TV Tropes - Why the hate?

[Balrog]

Now I've heard of this site (and some people's dislike of it) off and on for awhile, and while I've read very few of its articles they've tended to be humorous while exploring some of the common tropes of story-telling. Is there something that I'm missing, a problem that is more than skin deep, about what TV Tropes does?

[Vehrec]

The big problem, is anyone can say anything without having to substantiate their claims. It's the problem that afflicts any wiki writ large-if you find four factual errors in the first sentence of an article, after a year of battles to improve the infrmation there will be nine errors in the same sentence.

[Anguirus]

You know, I've been thinking about posting this topic. Fact is, they don't make any CLAIMS to be a source of reliable information, it's just kind of a fun site.

[Ghost Rider]

Same reason people dislike Wikipedia. It has very limited uses but it gets grating when some blubbering nitwit uses it as a primary source because people never get the idea of what the place is.

[Surlethe]

Same reason people dislike Wikipedia. It has very limited uses but it gets grating when some blubbering nitwit uses it as a primary source because people never get the idea of what the place is.

Primary source for what? You'd have to be even worse than the typical knuckle-dragging troglodyte to think that it's a factual reference for anything. At least with Wikipedia, you've got the flimsy excuse that it's "trying" to be an authoritative collection of knowledge; TVTropes is just fan-fun for its own sake.

[Morilore]

TVTropes is fun, but annoying when taken seriously. I also think there's the problem of people disliking "in-jokes" or obscure references or phrases that people get off TVTropes and then hurl around in other places where no one knows what they mean.

[Ghost Rider]

Same reason people dislike Wikipedia. It has very limited uses but it gets grating when some blubbering nitwit uses it as a primary source because people never get the idea of what the place is.

Primary source for what? You'd have to be even worse than the typical knuckle-dragging troglodyte to think that it's a factual reference for anything. At least with Wikipedia, you've got the flimsy excuse that it's "trying" to be an authoritative collection of knowledge; TVTropes is just fan-fun for its own sake.

As I said blubbering nitwit . There's more then a few.

As is, my only problem is it really never explains the phrase at times except by proxy and a rather subjective proxy at that.

[Formless]

Being a wiki, its quality its naturally inconsistent. So there is going to be some gems and A LOT of crap, where a website with a single author would tend to generate either all of one or the other. In theory a wiki should improve with time, but in TVtropes case this isn't true. Why?

No Such Thing as Notability. The lists of examples on any given page are monstrous and often filled with crap. The part describing the trope is usually fine, not perfect and sometimes kinda dumb, but rarely deplorable. The problem is that they rarely, if ever, take up even half the words on the page. Meanwhile the lists of examples go on and on and on with unverifiable information, shoehorned (or otherwise tenuous) examples, and more "deconstructions" "aversions" and most of all "subversions" than you can take a piss on. Three examples per medium would be fine, but when it gets to thirty just for the anime/manga examples alone people start to cringe.

The other problem is that their idea of literary analysis is too... well, it needs to be thought out better. There is a thin line between a trope and a cliche`, and they don't do a good job of effectively explaining that line. Isn't a story more than just the sum of its parts/tropes? Are tropes part of a larger framework for looking into the meaning of stories? Isn't this just cookie cutter inanity? Again, this is probably in large part due to it being a wiki, so the website can't be effectively planned out or quality controlled. Different users seem to have different (conflicting) opinions of where to go with any given idea, and it comes out on a whole as a mess. Is it supposed to be about traditional storytelling ideas like the three act structure, theme, motif, character, and so on? Is it supposed to be an extension of Campbell's ideas and search for repeating patterns in literature (like it says it is)? Or is it just what it looks like; a repository of loosely connected ideas and pop-culture references mashed together into one bloated package?

Lastly, because of the above lack of purpose, it can give people the wrong impression about how to write fiction. Which is unfortunate, because its the most convenient website of its kind and it does have a lot of good ideas in there if you are willing to look around and can stand all the bullshit.

I'm willing to bet that if someone had the time and dedication they could make a website that is what TVtropes wants to be but fails in execution; just being able to stick to a central focus for the website would be an automatic improvement. But near as I can tell, no one has tried.

[GuppyShark]

I've never even understood what the appeal of the site was. Why would anybody _read_ a five hundred page list of examples of "The Grass is Greener on the Other Side" (example pulled out of my ass)?

Is it some amazing revelation that there are observable patterns in literature?

It seems like OCD compulsiveness and nothing else.

[Shroom Man 777]

TVTropes is Bullshit - When Tropers make some ill-conceived "trope" to fit their preconceived notions of whatever's cool and spiffy and rad about their favoritest bunch of crappy animus and mangoes, and where other Tropers jump in and find any most minute and unremarkable aspect of their animus and mangoes that no one has ever fucking heard about and sticks them into that stupid trope. Then other Tropers, seeing the apparent brilliance of this, starts going all over other places talking about This Trope and linking it to the TVTropes page for us to see the barely-coherent accumulated postings of a whole bunch of animu mango fans commenting to themselves on blah blah blah XYZ-topic comprised of crappy animus nobody's ever seen, with all those scenes comprising Most Badass Awesome Moment of Crowning where bullshit characters nobody gives a fuck about gets masturbatorificated by all sorts of shit-Tropers who fill the page with so many of the shit-characters' feats of shit that nobody gives a rat's bubonic plague flea-infested ass about. Ugh. Fucking TVTropes. Then invent some more bullshit Trope, based on some assholes' misconception of shit, to further people's misconceptions of shit (and animus and mangos).

Tropes in Real Life:

* This troper would like to add that he personally experienced TVTropes is Bullshit in real life when TVTropes had a trope page about "characters who rely on technology" as if it's some brainbug, and this troper made an entry going on about how modern militaries and basically everyone everyday today relies on technology too and it's not really some bullshit-trope but something that, um, naturally occurs without any relation to bullshit contrived literary "tropes" or shit.

* This troper gets annoyed whenever tropers go on about XYZ-trope that nobody gives a fuck about, as if it adds to anything in any particular discussion.

* Yes, this troper particularly finds it terrible when tropers in other internet discussions use TVTrope trope names (i.e. like TVTropes is Bullshit) as if it is some actual-factual recognized name of some literary phenomena instead of some bullshit category invented by people overdosed on injecting animu-mangoes into their cocks.

* But this troper DOES inject animu-mangoes into cocks! See the TVTrope page called Animu-Mango Cock Syringe [link] and see Tropes in Real Life for this troper's particular experiences in that subject! My cock is riddled with injection sites for animu-mango syringes! So much that we'll be moving to my testicles next! Oh no!

* This troper finds that disgusting and abhorrent and gross. Yucks. Look up the TVTropes trope page called Squicky Icky Yucky Fucky for further information!

* Actually, this troper doesn't find that gross at all. Perhaps that is actually that troper's particular Moment of Badass Awesome Crowning and because I am a shit troper obsessed with animus and mangoes I shall make a new entry dedicated to that troper's particular feat of injecting animus and mangos into his cock, because that is a Moment of Badass Awesome Crowning!

* And this troper has wasted an hour of reading all these worthless shit entries. Fuck you guys.

[Dark Hellion]

What are people promoting as the expectation of the site? Are people honestly using it for literary analysis? Personally, I have always seen it as a reference wiki for finding common themes or motifs.

I like to use it to find shows or manga with similar thematic elements to ones I have previously enjoyed. Of course the execution of the story is going to be important but it can give you a start.

The quality of the site is obviously low because of the fact that it is a wiki and the audience that it attracts. If you don't have the patience to sort through the kind of shit that such a site would produce it is not the site for you. The content does tend to be of higher quality then the forum posts that the demographic produces, but that is not saying much.

I think that some of the hate for the site is simply the same cantankerousness that is devoted to movies that are not bad but overhyped by their fans. Dumb people think its the hot shit so instead of actually judging the product on its merit there is a knee jerk reaction to hate it.

[Shroom Man 777]

The worst part is when the shit-tropers talk about how shit-tropes happen to them in their real shit-lives.

[Phantasee]

You know, Reading Shroom's post, I got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Shroomy isn't a Troper, is he? Because that looked too authentic to be pulled out of anyones ass.

Even shroom's.

[Guardsman Bass]

Mostly TV Tropes is just an amusing way to kill time (and I used the "literature" sections of some of the tropes, particularly the "Deconstruction" Trope, to find some new books to read). To its credit, it doesn't really criticize Tropes - as it points out, Tropes are not Cliches (at least not necessarily).

I don't see the hate for it, Professor Shroomiarty. You can always just ignore the "anime" sub-sections in each trope.

[Ghost Rider]

You know, Reading Shroom's post, I got this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Shroomy isn't a Troper, is he? Because that looked too authentic to be pulled out of anyones ass.

Even shroom's.

Please reading five of the entries and Shroom adding his usual embellishments are all he did. Hell, his entry was short and to the point thus inadmissable for a trope. He needs at least 40 other entries with back and forth that no one can make heads and tails of with a dash of spoiler hiding.

And we should all feel glad we destroyed another bit of Shroom's sanity with him having to read an hour of that place .

[Anguirus]

The worst part is when the shit-tropers talk about how shit-tropes happen to them in their real shit-lives.

No, see, you've gotten it all wrong, that's the funniest part.

The worst part about the site is that if I get sucked into it too far I can kiss off an hour of work. Of course the same is true of Cracked.com. And here. And the whole Internet.

[El Moose Monstero]

When I hear statements like "Macbeth? Oh yeh, that was totally the Giant-Inflatable-Monkey-Penis moment"... not that I'm saying because its Shakespeare, it automatically gets higher consideration, but I shouldn't be hearing about major works of literature being described by reference to someone's favourite firefly character as if that's a credible method of literary analysis or is Firefly inspired all works of literature now and then. Some of the articles I enjoyed, particularly when it was only just coming into public attention and it got a load of try-hards adding bizarre things - I did enjoy the nightmare fuel article, for example, it's a list of scary shit in stories, nothing wrong with that. But when someone on this site described Tom Bombadil as a big lipped alligator moment, it really just reminded me what it wasn't really worth reading.

[Stofsk]

When I hear statements like "Macbeth? Oh yeh, that was totally the Giant-Inflatable-Monkey-Penis moment"... not that I'm saying because its Shakespeare, it automatically gets higher consideration, but I shouldn't be hearing about major works of literature being described by reference to someone's favourite firefly character as if that's a credible method of literary analysis or is Firefly inspired all works of literature now and then. Some of the articles I enjoyed, particularly when it was only just coming into public attention and it got a load of try-hards adding bizarre things - I did enjoy the nightmare fuel article, for example, it's a list of scary shit in stories, nothing wrong with that. But when someone on this site described Tom Bombadil as a big lipped alligator moment, it really just reminded me what it wasn't really worth reading.

A what moment? What the hell does that even mean?

(if you tell me to look it up on the site, I will... I don't know, gnash my teeth or shake my fist at you, something impotent)

[Formless]

Big Lipped Alligator Moment-- its just something that fanboys blatantly ripped off from the That Guy With the Glasses website (the NC Chick specifically). Its a kind of scene that comes the fuck out of nowhere, is never referenced again, serves no purpose to the plot or theme, and exists solely to let the writer or director prove that they can write/direct while stoned. Its usually a bad thing. Usually.

[Stofsk]

Big Lipped Alligator Moment-- its just something that fanboys blatantly ripped off from the That Guy With the Glasses website (the NC Chick specifically). Its a kind of scene that comes the fuck out of nowhere, is never referenced again, serves no purpose to the plot or theme, and exists solely to let the writer or director prove that they can write/direct while stoned. Its usually a bad thing. Usually.

Oh ok. Well... I agree that Tom Bombadil is a Big Lipped Alligator Moment then. As stupid as that sounds. Though it does have the acronym BLAM.

[Covenant]

The Big Lipped Alligator Moment comes from a scene in All Dogs Go To Heaven in which the main dog character falls into the sewer and meets a giant singing big-lipped alligator. It's not true it's NEVER referenced again, as the alligator does show up at the very end of the movie in a throw-away scene, but it's mentioned just as a joke about how something completely wacky can happen and then everyone else just moves along.

Tom is actually pretty similar, because while his scene is basically out of nowhere, it DOES set up a minor, mostly unimportant set of references later in the books. The Alligator, while entirely unnecessary, does arrive as a Deus ex Machina at the end of the movie and save the hero, as well as eat the villian. Tom, while entirely unnecessary, does offer an interesting perspective to remind us that there are some things beyond even the Elves--such as when they discuss giving the ring to Tom.

I like reading TV Tropes but I've never yet encountered anyone who treats it as anything but a joke site with tons and tons of goofy in-jokes and references. I always thought it was meant to be treated lightheartedly.

[Darth Yan]

Shroomy, lighten the fuck up. It's a fun way to kill time, and many of the non anime sites are quite informative. there is far more to it then just anime bullshit.

[adam_grif]

its just something that fanboys blatantly ripped off from the That Guy With the Glasses website

I'm not really sure you can call something "ripped off" if it openly acknowledges the origin of the term, has a paragraph explaining said origin, a picture from the website of origin, and a url to the video it came from. NC & Co coined the term, they're just continuing to use it.

[Steel]

One of the most retarded things about it is that you have articles saying 'X is a trope!' but then you have 'X not happening is a trope!' and just to round it off 'Sometimes X, sometimes not X is a trope!'

Apparently something is a 'trope' if it has happened ever... or not happened... or only happens sometimes... and these options occur with the same frequency across fiction.

[Ford Prefect]

Now I've heard of this site (and some people's dislike of it) off and on for awhile, and while I've read very few of its articles they've tended to be humorous while exploring some of the common tropes of story-telling. Is there something that I'm missing, a problem that is more than skin deep, about what TV Tropes does?

It's dumb and lots of the users take the trope wiki too seriously. I've spoken on this topic in the past, so I might as well just copy and paste and edit it to save time.

As far as I can tell, the notion of a 'trope' page is to make note of commonality of literary devices in fiction. At least, this is the pinciple, the execution is flawed primarily because everyone who actually contributes to the site seems to forget that tropes come from fiction, not that fiction is made up of tropes. The notion of a 'standard sci fi fleet' as a trope is broken: having spaceships in space isn't a literary device in the sense that lots of Japanese fiction have four major sub-boss antagonist dudes because 'shi' is the sound for both 'four' and 'death'.

Even if you say it's 'just for fun', and I do actually enjoy reading pages from the trope wiki from time to time, the entire driving notion behind it is sticking round pegs into square holes: it can be done, but it's still wrong. Again, tropes come out of fiction, but fiction is not made up of tropes; and the trope wiki has actually influenced amateur writers into thinking about them when writing, reducing them to operating within cliches, which is terrible.

The trope wiki does encourage a form of intellectual laziness when it comes to analysis of literature. It gives the impression that all fiction is made up of interacting tropes, which is basically the only way you can interpret a whole bunch of people making huge lists of of tropes which they 'picked up' while reading/watching any particular story. Rather than discuss the themes behind a story or the motivations of characters or whatever, a 'troper' looks for devices that have been used in other stories before, no matter how tenuous the connection is. Usually the definition for any trope is quite broad so it can refer to characters who are wildly different but have a few familiar traits, which is how you can end up with Char Aznable and Adrian Veidt on the same list of 'Well Intentioned Extremists'.

I stopped replying to SAMAS primarily because I did deliver my point, and SAMAS didn't get it, and I realised that he would never get it. I have nothing against him personally, but it's clear that he likes the trope wiki enough that he thinks we're all wrong. Think about the inherent contradiction here: I complain that the trope wiki encourages the perception that all fiction is made up of interacting tropes, which SAMAS disputes, only to follow up with a 'Lego Art' analogy that confirms that he does feel this way. At this point, it's clear that SAMAS is defending it purely because he personally identifies with this 'troper subculture' - note the frequent usage of 'we'. It's essentially the same kind of fanatical brand loyalty that plagues many fandoms, but this is just plain self-indulgent in comparison. SAMAS has essentially made the assertion that because they do it for fun, and because it's entertainment, the trope wiki and its tropers are immune to criticism, which is broken reasoning and frankly quite irritating.

Incidentally, that last quote is a subtle hint for anyone thinking to reply to me with 'it's just for fun' to insert a pineapple up their own ass. I actually think some of the observations made are quite interesting (the aforementioned 'four is death' trope, for example, is something you could rightly call a trope of Japanese fiction), and yes, I have spent a surprising amount of time going through the huge lists I so despise. Further, I think it's somewhat discredited the idea of the trope as a serious concept. Every time I mention 'trope' in passing in a conversation (which is not frequently, admittedly) with essentially anyone who uses the internet I can tell they're thinking about that website. I understand that the meaning and usage of words changes over time and with common misinterpretation, but I think I can complain when the common misinterpretation is lame.