Misused: Schmuck Bait

Note: This thread was proposed by ~Nine Tailed Cat.

While Schmuck Bait is supposed to be used for blatantly obvious tricks and traps (whether because there are clear warning signs or they're seemingly too good to be true), in practice it sees use for just any trap no matter how hard it is to see coming. It's also become something of a pothole magnet, getting linked in otherwise unrelated examples as a snarky way of warning not to do something. A wick check of 80 wicks yielded the following results:

• 25 (31.25%) correct uses
• 19 (23.75%) misuse
• 14 (17.5%) self-referential potholes
• 5 (6.25%) ZCEs
• 17 (21.25%) other or unclassifiable

A dedicated cleanup effort is definitely in order. I also suggest a rename to make the intent clearer. Obvious Trap is already a redirect, though something along the lines of Temptingly Bad Idea might be better since it's closer to the meaning of Schmuck Bait while still being easy to understand. Thoughts?

Paging ~Nine Tailed Cat to the thread.

If it's specifically about obvious traps then probably swap with Obvious Trap name and clean up. Also specifiy in the description that examples should state what's actually obvious about them.

There seem to be a lot of "baiting into action" examples, these could go to yard or TLP depending on how many actually.

There are also a lot of "No indication that the trap it's obvious" examples, so it may also need to be yarded to catch misuse.

Since the wick count is in the mid-four digit range, renaming to Obvious Trap and rewriting the description would probably work.

I'd be fine with Obvious Trap. I also agree with that "baiting into action" is a viable concept as well; one of the most common types of example I see is a video game providing the player with the option to do something obviously counterproductive or unhelpful.

Good with renaming to Obvious Trap.

Obvious Trap sounds good to me, and the "baiting into action" examples should be yardable.

Edit: nvm, I thought we already had a page called Two Words Obvious Trap but it appears I imagined it. I'm fine with a rename to Obvious Trap.

Quite possibly.

Edited by StarSword on Apr 4th 2024 at 10:15:59 AM

You may have been thinking of the similar-sounding but completely different Two Words: Obvious Trope.

to changing its name to Obvious Trap.

downvote on changing the name. A name like "Obvious Trap" could be confused for "that girl is so obviously a guy, how could you fall for that?" due to another meaning of "trap". I think the title of "Schmuck Bait" should be kept because it's a more creative way of describing something that only an idiot would be lured into. We should focus on clearing up bad wicks of things that don't fit the bill of "character legitimately falls into a trap that only an idiot could fall for".

Edited by DeadlyEspresso on Apr 4th 2024 at 4:12:18 AM

I for the life of me have never seen anyone use "trap" in that way in like, a decade when folks in the mainstream started realizing transphobia wasn't cool.

Edited by number9robotic on Apr 4th 2024 at 5:24:15 AM

I've mostly seen it as a slang term for crossdressing men in English-speaking anime communities.

Edited by StarSword on Apr 4th 2024 at 10:13:20 AM

Yeah, and it's fallen dramatically out of favor because of its transphobic implications (implying crossdressers or gender non-confirming people of any capacity are intentionally trying to trick others). Is there really a significant risk for a trope in 2024 whose title uses "obvious trap" in its literal definition to be conflated with a weird slang insult that people are decreasingly likely to be familiar with these days?

Edited by number9robotic on Apr 4th 2024 at 7:26:00 AM

I highly doubt anyone would interpret Obvious Trap that way.

Yeahh, I think when most people see the word "trap", they think about an actual trap.

I see no issue with the suggested rename. The other definition noted has fallen out of favor and is now hardly used in that context.

I do think it bears noting that the trope description, as currently written, doesn't actually limit itself to obvious traps. It appears to include anything that falls under the umbrella of "doing this would obviously be a terrible idea, but having a strong urge to do it anyway" The very first example the description gives is a Big Red Button with warning signs around it, which really doesn't qualify as a trap in any capacity.

If we choose to limit the scope to things that are intended as traps, that's fine, but the trope as currently written seems to be a bit wider than that.

Yeah, I don't see how this is limited to a trap. The part under contention is how clear the sign posting is.

Given Obvious Trap is already a trope, we should have some information on if the name is being misused as a slur.

Edited by VerySunshine on Apr 7th 2024 at 5:25:32 AM

Let's focus if Obvious Trap should be limited to actual traps, or about characters making decisions that are telegraphed to have no benefit to them. A reminder that Too Dumb to Live exists. Yaring/TLP someone baiting a hero into acting against their better judgement was also suggested.

Let's also drop the slur topic, there's already consensus that a casual reader would not make such a mistake and it was hanging on the semantics in the first place. If there are "examples" in such context then they can be cut even with current definition.

Edited by Amonimus on Apr 7th 2024 at 2:33:42 PM

There can be a note that Obvious Trap has nothing to do with transphobia.

I don't think we need a note for that; as others have noted, the chance of somebody mistaking the trope for that is extremely small, and if they read any of the page at all there's no way they'd make the mistake.

As far as the scope of the page goes, I honestly think that "Obvious Trap" might actually be slightly misleading; the trope isn't about the trap itself, but about the gullibility of the person who falls for it. The trope isn't "the trap is extremely obvious", it's the act of a character doing something that's clearly going to have negative consequences for them.

We might want to consider making Obvious Trap its own distinct, but related trope that's specifically about traps that are incredibly obvious.

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Apr 7th 2024 at 12:53:12 PM

Noting that Super Gullible is also a thing.

Would we lose anything by retooling Schmuck Bait into Obvious Trap and transplanting other examples to Super Gullible or Too Dumb to Live? (Not a vote; just asking for clarification since I didn't know about Super Gullible until now.)

Honestly, I'm not sure. It feels like Schmuck Bait is a specific overlap of several of those tropes, but I'm having a hard time actually articulating the specifics of it:

• It isn't necessarily Obvious Trap, because it doesn't necessarily need to be a trap.
• It doesn't necessarily need to be Super Gullible, because somebody doesn't need to be fooled to take the bait, they just have to have bad judgment ("I'm going to push the big red button even though the sign explicitly says not to")
• Which would be Too Dumb to Live... except that the Schmuck Bait doesn't need to be lethal, or even particularly harmful. It could be something like "the sign says "wet paint", but I'm going to poke it anyway."

That said, there are quite a few other stupidity tropes that these situations could fall under; Idiot Ball, What An Idiot, etc. I'm not sure if the specific situation of "X knows that doing Y would probably be a bad idea, but decides to go for it anyway" is common enough to merit its own trope.