History Administrivia / PeopleSitOnChairs

One good sign of an idea being a "chair" is if, when the trope is PlayedStraight, it has no effect on the narrative, has no meaning, and doesn't change how the work is perceived. If you can't imagine that it's being used to [[{{Plots}} create plot developments]], [[CharacterizationTropes flesh out a character]], [[GarnishingTheStory add some flavor to the narrative]], or [[VideogameTropes change how players play a game]], there's a decent chance that what you're thinking of isn't a trope, just something that happens a lot in media.

One good sign of an idea being a "chair" is if you can't think of any examples that have [[Administrivia/ZeroContextExample meaningful content]]. We've seen this most acutely with PersonalAppearanceTropes, which are still undergoing an extensive cleanup; the link between any two characters who look the same may be just coincidence, without any clear or consistent meaning or purpose. It's not actually that hard to come up with a meaningful pattern; it doesn't even have to be a plot element, as it can just be NarrativeFiligree or GarnishingTheStory.

One good sign of an idea being a "chair" is if you can't think of any examples that have [[Administrivia/ZeroContextExample meaningful content]]. We've seen this most acutely with PersonalAppearanceTropes, which are still undergoing an [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13545690040A55560100 extensive cleanup]]; the link between any two characters who look the same may be just coincidence, without any clear or consistent meaning or purpose. It's not actually that hard to come up with a meaningful pattern; it doesn't even have to be a plot element, as it can just be NarrativeFiligree or GarnishingTheStory.

Unfortunately, here at Wiki/TVTropes, we occasionally get suggestions in the TropeLaunchPad to add a trope along these lines, and we have to tell the suggesting troper "no, you can't add that". This page is a handy and evocative way to do that; it's saying that the proposed trope is no better than pointing out that occasionally, [[TitleDrop people sit on chairs]]. So if someone is calling your idea a "chair"/"chairs" or "PSOC", this is what they mean. They're saying that your idea is, once again, not a trope.

Tropes are figures of speech. TV {{trope}}s are conventions used in storytelling to convey some sort of information to the audience. But when a character does something as trivial as sit on a chair, that's just something that happens normally or incidentally during the storytelling. Sitting in a chair isn't meant to convey meaning -- it's not a storytelling convention. In short, it's Administrivia/NotATrope.

{{Trope}}s are conventions used in storytelling to convey some sort of information to the audience. But when a character does something as trivial as sit on a chair, that's just something that happens normally or incidentally during the storytelling. Sitting in a chair isn't meant to convey meaning -- it's not a storytelling convention. In short, it's Administrivia/NotATrope.

TV {{Trope}}s are conventions used in storytelling to convey some sort of information to the audience. But when a character does something as trivial as sit on a chair, that's just something that happens normally or incidentally during the storytelling. Sitting in a chair isn't meant to convey meaning -- it's not a storytelling convention. In short, it's Administrivia/NotATrope.

{{Trope}}s are conventions used in storytelling to convey some sort of information to the audience. But when a character does something as trivial as sit on a chair, that's just something that happens normally or incidentally during the storytelling. Sitting in a chair isn't meant to convey meaning -- it's not a storytelling convention. In short, it's Administrivia/NotATrope.

-->-- '''Example from the now-deleted page "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20130110090508/https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsRighthanded Everyone Is Righthanded]]"'''

-->-- '''Example from the now-deleted page "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20130110090508/https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsRighthanded Everyone Is Right-Handed]]"'''

No [[TropesThatWillNeverHappen/TooUniversal examples]] here, please. They're not necessary.[[note]][[JustForFun/PeopleSitOnChairs Psst!]][[note]]