Values Dissonance around the World.

That viewpoint has started to change since the 2008 recession made it too expensive for many young Americans to move out at that age but there still is a stigma against those who aren't in school or have found a job while living there.

Although I'm not quite sure how it started in the first place, what was colonial Britain's living arraignments like for young people?

For what it's worth, US society currently does not seriously expect people to move out of their parent's homes the day they turn 18. This is primarily because it's currently economically unfeasible, so living with your parents is often your only and best choice.

Admittedly, that this is becoming normal is widely seen as a bad thing and a sign of the economy not being great.

____

@Kaiseror It's not something The US specifically inherited from Britain. To my understanding, being expected to leave your parent's home is a development of the 20th century, particularly the invention of suburbs and automobiles as well the economic boom of the 50's.

Essentially, during this era there was widespread adoption of mass-produced housing for soldiers returning home and America at this point America had decided to structure its transportation infrastructure primarily around privately-owned automobiles. At this point, it was economically feasible to provide a sort of "American Dream Starter Kit" of a surburban home and a car for every household.

This is also an era where America was, culturally, at its most conformist, and was basically the Trope Maker for a lot of your stereotypes of the American lifestyle and "Americana" in general.

You can think of this era as being essentially an "Assembly Line Culture" where everything was mass produced to "ISO-standards", houses, cars, etc. And this obsession with standardization extended to people and households. So the "ISO-Standard American Nuclear Family" was born wherein in every household was expected to have a hard-working father, a dutiful stay-at-home-mother, 1-3 kids, a car, and optionally a cat and/or dog. The sort of thing you often see in Sitcoms, or used to anyways.

This is why the aesthetics of the era is frequently used in a certain type of dystopia like Fallout's pre-war world. There was a weird juxtaposition of optimism, technological progress, and economic prosperity with rather sinister conformism, paranoia, and the threat of nuclear hellfire hanging over everyone's head (this is an era when you had light-hearted children's cartoons teaching kids about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack).

Indeed, this informs Fallout's aesthetic quite a bit, with toy-like and zeerusty technology and cheery propaganda/advertising contrasted with a bleak nuclear hellscape.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Dec 3rd 2020 at 3:04:05 AM

Is there a way to look up global tropes vs Western/American tropes? I'd love to read about tropes for certain cultures.

TV Tropes has unfortunately renamed a lot of the tropes that previously had names/concepts from non-anglophone cultures (e.g., Nakama —> True Companions). I’m not a fan of the changes, becomes sometimes other cultures have a word for something that just expresses its nuances and essence better than English does, and the name also gives an indication of the culture the trope is particularly associated with (though it can be widely used beyond that culture).

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 9th 2021 at 7:43:15 AM

Well, with the English names for Tropes, I'd argue we ideally want them to be names that inform what something is without needing much prior context.

To use a good example, the trope name "The Wesley", now called Creator's Pet. The former name implies you know something about Star Trek, whereas the latter is self-evident what it means.

Sure, the words express the concept better - if you know the language. And 99% of the users won’t, and figuring out the concept from an English name and trope description is much more effective than a foreign name and trope description. With the English trope name, a properly contextualized example can even imply what the trope is without needing to read the description.

Edit:

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Jan 9th 2021 at 7:46:20 AM

I know, but once I went to the page I immediately understood the concept and I knew a new and suitable word for it. I liked using TV tropes to learn things like that. And if I ran across an unknown term in a list of trope examples, it often became pretty clear from context.

Just my personal taste.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 9th 2021 at 7:56:23 AM

That’s already one more step than we want to require.

And just to be clear: that's less from any sort of abstract ideological principle than it is from the objectively-proven fact that many tropers do not read trope pages at all before using them.

Honestly, it's not really an issue for this particular forum, but the degree of idiot-proofing this site requires can get amazingly frustrating at times.

I do feel like there's a double standard, though. The trope Semper Fi for example is a arcane reference to anyone who's not not familiar with the motto of the US Marines (i.e people outside the US's direct sphere of influence). When there was a suggestion about changing it to something less obtuse it was summarily shot down under "everybody knows what it means" (despite the same argument being applicable to Nakama, for example).

Maybe it should be tried again. More recently the wiki upkeep people seem to be better about that.

For what it's worth, I actually would propose changing the name of Semper Fi to "Everything's Better with Marines" or "Marines Are Just Better"

Dumb the content down enough for any idiot and eventually you're just enabling idiocy.

When I discovered the site, I spent the first days visiting all these trope pages with weird names so I could understand them. In particular Heel–Face Turn, which is total word salad to a Frenchman who never watched "le catch".

I always have to remind myself what "Semper Fi" means to get that trope.

"TV Tropes has unfortunately renamed a lot of the tropes that previously had names/concepts from non-anglophone cultures (e.g., Nakama —> True Companions)."

Nakama is more a relatively obscure (if you aren't an anime fan who specifically watches subs) concept. True Companions works much better.

I think the site has generally done a good job of making tropes names more obvious. Moving away from obscure references to more Exactly What It Says on the Tin is a good thing.

You'd be surprised how many people use it for the Gotcha. The amount of times i've seen people confuse Big Bad with Antagonist is amazing.

Edited by devak on Jan 9th 2021 at 8:35:40 PM

I mean, “Heel Face Turn” is a term from pro wrestling, not a generalized concept. But it’s become widely used specifically thanks to this site, and it’s handy because it summarizes the idea in a succinct manner and once you know it, then it becomes easy to understand all the various adaptations of it into other trope names.

But anyone who recognizes it, knows it either from TV Tropes (directly or indirectly) or because they’re into pro wrestling. It’s a niche term that we’ve repurposed.

I’m not saying that we should stop using it - not at all! - but it does illustrate that we’re willing to use medium-specific terms and expand them to a wider meaning.

Edited by Galadriel on Jan 10th 2021 at 8:38:12 AM

I feel like we're just lowering the bar, but what do I know. It's not like it matters what I think anyway, or that I'm going to change anything with my opinions.

Yeah, I'm not a wrestling fan, so when I first read those names I imagined someone turning on their heel and walking in another direction or something. Which works with the general concept but didn't tell me much about the nature of the change.

Here's a well-written article on how gay stereotypes differ between Japan and the United States.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/moving-out-young-adult-what-consider-apartment-type-family-objection-2275286

An article on single persons leaving the house in Singapore. Keep in mind that the author recognize that this is a thing in non-Asian countries.

Not to mention it prevents the site from being labeled as a den for japanophiles.

A similar question to the one I asked two pages ago:

Do Americans actually wear shoes when they go to bed...?

Whenever I see in American works where characters go to bed wearing shoes it confound me. I mean, isn't that extremely uncomfortable?

Thick socks for cold weather, I can totally understand, but shoes on bed...I just cannot...

No. Nobody wears their shoes to bed unless they're so tired they can't even be bothered to undress.

Yeah, that's pretty much the only time we see characters wearing shoes to bed. It's an easy way to convey just how exhausted they are.

Can't imagine being so tired that you can't even take off shoes at bed...which also implies that you wear shoes indoors, but that's a whole another different matter.

The only time I ever slept with my shoes on was during my time in the army, that one winter outdoor training. Even then, it was less out of exhaustion but more because it was below zero and I would freaking freeze to death otherwise.