Stock Parody Jokes cleanup

The last few ones are yikes.

It's the sort of thing where I wonder if those entries are legit and those are actual jokes that bash the games, or if they're just mindless bashing, and I have no idea which one is more likely given Sonic's infamy.

This may be a drop in the ocean, but "Sonic has just one big eyeball" is legit; it has been parodied here, for example.

I've seen a couple more too. Here and here◊.

This example added to the other media page feels like a ROCEJ violation.

• Every republican is a middle-aged old-fashioned straight cis-gendered white man who demonizes democrats for doing anything and cares less about the people and the country and more about themselves. This got especially bad after Donald Trump was elected for president, where both he and a bunch of his supporters acted exactly like that, much to the chagrin of other republicans who were against or even in support of Trump.

Is that even a parody joke? Like... at best it's a stereotype.

As much as I personally don't like Republicans (in general), it's not a good idea to include stock parody jokes of real life politicians (especially those currently in office) or political parties.

Historical ones from at least 20 years after the politician leaves office would be fair game though.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Sep 24th 2021 at 1:04:56 PM

I was checking the Other Media page.

In the Advertising folder, both McDonald's and Chuck E. Cheese have more examples about the actual restaurants rather than their ads.

Edited by PhantomDusclops92 on Sep 24th 2021 at 7:42:49 PM

That might be okay? Parody jokes are the sort of thing that probably go beyond the normal "media" focus we have, though them being in the Advertising folder is bizarre.

Advertising is where a lot of stuff about products goes when there's not another place to put it.

That said, I had a feeling we'd get RL examples on this that verge into complaining. Yes, real life has stock parody jokes. But the current state of the item should not allow them because the current state of the item is "here's a (complainy) joke I saw someone make once, with no other context."

Yeah, there are a bunch of other complainy jokes in that page. Including two about furries and NSFW artists that I think should be cut.

The furry one can defintivelty burn.

Bringing back an idea mentioned earlier, I think it might address a lot of the issues if we made a soft rule that each example should mention at least one work using the parody joke. That would make it clear that yes, these jokes are at least somewhat widespread, and aren’t just one troper’s bashing. For instance:

• Harry Potter: Inverting canon Harry’s humility and making him a raging egomaniac. Potter Puppet Pals is a notable example of this characterization.
• Family Guy: Mocking the show’s alleged negative tendency to use cutaway gags with limited or no relevance to an episode’s plot. This has been done several times by South Park, whose creators have stated their dislike for the show.

That's my main idea when I eventually have time to take this to TRS.

There is an example I was thinking about for a while that I don't know if should go on Stock Parody Jokes or Shallow Parody. Before you ask: I saw multiple comics and Youtube videos with this take.

• Every Michael Bay movie is an adaptation of a classic franchise from the 80's starring Shia LaBeouf where the titular characters (whose designs are completely different from the original ones) stay in the background while the US Army does everything.

This was added to the Super Mario section on StockParodyJokes.Video Games:

• Making fun of the infamous casting choices of the 2022 movie like Chris Pratt as Mario or Jack Black as Bowser, as well as making up even more absurd-sounding casting choices like Eric André as Geno or ProtonJon as Rosalina.

This is funny for a few reasons:

1. The movie hasn't even come out yet — this is all prerelease reaction. The movie is being parodied, but is that really a SPJ for the movie itself?
2. There's an entry on the same phenomenon brought up elsewhere on a Memetic Mutation page, once again affirming my belief that these items currently overlap way too much.

I found this on the Video Games section. Never thought I'd see an All-Blue Entry here.

• The Last of Us Part II: The game did not deserve to win anything from the 2020 Game Awards, especially not as many awards as it got.

Man that is pure bitching. Just cut it.

Kill it with fire.

It does not explain why it supposedly does not deserve the awards it did. Whoever added it may as well hate it because of tye issue with the cisgender actress.

To be fair, it sucks, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's someone's personal opinion. Or at least it isn't supposed to be. If it were valid, it'd be an actual stock joke, like a meme. If the joke is just "this doesn't deserve awards", that's the joke, there's no explanation or justification because that's not the point of the joke.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 9th 2021 at 2:06:01 PM

You do know about why the right hates the game, I assume?

Edited by Delibirda on Oct 9th 2021 at 8:09:41 PM

I mean, what's the necessary context? With things like this, the joke itself is usually all you can say. If there's no other context, there's no other context.

I guess my point is just that this is the sort of thing that's weird when it comes to context. Do we need to explain what the joke means? Do we just need to say what the joke is? Do we need to prove it is a common joke?

In this case, since it's not an actual YMMV example trying to make a case against the game, saying that it needs to explain why the awards weren't warranted seems to be missing the point slightly.

I'm not defending the example, though. It can be thrown into the fire. I just don't want us to keep overthinking these memes; sometimes a joke is just a joke, and the only context is the joke itself.

And yes, I know why those people hate the game, but there's also no reason to assume that's what the joke is even in reference to. The game is also bashed for killing Joel, making Abby the protagonist, and giving Elle obstacles that Abby doesn't have to deal with in her playthrough. There's other criticisms beyond the transphobic ones.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 9th 2021 at 2:14:43 PM

Oh, right...

This was just added to the Literature page, under the Harry Potter examples.

• Every character in the book having some redeeming qualities about them. Except Dolores Umbridge.

How is "every character in Harry Potter has some redeeming qualities" a parody joke?