Hindsight Cleanup

Yep. This is too new to qualify.

Logging my deletion of an entry at YMMV.Game Of Thrones S 6 E 10 The Winds Of Winter:

• Harsher in Hindsight: The Sept of Baelor goes up in what visually resembles the combination of a small nuclear fireball and the kind of dust cloud you'd see from the demolition of a building, flattening everything within several blocks and starting a series of raging fires. The whole things bears uncomfortable visual similarities to the August 2020 explosion that destroyed a good chunk of Beirut. Worse still, both explosions were caused when a large cache of a notoriously dangerous and volatile substance — Wildfire here, ammonium nitrate in the Beirut explosion — was ignited.

I deleted it because the explosions had very different causes and contexts in reality (the Sept explosion is a deliberate attack on a landmark, while the Beirut explosion in a harbour was an accident); "capital city has an explosion" are where the similarities end.

In addition to being a current, on-going issue, it's also straying into making associations that the first affected person (Kdin) explicitly told people not to make — she wants focus to be on the RT management and not on individual shows or work-streams.

IIRC how the affected individuals feel about the associations shouldn't have an impact on whether or not we document them (if they are eligible for documentation, that is); at most we can mention that she doesn't like people making those kinds of connections.

Regardless, I agree that it's too new to be covering this.

Edited by bowserbros on Oct 21st 2022 at 4:07:25 AM

This is on Megamind:

• Hilarious in Hindsight: While the overall character of Titan and his similarity to incels is a more serious matter (see below), it is rather funny how his face remaining chubby despite his now superhery physique reflects a popular incel myth: the concept of "gymcel" or the belief that even if an incel hits the gym, they'll still face rejection because of their "ugly" facial features. As with Titan, incels fail to see that the real problem is their personality and attitude.

Yes, that's what I'm saying: given what Kdin said, the entry would have needed to be rewritten even if it had been eligible right now.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 22nd 2022 at 8:25:20 AM

He didn't get rejected for being ugly, though? He got rejected cuz he's an entitled dick.

(x3) That's not an example in my opinion.

I think that's the point. They aknowledge he was rejected for being entitled, while these kind of people would believe is becuase they are ugly.

My main issue is that this seems like a stretch for the example. If his appearance might have been mentioned at any point, maybe. But this was never an issue, it was always that Roxanne "should" give him a chance for being "nice". That's why I think this specific instance is not an example.

Two sketchy examples from Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared's HIH section:

• Also about a week after DHMIS 5 came out, the World Health Organization released a report saying that processed meat increases the risk of stomach cancer.

• The original episode about creativity is very exploitable for Memetic Mutation in general, and even had a crossover with a future meme mocking the "How Creative People See The World" comics, which compare Ordinary People to Creative People in the didactic and sometimes tasteless way the episode was mocking. In particular, the emphasis on "Creative People" having unusual hair colours often led to people responding with "I use my hair to express myself."

I think the first one is a stretch. For those who haven't seen it, DHMIS 5 has talking food sing about "eating healthy", but like the original video, their advice is terrible and things get nightmarish. Namely, one character is killed and force-fed to another. The only connection between that and the stomach cancer report is both involve processed meat being portrayed negatively. (I guess nutrition ties into it slightly, but still not enough.)

The second one might be more valid, but is written in a confusing way. I think what it's trying to say is that the original short was similar to this meme (I wasn't familiar with it and had to look it up), and that the meme is shallow and thus unintentionally similar to the short's sarcastic treatment of "creative" people. What I don't like is, one, the use of "crossover" (it implies the DHMIS creators and the meme's creators worked on it together), and two, the second sentence. Most of the unironic examples on that Know Your Meme page don't involve bright hair colors, it seems like a general stereotype involving creative people.

Does this Harsher in Hindsight on YMMV.Stranger Things actually fit the trope:

• Grigori is a Russian agent who is part of a Soviet effort to invade the U.S. in Season 3. He is played by Andrey Ivchenko, who was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 2022, Ivchenko's native country was invaded by Russia, and cities including Kharviv were brutalized by Russian forces.

I don't see much correlation myself but thought I would get some more opinions.

The first one reads as partial-context at best to me and I agree that it's not an example. As for the second, I agree it's more valid though I'm unconvinced it's an example. I could be wrong on that one, though.

I agree it's a stretch and I feel it's cuttable.

Okay cut.

What about this entry on YMMV.Doctor Who 2022 CEN The Power Of The Doctor:

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Jodie, a blonde woman, regenerating into an Asian man can be this, considering the next day Rishi Sunak was elected Prime Minister, succeeding Liz Truss.

Again seems like a stretch.

Seconded and I actually feel it's even more of a stretch than .

Plus it's Tennant as the 14th anyway.

, , and : Okay I cut it.

Edited by Bullman on Oct 24th 2022 at 3:37:01 AM

also major ROCEJ violation imo, it's a very frivolous comparison to make.

Edited by ChloeJessica on Oct 24th 2022 at 1:35:21 AM

(On mobile, so forgive the lazy formatting)

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=YMMV.CookieRunKingdom&more=t#edit34766944

This Harsher example doesn't seem to have any reasoning specific to the CRK event it's being applied to; "literally anything to do with BTS is Harsher now" seems bad logic to us

I don't quite get what that example is trying to say, that BTS in its entirety is now Harsher in Hindsight because they have to serve their military time? How does that even compute?

Seems like a matter of bad timing misdiagnosed as Harsher.

American Psycho:

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A narcissistic sociopath who was born and raised in a life of privilege in Manhattan's upper echelons who despises everyone around him and eventually became a serial killer. Are we describing Patrick Bateman or Robert Durst?^note Durst's crime spree began before the novel was ever written, but he wasn’t suspected until long after.
  • Much is made in the novel about how Japan's market dominance will lead to them owning most of America by the end of the 90s. The very year the book was published, the asset price bubble in Japan popped, ushering in the Lost Decade.
  • Patrick excuses himself from Detective Kimball by saying he has "a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes." In 2014, this line either became this or a possible dose of Fridge Brilliance.
  • The joke about Patrick's love of Whitney Houston being used to drive home how pretentious and tasteless he is has lost a lot of its bite, since her death at the young age of 48 elevated her to Posthumous Popularity Potential status.

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Mostly due to Christian Bale playing Batman...
  • The fact that Bateman and Batman are separated by one letter can be amusing to some people.
  • Patrick murdering Paul Allen is now Batman swinging an axe in the Joker's face and getting investigated by the Green Goblin for it. On a related note, the make-up used on Jared Leto's Joker could be described in the same way as Paul Allen's business card.
  Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God, that tattoo even looks like a watermark!
  • Then Jared Leto would go on to play a different kind of bat-man.
  • Christian Bale plays a wealthy shallow yuppy who never does any work, has a job at his father's company, lives a double life, and is often forced to hide his displeasure at his companions. They have more in common than it seems.
  • A Batman-related one originating in the book: one of the clubs Bateman references is called TDK.
  • Who better than the Eleventh Doctor himself to play Bateman, A.K.A Dubs Guy?
  • Tom Cruise shows up briefly in the novel as a tenant in Patrick's building. Christian Bale later based his performance as Bateman on Tom Cruise.
  • At one point, Patrick coldly tells Jean "You can always be thinner, look better." Four years later, Christian Bale would (in)famously lose a staggering 63 pounds for his role in The Machinist and then lose 30 pounds several years later for The Fighter.
  • Gloria Steinem was openly and vocally critical of the novel for it's treatment of female characters. Steinem would later marry David Bale, making her the step-mother of Christian Bale who would go on to play Patrick Bateman.
  • Even funnier for the Musical, not just the fact that David Cronenberg's version of the film adaptation would have ended in a music number. But the fact that in the Broadway show, this would be Benjamin Walker's second time playing a character wielding an axe.
  • At one point, Patrick says "Hasta la Vista, baby!"
  • An attractive, wealthy 27 year-old American man who works a white collar job but never actually seems to do much work, has few-to-no genuinely close relationships, uses money to get what he wants, can appear charming and charismatic on the surface when he wants something, hides a troubled personal life and disturbed mind, has controlling and emotionally-detached relationships with women combining sex and violence, gets away with anti-social or outright criminal behavior, and dates a shy young woman with poor self-esteem who thinks he's Prince Charming. Are we talking about Patrick Bateman... or Christian Grey? Unlike Bateman, Christian is supposed to be a romantic hero, though detractors of Fifty Shades often disagree. The cherries on top are that a) Mr. Grey shares his first name with the actor who played Patrick, and b) Bret Easton Ellis expressed interest in writing the screenplay of the Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation, and one can only can imagine what that would've turned out like.
  • With his obsession for appearance, clothes, beauty products and middle-of-the-road music, along with his long and shallow speeches, Patrick could easily be mistaken for an influencer today, psychopathy aside. It becomes Harsher in Hindsight when you consider the less than pristine reputation of several influencers (or it continues to be Hilarious in Hindsight, depending on one's view of influencers).

Some of them are valid but a lot of these examples strike me as shoehorning, Fan Myopia, and Actor Mortality.

IIRC, jokes about Batman killing the Joker are fairly popular among people familiar with the movie (at least if YouTube comments on various clips of the Paul Allen scene are any indication), so I think that can be kept on the basis of it being a genuinely common reaction.

Of the Harsher examples, Robert Durst might fit, but the Japan example is generic fear that permeated media from the time and was omnipresent in cyberpunk genre works, while the Cliff Huxtable one fails to relate the scene to Cosby himself and is ZCE to boot.

Most of the Batman examples can stay due to the film being a Fountain of Memes, but need a lot of consolidating and suffer from being low in context if not outright ZCE. The Gloria Steinem example can also stay. But the musical-related examples are largely contextless Actor Garbage while the comparisons between Bateman and characters from other media are Fan Myopia, particularly since they both draw from social criticism that preceded both the book and the later characters.

Primal (2019)

• Harsher in Hindsight: The episode where the Egyptian Queen dies aired on the same day the Queen of England passed away.

I'd say cut. the queen in the show gets thrown off a boat and gruesomely crashes on the floor. That's not remotely similar.

Yeah, that seems like a shoehorn.