is perfectly fine, for all the reasons given.

I don't think it's fine. It's just a picture of the Trope Namer. (And I don't particularly like the name, since it's completely opaque if you haven't read the article.) It might be better if it was paired with an image with a fictional mention of pink aluminium Christmas trees.

I think it's a Self-Demonstrating image. So it shows the trope, but not by the picture showing the trope, but by the reaction inside people's minds.

"Oh wow... those things really do exist?"

It's also not a picture of the trope namer. That would be the Charlie Brown Christmas Special

edited 20th Nov '11 3:13:25 PM by Sackett

But the trope is not "does this really exist". It's "something is mention in fiction and then people wonder if it really exists".

I agree with you, but there are enough people that like the image anyway, so you're unlikely to change anyone's mind unless you show them a better pic.

Ugh, not this again.

I really wish they renamed JAFFAC to something like "Fan Myopia Image," because it's invited a lot of pointless claims like this. You're missing the point of that Administrivia entirely. It's there to dissuade fans from assuming that a picture of a character from their favorite show demonstrates the trope, no matter what it is they're doing in the picture. It was created because there was a tendency among fans to assume everyone knows about their fandom, and that even showing a closeup of a character's expressionless face would explain the trope by itself.

That is not what is happening here. Here, we have a photo of a real object, a garishly pink Christmas tree. This is something that most people are only familiar with through A Charlie Brown Christmas and would not believe them to be real if they hadn't been shown evidence of its existence. Because of that, the image works.

Sackett said it best; it's a Self Demonstrating Image.

No, this trope is about things that are widely assumed by viewers to be too absurd/unrealistic to exist, yet in fact does or did. It is NOT about someone in-universe claiming something to be too unrealistic to exist.

Trying to find a picture of someone in-universe claiming "That can't possibly exist" is not what this trope is about, either. It's about the assumptions of the audience. It is a meta trope.

As Sackett pointed out, this isn't a picture of the Trope Namer. This, however, is.◊

edited 23rd Nov '11 12:05:32 AM by TrevMUN

I suggest putting in a crop of the glittery pink tree from the Charlie Brown cartoon and pairing it with the photo.

That would be good. Maybe with a caption like "They do exist!"