Local Odd Squad Connoisseur
Page title should be ShortLivedBigImpact.Music. You also should have taken this to the Image Suggestion thread
since the page does not have an image currently; keep that in mind for the future.
Besides that, this is pure JAFAAC — I have no idea who these musicians are (besides Buddy Holly, but even then I know him only in name) nor do I know what "big impacts" they've made, if any.
Edited by ilovewildkratts1 on Sep 12th 2025 at 4:34:51 AM
Wuewuewuewuewueing my way to the bank.Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Big Bopper were popular musicians in the 50's who were truly big impacts but were only short-lived musicians who died in a plane crash in 1959.
Buddy Holly is one of the Beatles' favorite musicians.
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That is still something else doing all the heavy lifting; a person shouldn't be required to read the article to figure out the meaning of the image. In fact, I'd argue a written example on its own is not enough to even establish a connection to the image and said example could end up removed at some point for whatever reason, rendering the context non-existent anyway. And that's besides the fact the image is the first thing a person usually sees on a trope page.
To further explain, if I showed your suggested image to people and asked what they thought it was, chances are most of the responses would be along the lines of "photographs" or "some people", perhaps "members of the Beatles" at best. But almost certainly not "a group of people that made a huge impact but were short-lived", because that's not visible in the image. Without context, it is technically just a triad of old photos — practically next to no difference from any other photograph besides the person's appearance and whether the photo is in color or not. There's no meaning behind the image that most if not everyone can immediately recognize.
A good image actually shows what the trope is about; as a rough made-up example, a comic showing a music band making it big and then their graves showing they died very young. This I would think is a better fit, and here's why:
- The band is incredibly popular and is shown to have revolutionized music through a newspaper, popularity etc. This is the big impact.
- In the next panel, you see that the members of this band died in their 20s and their grave photos match their faces in the other panel. This is the short-lived part; the band died way too soon, right in the midst of them making some sort of change in the world.
- As a whole, the above shows both the "who" and the "what". It tells you right there and then what's going on. In comparison, OP only shows the "who" — and even then only partially, because those photos could be of anyone.
I hope this makes sense.
EDIT:
so I had to add an extra arrow
Edited by Eggy0 on Sep 12th 2025 at 2:57:16 PM
Fixed the link. The objections to the pic are 100% valid.
~Prickly Clypeasteroid, please read through How to Pick a Good Image and Just a Face and a Caption when you get time, as they spell out the reasons the suggestion doesn't work in detail.
Strong
. While those three are excellent examples, the image needs to demonstrate the trope to someone who isn't familiar with them, which this one fails to do.
Because images on the site need to be a clear and quick way of showing how the trope works, even to people who are not familiar with the work. (read: Just a Face and a Caption)
Not everyone is going to know how Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper fit this trope and the image does absolutely nothing to show how they fit; it just shows images of them, nothing about how they were short lived but had a big impact.
Therefore, it does not work as an image for this page.
+ ![]()
Case in point: as I already mentioned, I had no idea who these people were until an explanation was dropped. This is a sign that the image is a bad choice: it doesn't make sense unless you explain it. In the words of Joker: "If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke". Except with images.
I and the others have already explained why it didn't work and provided useful resources. But in short, the page image has to be able to illustrate the trope to someone not familiar with the work — if there's an image, and the meaning only comes through if you already know something about it or the source it came from, then the image serves no purpose. It might as well not be there and nothing would change.
Local Odd Squad Connoisseur
Local Odd Squad Connoisseur

An image for this trope
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ShortLivedBigImpact/Music
Edited by PricklyClypeasteroid on Sep 12th 2025 at 1:29:05 AM