We're Still Relevant, Dammit! discussion

An issue that I have with The Simpsons is being the face of this trope is that from my perspective, it was never meant to be timeless. Continually enjoyable yes, but not timeless. Every sitting president has been satirized. The classic episodes feature boy bands, alt rock, and any number of other very era-specific things. Lisa vs Malibu Stacy is a famous, well-received episode that is based on a two year old controversy, the exact time delay that many WSRD examples are based on. When so few of the examples state why the reference is awkward or poorly done, it's a double standard to criticize modern episodes simply for doing it but not classic ones.

It's not a universe that's perpetually in the 50s or 70s or something. It's always been set more or less in the year of release. Them showing a smartphone isn't the end of the world.

Edited by RogueJedi on Nov 27th 2021 at 10:11:22 AM

The trope title is supposed to, anyway.

I think this trope could theoretically work as a sister trope (or maybe even a supertrope) to Clueless Aesop and Shallow Parody, where a work tries to do X thing, only for it to fall flat because of an obvious lack of understanding of what X is and/or the terrible clash of the work's tone with X. It probably needs a better defined definition than just "pop-culture reference/meme/some other new thing = bad"

Edited by Adept on Nov 27th 2021 at 9:59:07 AM

Well, in regards to older episodes, their dated references are quite commonly filed under Unintentional Period Piece (Whether or not it was actually unintentional, but that's a separate issue.) It seems that often the only differences between how people use UPP and WSRD is the latter is used more often for more recent examples, and the former for older ones, plus the use of the latter generally seems more judgemental.

Edited by Iampureevil on Nov 29th 2021 at 10:21:23 AM

Unintentional Period Piece was possibly going to be reworked into something that ditched the "unintentional" requirement but TRS kind of fizzled out after making it YMMV.

I decided to check through the WSRD page for The Simpsons, and even after a cleanup, I feel 90% of the page is still "show referenced modern thing, And That's Terrible" without any context. In order of the episode names listed:

Mypods and Boomsticks satirizes Apple and To Surveil With Love satirizes UK surveillance policies. Both topics have lasting relevance that continue to today.

Edited by Hellboy33 on Dec 8th 2021 at 8:35:15 AM

If I were to be honest, I'd favor cutting the WSRD page for The Simpsons for the aforementioned reasons. Anything worth salvaging from there probably fits better under Unintentional Period Piece.

I agree with that.

Same

So can we proceed with the next step in the process of potentially cutting it?

I also agree with culling the WSRD Simpsons page.

By the way, regarding "Looking for Mr. Goodbart," Pokémon GO is still popular to this day, though not as popular as it was in 2016. I play it religiously.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 18th 2022 at 9:56:44 AM

There are a few other examples (a WSRD on YMMV.Phoebe And Her Unicorn and an example on CowboyBebopAtHisComputer.Pokemon involving a Spongebob parody short published on Youtube by Nickelodeon) that are all written by the biased point of view that Pokémon GO is just fad that lasted for two months in 2016 and then suddenly nobody played it anymore.

Pokémon GO had to be used as a Trend Aesop just like how its parent franchise was given the same treatment in the late 1990s.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 18th 2022 at 1:54:10 PM

I do think there is some truth in that Pokémon GO isn't the same "everyone's talking about it" phenomenon it was back in those two months of 2016... but it still has a loyal fanbase, which even lead it going up in the number of players recently after several years of the numbers declining. And anything popular will have a brief burst of being the "talk of the town" before settling into just another part of the media landscape.

Edited by harryhenry on Jan 21st 2022 at 5:20:04 AM

That's true. I realized the example on Phoebe and Her Unicorn has been removed months ago, but it was written in that complainy tone ("thankfully it lasted only three strips") that reeks of "Eww, that's so cringe! Don't you know that nobody plays that game anymore and those who do are mocked for being so behind the times?"

Like I've said time and time again, I just do not believe this page is sustainable for that very reason.

Definition-Only is starting to look like the only solution to this trope.

We need more discussion about possible solutions so that either A. a crowner can be made to decide this trope's fate, or B. this trope can be taken back to TRS for a crowner to be made to decide this trope's fate. What have we come up with so far?

For what it's worth, I still play Pokemon GO and it is wild to compare the national cultural presence it had in 2016 to the limited presence it has now. I feel like this item is not in itself the problem, but just a symptom of how quickly culture moves and how things become "dated" so quickly.

I still think elements of it are worth discussion, especially regarding Long-Runners adapting to the times, but it's hard to determine what.

There was an "Instantly Dated" draft in TLP that kind of covers the "pop culture becoming dated quickly" aspect. What happened to that draft?

It's kind of abandoned. I considered adopting it a few times, but it feels like it's not sure exactly what it wants to cover.

I think "Instantly Dated" is running into the same issue with Unintentional Period Piece and Were Still Relevant Dammit where people are associating broad cultural trends with broad audience reaction, while the trope is intended to be about more specific events impacting the work upon release. So it's hard to say if it's salvageable or if it will just fall into the same trap.

Or broad cultural events with individual audience reaction - while there's clearly other issues going on with the trope this thread is for, I'm still convinced that a lot of the misuse of UPP just stems from trivia pedants. "You can spot a store in one scene that has since closed - Unintentional Period Piece!!"

Edited by nrjxll on Jan 22nd 2022 at 4:58:06 AM

I don't see that being as problematic as WSRD, since at least it's not negative and it is based on an objective fact. Though I admit I don't remember what counts as misuse for UPP anymore since it got moved to YMMV and thus may(?) have more wiggle room.

It feels like the biggest problem with WRSD is that, whether intentionally or not, it carries inherent negative connotations. Namely "This work that was once popular now isn't, and is therefore dated"

Its an extremely broad statement and its mostly dictated by popular opinion rather than objective fact. Pokemon is a perfect example, because the popular opinion of that series was that it was a fad that would have eventually faded...despite the fact that its still a top-selling franchise to this very day and just had a resurgence in popularity with Pokemon GO, and a feature length film.

To "fix" this trope, you'd need something built from concrete evidence such as sales numbers and the like, rather than just popular opinion.

EDIT: Granted, it is a YMMV trope, but those have always been a slippery slope.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jan 22nd 2022 at 1:11:06 PM