Does not show the trope.: Aluminum Christmas Trees

"I really wish they renamed JAFFAC to something like "Fan Myopia Image, " because it's invited a lot of pointless claims like this."

No, that message also includes a total lack of trope context. So it's not pointless.

The trope, despite the name, is NOT about the item in the trope name. The actual form of the item is actually irrelevant. The trope is that something is mentioned in fiction (which is objectively not in the picture), and then people find that thing to outrageous to be real (a reaction which is also not objectively shown).

All we see is a tree, with no context to the trope. That IS part of the definition of just a face and a caption.

I beg to differ. Others have noted that your posts in this thread amount to little more than "the main page image sucks, I want it gone!"

No. The image is self-demonstrating. It provides its own context because the "just a tree" in question is precisely one of those things most viewers think is too outrageous to exist in real life.

That is not the same thing as a picture of a person from a specific fandom who isn't doing anything to demonstrate a trope in action.

That's a pretty good idea. It'd reinforce the validity of the picture even more.

I'm going to go with Keep Until Better Image Suggested on the current image, but I think it would be a lot better if we paired the current image with the Charlie Brown tree to make it clearer.

"Others have noted that your posts in this thread amount to little more than "the main page image sucks, I want it gone!""

That only means they claimed that's my point. Politicians do that all the time.

"No. The image is self-demonstrating. It provides its own context because the "just a tree" in question is precisely one of those things most viewers think is too outrageous to exist in real life."

Again the trope is not something that looks too outrageous to exist in real life. The trope is someone mentions a thing in fiction, and then viewers think it's too outrageous.

"That is not the same thing as a picture of a person from a specific fandom who isn't doing anything to demonstrate a trope in action."

I didn't write anything about a specific fandom. I wrote "then people find that thing to outrageous to be real". Are you trying to Quote Mine me?

" 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!""

I agree, but also add "And were quite popular when this first aired."

That'd make an excellent hottip!

I don't think so. The trope namer actually wasn't this trope at the time, so that should be noted fully in the caption.

No. Again the trope is not about people in-universe mentioning something; it can be anything in a work that is depicted, not merely discussed.

A good example of this is the massive amount of people who called BS on Ace Combat Assault Horizon featuring helicopters doing barrel rolls, despite footage from air shows showing the very same model of helicopters doing it.

Gee, I don't recall ever saying you did, nor do I recall writing up a fake quote of you saying so. In fact, I quite clearly recall being the one saying that JAFAAC was intended to deal with myopic fans putting up images of that sort.

Funny. That doesn't sound like quote mining at all.

I don't think it's all that necessary to have in the caption, but if need be, then I agree it should be a hottip.

The thing is, the former popularity of aluminum Christmas trees is already discussed within the trope's introduction, so stressing it in the caption seems a little redundant to me.

"No. Again the trope is not about people in-universe mentioning something; it can be anything in a work that is depicted, not merely discussed."

Well I didn't mean to imply that it was that narrow, but it does mean that this still requires some form of showing it in fiction before needing an assurance that it's Truth in Television.

"Gee, I don't recall ever saying you did, nor do I recall writing up a fake quote of you saying so. In fact, I quite clearly recall being the one saying that JAFAAC was intended to deal with myopic fans putting up images of that sort. Funny. That doesn't sound like quote mining at all."

Perhaps that wasn't the right form, but you did write something that meant something other than what I did write, which is still misrepresenting my argument.

"The thing is, the former popularity of aluminum Christmas trees is already discussed within the trope's introduction, so stressing it in the caption seems a little redundant to me."

Why do we need to narrow it down to the trope namer? We could instead rework that passage to any example that only becomes unbelievable later on, and use the caption to note that the picture is part of that group.

Here's◊ the actual scene from the Charlie Brown cartoon. The wife and I are gonna be spending most of the night cleaning and prepping for tomorrow, so whoever wants to take on pairing this with the current pic, knock yourself out.

"The wife and I are gonna be spending most of the night cleaning and prepping for tomorrow"

Keep your sex life out of this thread.

Anyway, I'll work on a picture right now.

Well I'm looking up other pictures to pair it with on google, and looking up the term, I'm not seeing that many entries of people doubting they are real (there's even a museum dedicated to them), but that's for another thread.

I think the Charlie Brown picture might be better paired with the last picture in this blog post, which is an ad for such trees.

edited 23rd Nov '11 6:45:10 PM by DragonQuestZ

I wouldn't raise a fuss at that.

Oh, and tsk tsk

The current picture shows something weird that exists. That is enough for the trope and for the article. But i think, as earlier suggested, getting charlie brown with it would improve.

But the trope is not merely "it's weird but exists". It's "something that people see in fiction that is Truth in Television, but people think it's not".

@Trev MUN

The problem is that a lot of people have never heard of Aluminum Christmas Trees, whether from Charlie Brown or from real life.

When I first went to that page, I had no idea why aluminum Christmas trees being real was important. The picture tells you nothing about the trope unless you're familiar with Charlie Brown. That's the definition of fan myopia.

Well let's just see if we can find a picture of the actual reaction to this trope. I'm sure there are some webcomics covering this trope.

We're not actually required to assume Viewers Are Morons at TV Tropes. In this case, I think it's not wildly outlandish to think someone looking at the page title and image in a state of confusion might glance over to the description text and have the capacity to glance over and comprehend the first couple sentences.

Clock is set.

Clock's up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken based on this thread.