Ambiguous Name: Political Correctness Gone Mad

For the anti-political-correctness stories, would Political Correctness Is Evil be an okay name, since it may be a similar "vilification of a modern thing" trope like New Media Are Evil and Digital Piracy Is Evil?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

That could work. And maybe we could keep the name Political Correctness Gone Mad for the parody trope.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 11th 2022 at 3:29:35 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I think the basic problem is defining "political correctness" in a way that's actually tropeworthy.

If I remember correctly, the term was invented by the USSR Communist Party to describe speech that wasn't legally actionable but still didn't quite fit the party line (Babylon 5 uses it this way at one point in the "Earth becomes a dictatorship" arc). But it underwent Memetic Mutation and nowadays I most commonly see it as just a far-right-wing buzzword for "I feel victimized because people are calling me out for being an asshole to other people".

Edited by StarSword on Mar 13th 2022 at 2:19:29 PM

I've always considered it being about avoiding using words that could sound like a slur or biased toward majority group to any minority groups.

If we can't make a viable enough description for the split we can always Useful Notes it.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Would Political Correctness itself work better as a Useful Note than a trope?

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

At least keep Political Correctness Gone Mad for parodies.

I suppose we can make UsefulNotes.Political Correctness (may be useful at any rate) and move "portrayals in media" there. And maybe not necessary for complaining.

Also we could switch the Politically Correct's redirect to the non-exaggerated trope.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I'm against a Useful Notes page because I cannot think of a way to write it that would not veer into ROCEJ violations. The definition is too subjective.

I still like Political Correctness Is Evil for the "stories complaining about political correctness" trope, and I'd rather split off a new name for the "parodies of political correctness" trope, like Political Correctness Fumble, since the whole point of this thread is that PCGM's name was too ambigious.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 13th 2022 at 6:33:02 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

We can bring back Political Correctness and Politically Correct as redirects to a Useful Notes page if we make one. I cut them for now because they're contributing to misuse of Political Correctness Gone Mad (to the point of people thinking they're separate tropes).

I agree, but we can always lock it if it ends up getting made.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 13th 2022 at 5:33:03 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Double posting because I was wondering if these names would work:

For the parody trope:

• Political Correctness Gone Mad
• Political Correctness Gag
• Political Overcorrectness
• Political Hypercorrection
• Political Correctness Gone Wrong
• Unnecessary Political Correctness
• Zealously Inoffensive
• Forced Inoffensive Language
• Comedic Political Correctness
• Comedically Politically Correct

For the trope about works complaining about political correctness:

• Political Correctness Gone Mad (if it isn't used for the parody trope instead)
• Political Correctness Is Evil
• Political Correctness Is Bad
• Political Correctness Is Wrong

The second list is incomplete, and I don't think that's a big deal because I was intending to run a crowner for the parody trope first.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 13th 2022 at 5:37:55 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I mean, I’m sure we can write a perfectly neutral page and lock it if things get ugly. It’s a subject that seems to be worthy of a useful notes page.

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

Downvoted the "language" ones because I'm pretty sure this trope would cover more than just language.

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

I downvoted the ones like "Forced Inoffensive Language" or "Unnecessary Political Correctness" because I think that limits the trope unfairly. Not every parody of political correctness is about characters being "forced" to speak inoffensively; that veers into the other trope we're splitting. For example, if a character corrects themself to use a less offensive term because they genuinely think it's the "right" thing to do, that's still a joke mocking political correctness but doesn't imply that it's being forced upon people or whatever.

I generally think limiting negativity in the title will prevent not only an overly narrow scope, but prevent potholing to complain about real life "PC culture."

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

That's a good point. I was just going by what was previously suggested when making the crowner (though to be fair, some of the options were from before we decided to split and thus possibly could have been omitted, but I guess it's a moot point because those two were downvoted so far).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 13th 2022 at 5:18:53 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Maybe I'm just biased because it was my idea, but I'm still really into Politcal Overcorrectness.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

It's the most popular option so far, so you're not alone in thinking that.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 13th 2022 at 5:22:09 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I upvoted that. It flows nicely and reflects the exaggeration integral to the trope.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

A terrible first draft of the parody definition is now at Sandbox.Political Overcorrectness.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

That's my impression as well. That and language (regardless of specific words) condoning the mistreatment of minority groups or downplaying the injustices they face.

As for renaming the parody half of the trope, "Political Overcorrectness" sounds good.

For the "complaining" half, "Political Correctness Gone Mad" sounds better than any of the alternatives presented thus far. The problem with "Political Correctness is Evil" is that most instances of this trope don't involve anything particularly evil, but well-meaning yet misguided individuals enforcing the principles of tolerance and non-discrimination in a blatantly counterproductive manner (such as crying bloody murder over minor deviations from "politically correct" language which, in context, no reasonable person would interpret as promoting intolerance). Likewise, most of the works complaining about "political correctness" (of those currently listed, anyhow) aren't suggesting that we shouldn't ever call people out for using legitimately insensitive language, but specifically complaining about people taking things too far (or claiming to advocate for disadvantaged groups, but in such a manner that strongly suggests that they're more interested in making themselves feel like heroes than legitimately improving anyone else's lives).

Edited by DoctorWTF on Mar 29th 2022 at 9:54:18 AM

We already decided on Political Overcorrectness for the parody trope and Political Correctness Is Evil for the complaining trope. I was waiting for someone to sandbox descriptions before moving them to Main/.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 29th 2022 at 4:17:49 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Double posting because I made Sandbox.Political Correctness Is Evil using text from Political Correctness Gone Mad and copied some text from the latter to Sandbox.Political Overcorrectness. If nobody objects, I'll move both to Main/ in three days (April Fool's Day, which is more suitable for the parody trope than the complaining trope).

Also, since Political Correctness Gone Mad is both In-Universe Examples Only and No Real Life Examples, Please!, I'll replace Political Correctness Gone Mad's listing with listings for the two new tropes, since the only major difference between the new tropes and Political Correctness Gone Mad in its current form is that the two types of examples are being hard split instead of soft split.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 30th 2022 at 3:30:51 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.