Note: If a newly launched trope was already given a No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only designation while it was being drafted on the Trope Launch Pad, additions to the proper index do not need to go through this thread. Instead, simply ask the mods to add the trope via this thread
.
This is the thread to report tropes with problematic Real Life sections.
Common problems include:
- Conversation on the Main Page
- Flame Bait
- Squicky content
- Impossible in Real Life
Real Life sections on the wiki are kept as long as they don't become a problem. If you find an article with such problems, report it here. Please note that the purpose of this thread is to clean up and maintain real life sections, not raze them. Cutting should be treated as a last resort, so please only suggest cutting RL sections or a subset thereof you think the examples in question are completely unsalvageable.
If historical RL examples are not causing any problems, consider whether it would be better to propose a No Recent Examples, Please! (via this forum thread) for RL instead of NRLEP. If RL examples are causing problems only for certain subjects, consider whether a Limited Real Life Examples Only restriction would be preferable to NRLEP.
If you think a trope should be No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only, then this thread is the place to discuss it. However, please check Keep Real Life Examples first to see if it has already been brought up in the past. If not, state the reasons and add it to the crowner.
Before adding to the crowner:
- The trope should be proposed in the thread, along with reasons for why a crowner is necessary instead of a cleanup.
- There must be support from others in thread.
- Any objections should be addressed.
- Allow a minimum of 24 hours for discussion.
When adding to the crowner:
- Be sure to add the trope name, a link to where the discussion started, the reasons for crownering, whether the restriction being proposed is NRLEP or LRLEO (and in the latter case, which subject(s) the restriction would be for), and the date added.
- Announce in thread that you are adding the item.
- An ATT advert should be made as well (batch items together if more than one trope goes up in a day).
In order for a crowner to pass:
- Must have been up for a minimum of a week
- There must be a 2:1 ratio
- If the vote is exactly 2:1 or +/- 1 vote from that, give it a couple extra days to see if any more votes come in
- Once passed, tropes must be indexed on the appropriate NRLEP index
- Should the vote fail, the trope should be indexed on KRLE page
Sex Tropes, Rape and Sexual Harassment Tropes, and Morality Tropes are banned from having RL sections so tropes under those indexes don't need crowner vote.
Crowner entries that have already been called will have "(CLOSED)" appended to them — and are no longer open for discussion.
After bringing up a trope for discussion, please wait at least a day for feedback before adding it to the crowner.
NRLEP tag:
%% Trope was declared Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: [crowner link]
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
LRLEO tag:
%% Trope was declared Administrivia/LimitedRealLifeExamplesOnly via crowner by the Real Life Maintenance thread: [crowner link]
%%The following restrictions apply: [list restriction(s) here]
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
%%The following restrictions apply: [list restriction(s) here]
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
Notes:
- This thread is not for general discussion regarding policies for Real Life sections or crowners. Please take those conversations to this Wiki Talk thread.
- Do not try to overturn previous No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only decisions without a convincing argument.
- As mentioned here, the consensus is that NRLEP warnings in trope page descriptions can use bold text so that they stand out.
- The [[noreallife]] tag doesn't currently work. This is a deprecated tag that was introduced many years ago — originally, it would have displayed a NRLEP warning banner when you edited the page. However, there's been some staff conversation (Feb 2024) about what a new technical solution might look like, so we'd advise against deleting these from pages, at least until we have a decision as to whether it'll be fixed or replaced.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 8th 2024 at 10:49:13 AM
PlasmaPower
Since: Jan, 2015
#9177: Jan 9th 2021 at 6:43:00 PM
Wait that's a "good" character in the quotes? It's kind of hard to tell what their morality was from the quote.
But yea, I feel like most people are going to use the section to call people evil and that's that, especially with the trope name kind of giving that off.
Edited by PlasmaPower on Jan 9th 2021 at 10:43:32 AM
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
GastonRabbit
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
from Robinson, Illinois, USA
(General of TV Troops)
Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#9178: Jan 10th 2021 at 2:17:48 AM
Re: "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
Didn't we go over that trope within the past year, or am I misremembering?
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Zyffyr
from Portland, Oregon
Since: Apr, 2010
Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
#9179: Jan 10th 2021 at 3:39:00 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It was on Crowner 55. It was closed on 1 Jul 2019, with a 8:10 vote total.
10,000 grams of pure caffeine
#9180: Jan 10th 2021 at 6:11:31 AM
I can't freaking believe that these tropes weren't addressed. I feel unhappy that my cargo of tropes to be inspected isn't being inspected, given that I'm bringing another set of cargo right now.
Gonna tackle a clade of Food Tropes, 5-6 tropes at a time:
Age Stereotypical Food
- Many Real Life restaurants have "kids' menus" that usually involve simpler and/or plainer foods. Specifically, fish sticks, chicken nuggets/tenders, hot dogs or corndogs, macaroni, and grilled cheese tend to show up very often on American children's menus. This can be especially common among Mexican and Chinese restaurants, as kids who don't regularly eat such foods are more likely to reject them outright.
- Many real life adults that are still Picky Eaters tend towards the aforementioned "simple" and "plain" foods listed above. A pretty common (but usually unhelpful) retort they're told from those with more expansive palates is to "grow up" or "toughen up". It can be especially hard for adults that may be on the Autism spectrum (people on the spectrum are prone to being picky eaters) or may have Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (which is basically picky eating cranked up to eleven and those who suffer from it have a hard time seeing the food they dislike even as food). It usually takes a good amount of patience and hard work to try out stuff beyond their comfort zones.
Black Market Produce
- In the United Kingdom, oranges were a particular Yuletide treat, associated with Saint Nicholas. They recur (along with chocolate, butter, and meat) in works set in the austerity of post-WWII Britain, when wartime food rationing continued. Bananas, for instance, did not properly return to Britain until the early 1950s (Redwall author Brian Jacques credits the Food Porn in his novels to growing up with limited food, claiming the first time he'd had a banana was disappointing compared to dreaming about it).
- Common throughout much of the world during World War II, given shortages in fresh produce and meats in cities. In some cases, farmers delivered meats, cheese, and produce to their clients in briefcases for exorbitant prices.
- Transatlantic travel was dangerous in wartime. But sailors visiting North America and returning to Britain soon learnt what rare commodities could be cheaply obtained in the USA and Canada which would command extortionate prices at home. RAF pilots training in the USA or ferry pilots bringing American aircraft direct to Britain also exploited their privileged status. A significant proportion of the black market also involved US personnel with access to supply lines out of the USA.
- Russian Underground Cheese Market. Now that's A Rare Sentence.
And A Diet Coke
- A 2013 scientific study found that use of artificial sweeteners can help diabetics control blood sugar, but found no link between use of artificial sweeteners and weight loss. Other studies warn of possible links between overuse of artificial sweeteners and some forms of cancer.
- The common sweetener aspartame (brand name NutraSweet) is known to be harmful to people with the metabolic disorder phenylketonuria (intolerance of the amino acid phenylalanine), and has been suspected of causing neurological issues in otherwise healthy humans.
- Another common artifical sweetener, Saccharin (brand name Sweet'n Low), was once linked to bladder cancer in the 1970s, and in the United States was forced to carry a warning label. Revisits of the studies that led to that conclusion resulted in the warning being rescinded in 2001.
- Bill Clinton often went to McDonald's and ordered a huge, fattening meal with a small diet soda; notoriously, he even did so while on the way back to The White House on a jog. Of course, it ultimately didn't work in the end, considering how his eating habits led to him requiring open heart surgery in 2004. He eventually went vegan.
- Donald Trump reportedly subsisted on fast food and Diet Coke while on the 2016 campaign trail. Even now, he continues to eat fast food on a regular basis.
- Diabetics will order fast food and then get a diet soda, since the carbs in the food are usually much lower on the glycemic index than the carbs in regular soda.
- Food Insider shows that, of 1600 kcals contained in an average US Burger King's Large Whopper meal, 510 kcal or almost a third is from the drink. Switching to sugar-free drink would shave most of those calories away to the single digits.
- In the behind-the-scenes South Park documentary 6 Days to Air, Trey Parker admits that he powers himself with McDonalds during production. He can be seen chowing down on large orders while taking cans of Coke Zero from his minifridge.
- Some studies have even found a correlation between consumption of diet soda and weight gain. One possible reason is that diet soda drinkers still consume other high-calorie foods.
Ate The Spoon
- This can happen if the dishes are extremely hot and the spoons are biodegradable (plastic). It's generally a bad idea to eat the stuff afterwards, though. This isn't limited to biodegradable plastics. Very cheap non-biodegradable plastic spoons may not dissolve, but they can definitely soften and distort in near-boiling beverages (i.e., coffee, cocoa, etc.).
- Stainless steel will corrode in sodium hypochlorite (bleach).
- Gallium is a metal that melts at around 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius). If you can make a spoon out of it, serve someone a hot drink with said spoon. Gallium spoons will melt in the user's hands (staining them gray because liquid gallium, unlike mercury, wets skin and glass). Fortunately, gallium is non-toxic. Do NOT do this anywhere even remotely close to aluminum, because gallium forms a (very brittle) alloy with aluminum that crumbles if you so much as look at it funny. This is why metallic gallium is one substance that's on an omniverse-wide no-fly list because almost every metal used in aerospace engineering alloys with and is in the process embrittled by the liquid form of the stuff.
- A number of special alloys melt well below the boiling point of water. One of the better-known is Wood's metal. A spoon made from many of these would melt in a typical cup of coffee, though given the horrifically toxic metals used (such as lead and cadmium) you wouldn't exactly want to drink the coffee afterward...
- Umeboshi, a pickled plumnote , which is a traditional garnish to steamed rice in Japanese bento, is acidic enough for its juices to corrode the lids of aluminum bento boxes that were popular before WWII.
- Likewise, Indian achar pickles can corrode a stainless steel spoon if left inside of it long enough.
- Lutefisk, that Norwegian-Swedish combination of whitefish and lye, can't be consumed with silver cutlery for this reason. Aluminium spoons aren't recommended, either: lutefisk will react with the spoon with evolution of hydrogen and precipitation of sodium hydroxyaluminate.
- With repeated exposure, sriracha can eat forklifts. The manufacturing process for sriracha sauce, the popular Thai chili sauce often seen with green caps and a rooster on the bottle, has the vinegar-and-pepper mash stored in barrels and moved by forklift. Turns out sriracha seepage onto the lifting forks forces the company to replace them every few years thanks to how pitted and corroded they become. Tabasco sauce, made under similar circumstances, also corrodes forklifts.
- On the old PBS cooking show The Frugal Gourmet, the host talked about an attempt by a company in New Mexico trying to can chili peppers. The chili's acids corroded the cans, weakened and dissolved the boxes the cans were in and was started to eat the pallets the boxes were on. The company switched to glass jars.
- Some of the Gargle Blasters served at science-fiction conventions will warp or deform plastic drinking cups.
- Storage of extremely spicy chili peppers, from the Naga Jolokia (Ghost Pepper) and up, must be done very carefully, as the capsaicin is distributed all around the pepper rather than just near the seeds. Capsaicin is corrosive and will burn holes on your skin, into your gloves, onto the countertops, and into non-glass containers if left in one place for too long. People who harvest and handle these peppers must wear gloves, which they must swap out for new ones every now and then before the peppers disintegrate them.
- A Real Life cocktail called the Moscow Mule is traditionally served in copper mugs. However, the Moscow Mule is acidic, and copper dissolves in acid (specifically, a pH below 6.0; Moscow Mules can easily drop below this), and after a certain point the dissolved copper becomes toxic. So for safety reasons, if you're going to serve your Moscow Mule in a copper mug, you must use a lined mug where the interior surface is something that won't react to acid (like stainless steel or, more traditionally, tin).
Bad Humor Truck
- The Glasgow Ice Cream Wars (or, more accurately, the Glascow Gangs Who Liked to Use Ice Cream Trucks as a Cover For Selling Heroin and Stolen Goods Wars):
The conflicts, in which vendors raided one another's vans and fired shotguns into one another's windscreens, were more violent than might typically be expected between ice-cream salesmen.
- Mafia hitman Robert Pronge drove a Mister Softee truck to appear inconspicuous.
- Richard "Iceman" Kuklinski froze his victims' bodies in an ice cream truck to skew the estimated time of their death. Maybe. He apparently got the idea from his mentor, Pronge, listed above.
- Kenneth Bianchi, one of the Hillside Stranglers, worked as an ice cream man. A suspected victim of his disappeared when she went out one day to buy a cone.
- Fred West, another serial killer, also worked as an ice cream man. While one, he accidentally ran over a kid.
- An ice cream truck was used as a suicide car bomb.
- The NYC ice cream truck business is rife with turf wars between rival companies, the fallout including attacking rivals' brakes with a crowbar, blowing up rivals' trucks, kidnapping rivals or getting into punch-outs or beating them with a wrench.
'''"Let me tell you about this business. Every truck has a bat inside." - a "thickly muscled, heavily tattooed" Mister Softee driver quoted.
Other/Bad Humor Truck
- The Topps trading card series Weird Wheels had a card titled Bad Humor Truck.
- One of Jean Shepherd's greatest stories on his radio show was about the price war that broke out between two stores directly across the street from one another. The group coming for the bargains kept growing and reversing direction with every competing penny drop in the price. Soon word got out and there was a rumbling on the horizon as hordes began arriving for the cheap ice cream.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
I'm closer to "Sheesh, these poor people are gonna end up suffering real bad if they don't sort out the stuff I bring up before I bring another batch for them; what if it stacks up into an overly large mess?".
Edited by SomeLibre on Jan 10th 2021 at 10:19:11 PM
Cassie | he/they | But will it stop the pain forever? / I just can't be sure
Redmess
#9181: Jan 10th 2021 at 6:23:12 AM
There's really no need to beat yourself up over it, you can just bring up the tropes you want to discuss.
And since this is a maintenance thread, well, of course you are going to find problem pages that haven't been fixed yet. That is kind of the point of the maintenance thread.
Optimism is a duty.
How sweet it is
#9182: Jan 10th 2021 at 8:09:59 AM
Should we add Only in Florida for being too common? The "Florida is stranger than fiction" folder takes up the majority of the page when opened. It's bound to trip the long page warning eventually if we add more Florida news stories.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#9183: Jan 10th 2021 at 10:49:28 AM
Yeah, that section is slowly metastasizing and consuming everything, I would support axing it as way too common.
I'll take a look through all your suggestions in a bit to see what can be added
mightymewtron
Angry babby
from New New York
Since: Oct, 2012
Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Angry babby
#9184: Jan 10th 2021 at 11:02:41 AM
As much as I love the Only in Florida real life section, it's still a stereotype trope and we could probably link to a website that categorizes those stories anyway.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#9185: Jan 10th 2021 at 1:00:56 PM
Added Only in Florida to crowner.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
WarJay77
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
(Troper Knight)
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#9186: Jan 10th 2021 at 1:02:33 PM
The description doesn't help. It focuses almost exclusively on real-life events rather than as a trope.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#9187: Jan 10th 2021 at 1:09:28 PM
It's been more than two days and the votes and clearly in favor of cutting, so going to call:
- Open Secret - Too common
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You - Narrative/Plot trope
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin' - Morality trope
- Misblamed - Fan reaction, impossible IRL
Edited by laserviking42 on Jan 10th 2021 at 4:09:46 AM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
10,000 grams of pure caffeine
#9188: Jan 10th 2021 at 2:51:03 PM
I don't know why Nature Is Not Nice isn't voted to be such (NRLEP)
Cassie | he/they | But will it stop the pain forever? / I just can't be sure
mightymewtron
Angry babby
from New New York
Since: Oct, 2012
Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Angry babby
#9189: Jan 10th 2021 at 3:31:14 PM
The thing with Nature Is Not Nice is that all of the examples can be deleted as general examples anyway. Only the documentary examples would remain, which would thus get moved to Film, so do we need to vote on it if it's not going to have a RL folder anymore anyway?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#9190: Jan 10th 2021 at 4:21:55 PM
If the examples can all be culled for examples are not general, by all means lets do so.
mightymewtron
Angry babby
from New New York
Since: Oct, 2012
Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Angry babby
#9191: Jan 10th 2021 at 4:25:03 PM
RL section is gone now. Technically there was one RL example (or two, really), but it referred to two documentary works that were already listed in Film anyway.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#9192: Jan 10th 2021 at 4:51:14 PM
Does anyone think Million to One Chance should be RL free? Ironically, Million to One Chance is rather common (several of the examples say so) and the examples are solely everytime someone has beat the odds.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
ShinyCottonCandy
Industrious Incisors
from Sinnoh
(4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Industrious Incisors
#9193: Jan 10th 2021 at 6:04:21 PM
Yes, as a narrative trope. In works, a million-to-one chance is shorthand for the fact that what we’re seeing will be the “one” (unless it’s a deliberate subversion) while in real life, it really is the “million” as often as it sounds like.
Nen_desharu
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
from Greater Smash Bros. Universe or Toronto
Since: Aug, 2020
Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
#9194: Jan 10th 2021 at 8:25:18 PM
From Picky Eater (under the Real Life folder):
17-year-old Stacy Irvine of Britain ate practically nothing but Chicken Mc Nuggets since she was 2 and suffered a variety of health problems including anemia and shortness of breath. However, as seen in the photos, she still looks as thin and youthful as ever despite her ailing health. It just goes to show you that picky eating can be dangerous no matter what foods you eat, and that being "fat" and "unhealthy" aren't always the same thing.
She's obviously no longer 17 years old.
Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 10th 2021 at 11:25:32 AM
Kirby is awesome.
mightymewtron
Angry babby
from New New York
Since: Oct, 2012
Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Angry babby
#9195: Jan 10th 2021 at 8:36:52 PM
Then I guess you can remove that part and update it if necessary. The rest of Picky Eater doesn't seem too problematic to me, though some of them appear to rather be Does Not Like Spam and there are general examples to be removed. But I wouldn't put it on the crowner or anything.
Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 10th 2021 at 11:37:42 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Nen_desharu
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
from Greater Smash Bros. Universe or Toronto
Since: Aug, 2020
Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
#9196: Jan 10th 2021 at 8:55:19 PM
Removed the 17-year-old part.
PlasmaPower
Since: Jan, 2015
#9197: Jan 11th 2021 at 12:06:00 AM
Cosy Catastrophe involves The End of the World as We Know It. Wouldn't that make this trope impossible by default? Oh, and there's a juicy COVID shoehorn in there too.
Real Life
- Tornadoes actually are this in Real Life, for anyone not in the damage track — and since even for the very worst tornadoes, the damage track is no more than a couple miles wide at the very most. Even in long-track, violent tornadoes, there are undamaged properties, available resources, and emergency crews often nearby — and if you're outside the damage track's width, you may not even know a massively destructive tornado passed you by aside from some weird weather or an unusual power outage.
- A perfect Real Life example of this trope would be a condominium complex in Ocoee, Florida hit by a tornado during an overnight storm in 1998. The complex — consisting of large single-story condos — was completely leveled with the exception of a single condo on the edge of the complex's property. Not only did the couple living in this condo not even notice a tornado was destroying their neighbors while it was going on, the family only found out it had happened when they turned their TV on in the morning and saw a picture of their own condo on the morning news with the scrolling headline "MIRACLE SAVES SINGLE CONDOMINIUM" running under it. They never even lost power.
- The Protect and Survive films and leaflets produced by the British government in the early 1980s seemed to imply that this would be the outcome of a nuclear conflict. Sure, you'd have to stay inside for a couple of weeks, but after that everything would be just fine and dandy. Threads and When the Wind Blows (see Comic Books, above) were produced in response. To some degree it actually made sense, because in the 1980s nuclear strategy generally shifted away from attacking population and industrial centers toward attacking enemy military infrastructure (bases, command centers, defense installations, missile silos, etc.) — under the assumption that if enemy military forces are depleted by nuclear attacks, then your conventional military could force him to surrender without resorting to mass civilian casualties. While numerous nuclear explosions around the cities are clearly not good for population, they also clearly much less harmful than nuclear attack against the cities. Still, this would mean mass death to civilians plus destruction of agriculture nonetheless. Though the latter would be naturally less than a direct nuclear attack on civilian centers, it still is something many couldn't survive in the aftermath. Radiation poisoning and the starvation due to crops dying would still kill millions.
- A lot of American Civil Defense material implied this as well. Like its British counterparts mentioned above, The Day After was produced to show how bad even a "limited" nuclear war would be.
- In October 2016, a photo of a Hong Kong man sitting in a Starbucks flooded due to heavy rain engrossed in a newspaper went viral.
- The COVID-19 Pandemic. Despite all the deaths, the negative effects on the economy and the disease itself, some people treated quarantine as a vacation.
Other
- The Flooded London series of images by Squint/Opera depict a very Cosy Catastrophe.
- Internet Memes about the Coronavirus Pandemic tend to be this when they're not portraying Cabin Fever instead. Since a key aspect of preventing its spread is isolation and limiting contact with others, a lot have jokes have been made of people calmly and happily sitting at home playing video games, surfing the web, watching movies, and sleeping in until noon while the world comes to an end outside. Especially for dogs, to whom the pandemic just means their owner gets to stay home with them all day.
EDIT: And speaking of The End of the World as We Know It, there seems to be a lot of shoehorns in there too.
Real Life
- Well, in a few billion years, the Sun will become a Red Giant, which will mean the end of the world.
- In about 600 million years, the acceleration of the greenhouse effect due to increasing solar luminosity will make earth too hot for C4 photosynthesis to occur, wiping out most (but not all) plant life on earth; by 1.1 billion years, nearly all surface life on the planet will be extinct and the oceans will begin to evaporate, increasing the atmospheric pressure to Venus-like levels, making things even hotter.
- Various theories in modern physics predict that baryons have a limited lifetime. Considering that everything is made with baryons this would mean that given enough time the whole universe will simply fall apart no matter what happens.
- There's always that threat that Mankind will stuff up something before any of the above "Real Life" Tropes even come close to coming true. There is even rumour of a small cult of people who believe that Mankind will push their "playing God" role too far and rather spectacularly fail, thus killing themselves. A wonderful quote from Jurassic Park which is much worth mentioning:
Dr. Ian Malcolm: God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs...
Dr. Ellie Sattler: Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth...- Never fear though; it'll be years before some corporate giant realizes that it's only a simple task of some genetic mutation and they'll be making millions out of Raptor-thigh cutlets.
- Isaac Asimov did that in a short...
- Never fear though; it'll be years before some corporate giant realizes that it's only a simple task of some genetic mutation and they'll be making millions out of Raptor-thigh cutlets.
- The Permian Extinction, also charmingly known as the Great Dying, which occurred on the Permian-Triassic Boundary, was very nearly the End of the World as We Know It. At least, it was very nearly the end of life as we know it. 95% of all species went extinct. The extinction that killed the dinosaurs (the KT Extinction) wiped out "only" 60% of all species. Somewhat interesting, the Permian extinction killed large numbers of individual species, but kept many groups intact. The KT Extinction killed whole groups (such as the dinosaurs, ammonites, etc.), but saved more groups of individual species.
- Did we mention that it might have been caused by Siberia exploding? No, not a single volcano in Siberia... the entire region exploded, sending massive amounts of dust and volcanic ash into the air, causing acid rain to fall virtually nonstop.
- The Permian Extinction is also noteworthy as the only known mass extinction of insects. That's right, even the stereotypical apocalypse survivors had trouble with this one.
- Speaking of extinction events, there was also the Great Oxygenation Event, also known as the Oxygen Holocaust, which makes the Permian Extinction look like a walk in the park. Basically, at this point, life on Earth was comprised almost exclusively of anaerobic bacteria (meaning that oxygen was lethal to them). Thankfully, the planet's waters and atmosphere were fairly poor in oxygen at the time, so they did just fine. Enter cyanobacteria, who began to thrive and photosynthetize at staggering speed, filling up the water and the air with oxygen in the process. Result: the first and biggest extinction event in Earth's history. 99% of anaerobic bacteria were completely wiped out, ejecting aerobs (who could thrive in oxygen) into the position of dominant form of life. However, it ended up massively backfiring on cyanobacteria - the buildup of oxygen in the atmosphere resulted in the formation of carbon dioxyde, which was a less efficient greenhouse gas than methane, which the atmosphere was previously saturated with. Because of this, the temperature of the Earth sharply dropped and the planet entered a massive ice age known as the Huronian Glaciation which lasted for 300 million years and triggered a second extinction event that killed off nearly all cyanobacteria in turn. Basically, cyanobacteria almost killed all Earth life by breathing.
- As far as the "as we know it" goes, this has happened periodically throughout human history in both small scale (see: the fall of the civilization on Easter Island), and large scale. Society utterly collapses, economies revert to sustenance agriculture and some hunter-gatherer-ing from more complex dynastic and mercantile ones, and cultural development and arts get tossed to the wayside as survival becomes more crucial and difficult for most of the people. The world is still there afterwards, but it isn't as people knew it anymore.
- At the end of the Bronze Age (between 1206 and 1150 BCE), many highly advanced civilizations existed in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Among these were; in Egypt, the New Kingdom; in Anatolia, the Hittite empire; in the Levant, the Canaanite cities; and in the Aegean, the Mycenaean culture. Almost overnight, all of these civilizations collapsed or were destroyed, beginning a dark age that lasted for several centuries. The cause of this Bronze Age Collapse is still a mystery. Various theories have been proposed, including volcanic eruptions, drought, earthquakes, invasion by "the Sea Peoples", internal rebellions and all of the above with the natural disasters aggravating the human threats. But no one knows what could have wiped out so many powerful civilizations in such a short time and without leaving any conclusive evidence as to what really happened.
- Somebody's world ends every second, when they die. But the rest of us don't notice. And when the world ends for you it will carry on for everybody else.
- There are a number of proposals that super-advanced extraterrestrials might construct massive, astronomical-scale objects for their own purposes. If that's so, it's not so hard to imagine that future humanity might decide to do something similar (for example, building a Dyson Sphere). It would required an enormous amount of building material, which might lead to the human race deliberately deconstructing Earth itself to use as raw material. Same might so for the Sun too (by far the largest single object, and thus source of matter, in the Solar System).
- It's unlikely we'd deconstruct Earth. There is far more than enough material in the uninhabited rocks of the solar system to build a complete Dyson Swarm. Even doing that, however, is likely to have some sort of impact on the inhabitability of Earth.
- The smallpox-typhus-cholera-influenza pandemics in the Americas make a great example, though it only affected 1/10 of the planet's populationnote . Within a few decades the recurrent pandemics reduced the population to some 10% of what it had once been, the coastal and riverine areas being hardest hit. It was in this environment that the Castilians arrived and two small bands (of 100-300) of free-lance soldiers sided with the powerful rebel factions within the highly centralised Aztec Empire and Incan Confederation, bringing down the established governments and installing themselves at the apexes of the new hierarchies. Funnily enough, though figures like Bartolomé de las Casas talk of many natives being literally worked to death under the slave-labor system established shortly thereafter, in reality most of the natives used as slaves died of disease because of their close proximity to Europeans and their diseases. In fact, the mortality-rate continued to be so high among those exposed to Europeans that slaves had to be brought from Europe, the middle east, and increasingly from Africa to make up for the massive labor-shortage. These also died in high numbers because the Caribbean's swamps were great breeding-grounds for malarial mosquitoes, which meant the slave-stocks constantly had to be topped-up by new purchases from the African slaver-kingdomsnote .
- There are about a thousand theories on when the world will end, prior to being destroyed by the sun. The currently (strangely enough) least popular are the Nostradamus 2012 and Mayan Long-Count Calendar prophecies. Not many have heard of the Nostradamus-prophecies, though, which might explain the lack of panic over it, and hundreds of scientists, NASA included, have debunked the Mayan Long-Count theory. It turns out that according to the Mayan calendar, the 13th Baktun ended back in the 1960's, and that the 2012-thing was an error in the calculations (it was solidly confirmed when 2012 came and went without incidents on this level, completing the transformation of this end-of-the-world scenario into a subject of mockery, especially for a Roland Emmerich movie that had this as it's major plot point); the Mayans also ended with the 13th Baktun because they could not calculate past that point, not because the world was ending). The next "big" Doomsday, is scheduled for the 2030s, when an asteroid should hit us (with a 0.000001% chance of actually doing so). Luckily, by then we'll most likely have the defense-systems to wipe out giant rocks plummeting towards the Earth.
- In 2011 when a religious individual named Harold Camping claimed to have figured out the exact date of the world's end according to the Bible, saying that the world would suffer massive and simultaneous earthquakes on a global scale. The date came and went, confusing people who were expecting and preparing for the world's end. Naturally, the person who made the bold doomsday claim went into hiding from the public while others who still strongly believe the prophecy brushed off the mistake by saying the world is still going to end, but not right now. He died not long after this fiasco turned him into a punchline.
- What makes the above example hilarious is that anyone who actually read the bible would know that his claim to know the end was coming was bogus. The Bible explicitly says "No man will know the day of the Lord's coming", so his claim to know the date of the end times was bogus simply because he claimed to know it.
- Though this didn't stop those who claimed Harold was on the right track from carrying on his legacy; an online-only Christian organization called the eBible Fellowship predicted October 7th, 2015 as the next big date for God to systematically wipe out the planet. The founder of the group, Chris McCann, directly referenced the previous prediction in 2011 as a simple cessation of cataloging which church-goers would be spared obliteration by fire, stating that the new date would seal the Earth's fate: "It'll be gone forever. Annihilated."
- Speaking of 2012, the world - or, at least the world's technology - almost did meet its end in July of that year. A coronal mass ejection missed Earth by a margin of nine days. The last time a CME of that magnitude hit Earth, it fried nearly every telegraph installation in the United States and Europe. One can only imagine how that would affect modern-day technology.
- In 2011 when a religious individual named Harold Camping claimed to have figured out the exact date of the world's end according to the Bible, saying that the world would suffer massive and simultaneous earthquakes on a global scale. The date came and went, confusing people who were expecting and preparing for the world's end. Naturally, the person who made the bold doomsday claim went into hiding from the public while others who still strongly believe the prophecy brushed off the mistake by saying the world is still going to end, but not right now. He died not long after this fiasco turned him into a punchline.
- The Other Wiki has a very nice list on predicted ends of the world. Over the last five centuries, it "should" have ended about once every 5 years. And that's just the ones popular enough to have made it into history.
- Joule was a very influential scientist as he had discovered that energy disappeared out of a system once it was used. Unfortunately he never discovered that the energy was still there, but transmitted into another type of energy and heat. He ended up predicting that the end of the world would happen because all of the energy that keeps the world stable would get lost forever.
- The pace of technological and cultural change has accelerated tremendously since the industrial revolution kicked off. As a result, to a person born in the 80s and growing up in the 90s and early 00s, the world will be a very different place. This has resulted in people developing nostalgia for things that are merely 10-20 years old. This was not as noticeable in the early 20th century, but people born around the beginning of 21st century and beyond will probably see their world change radically during their lifetimes, for better and/or worse.
- The only (debatably) "good" scenario involving this would be the so called Technological Singularity - the creation of strong AI that would continue to improve itself exponentially. Said AI could on elevate humans and/or all life on Earth into demi-goodhood, or alternatively devour the Earth to build itself up. The median value of AI development predictions falls somewhere in 2040s, so we should know relatively soon if this will actually happen.
- When CNN was launched, Ted Turner vowed that it would never shut down, even to the point this happens. They would cover it live as their final news story, then sign off with "Nearer My God To Thee".
EDIT 2: Isn't Picky Eater way too common in real life though?
Edited by PlasmaPower on Jan 11th 2021 at 4:13:19 PM
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
10,000 grams of pure caffeine
#9198: Jan 11th 2021 at 12:42:51 AM
Seems like Picky Eater would be far more common than many tropers would think. It's often also a character trait.
Edited by SomeLibre on Jan 12th 2021 at 3:43:15 AM
Cassie | he/they | But will it stop the pain forever? / I just can't be sure
mightymewtron
Angry babby
from New New York
Since: Oct, 2012
Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Angry babby
#9199: Jan 11th 2021 at 2:11:18 AM
Hmm...remove the general examples and misuse from Picky Eater and see what's left.
Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 11th 2021 at 5:11:25 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
laserviking42
from End-World
Since: Oct, 2015
Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
#9200: Jan 11th 2021 at 4:14:39 AM
I went ahead and cleaned up the Other and Real Life sections of Picky Eater. Any entry that referred to a reality show was moved to Live Action Series, two of the Other entries referred to cartoons (one was a New Yorker cartoon), so they were moved to Comic Strips, and the other Other entry was about a hospital advertisement so guess where that went.
A bunch were removed as being too general, and I removed the entries on President Bush and Obama, as not liking a certain food doesn't translate to being picky. We still have a decent sized section, so you can judge whether we need it or not.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
Projects: Long Term/Perpetual:
Real Life Maintenance - NRLEP/LRLEO Crowner (19 Feb 2024)
18th Feb '24 11:27:30 PM
Crown Description:
Vote up to either forbid all real life examples (No Real Life Examples Please) or forbid real life examples for specific subjects (Limited Real Life Examples Only); vote down to Keep Real Life Examples. To add a trope to a No Real Life Examples Please index or the Limited Real Life Examples Only index, its crowner option must meet the following criteria:- Stable 2:1 ratio needed for NRLEP or LRLEO
- Must have been up for a minimum of a week
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Total posts: 15,950
I'm going to disagree with the morality there. If the page quote refers to a good character, it's safe to say that the trope doesn't necessarily imply that the character in question is evil.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.