TV Tropes was made, first and foremost, to document tropes. By our definition, tropes arise from creative works and are used with narrative intent. They may be inspired by Real Life, and real life may mimic tropes, but real life does not have a narrative to which tropes can apply.
But first, let's clarify what we mean by "Real Life". On TV Tropes, Real Life is an admittedly somewhat nebulous category that operates a little like a Useful Note, describing examples that may have inspired (or will inspire) all kinds of tropes and works. The Real Life media category doesn't include works about real life, like a biography or a documentary. In those cases, we're not actually troping "real life", but rather that work's creator's perspective on "real life", which is usually a lot less ambiguous than what "real life" really is. Instead, we're looking at real people, things, and events divorced from anything we might call a "work", even if there might actually be a work about it.
While we have other page categories described at Not a Trope, this policy is meant to set forth the precise rules that you can use to determine what kinds of real-life and reality-adjacent trope examples are allowed.
The general principle that we operate on is as follows: Things that happen in real life are not tropes. Everything else flows from this.
Specific Guidelines
The presence of Real Life (sub)pages and Real Life folders on trope articles:
- Real Life is a part of the Just for Fun subwiki. We permit real life examples, within certain limits, because people may find things interesting as illustrations of tropes. However, if these sections get out of hand they will be cleaned up. See No Real Life Examples, Please! for details. Broadly speaking:
- If it's about sex or morality, we don't allow real life examples at all.
- If it is demonstrated through experience that people can't be trusted to be responsible about adding real life examples, such "examples" may be pruned or purged.
- If the real life examples of a trope dominate the article, it will be pruned.
Real People with articles:
- Creators are the people and organizations that make works. Our articles are about the works they create, not the people themselves.
- Tropes may not be applied to creators as real people. Common offenders are Personal Appearance Tropes.
- Tropes may not be applied to creators as if they are characters. Common offenders are Characterization Tropes about actors and writers, but this is not allowed.
- Trivia may only be applied to creators in terms of how it directly affects their art/careers, not generally. We aren't writing their biographies.
- If a real life creator or celebrity appears in a work As Himself, that's all we can say about them unless they are given a script to read. Even then, examples about the person describe only the character being portrayed, not their real identity.
- If a celebrity is imitated or mocked in a work without being named explicitly, it's No Celebrities Were Harmed. Even then, examples about the person describe only the character being portrayed, not their real identity.
- If a well-known individual is used as a character in a work without being played by the actual person, it's Historical Domain Character. Even then, examples about the person describe only the character being portrayed, not their real identity.
- In Professional Wrestling, Music, Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy, and Web Video, the real people involved may not be troped. Only the fictional personas they adopt, if any, may have tropes applied.
- Professional wrestlers are actors playing characters. Kayfabe used to be a thing; it's not any more. Only the characters they are portraying and the fictional narratives they are acting out may be troped. The real people behind the characters are not tropable.
- Musicians are usually not playing characters. Sure, everyone changes on a stage, but there is a distinction between this and an intentionally crafted, fictional persona. Unless there is an intentional and documented separation between the performer and the act they are performing, they may not be troped.
- Comedians, including improvisers, are crafting a narrative, but only what they say on stage as part of their act may be troped.
- Let's Players, Virtual YouTubers, reactors, vloggers, and similar online content creators are usually not putting on performances. They're just being themselves and reacting to or playing things. That is not tropable. Only when they create discrete, transformative, narrative content may tropes be applied, and only for that content.
- The playing of a game, in and of itself, is not tropable. Someone reacting to, riffing on, or discussing a game does not provide narrative shorthands. As these are derivative works, the content of the game itself is not tropable with respect to the Let's Play, regardless of how much freedom it offers players. There must be an original narrative that is distinct from the game being played and the people playing it.
- If a work is presented as a show in which real actors are playing fictional characters, it has to be obvious that it's a fictionalized scenario or persona. The content creator could be asking audiences to assume everything they do or say is what their character does or would say, but we can't acknowledge that. Changing your appearance and having a backstory does not count as acting or roleplaying. If we can't distinguish at any given point if the person is talking about themselves or about the character, we have to default to the former and not allow tropes.
Real Life impacting works
- The Useful Notes namespace provides supplementary information for users of the site to be aware of real people, places, and concepts that are frequently used in creative works. It is not an encyclopedia of real-life facts. There's another site
for that. - If an event isn't a part of a work and can't be described with a designated YMMV item or properly written as Trivia, it doesn't belong. "Meta examples", like Moment of Awesome, Tear Jerker or Heartwarming Moments examples for out-of-universe events, are not allowed for works. "Moments" can only occur in-story; production milestones and events in the community must be described by something else or not included.
- Examples for Non-Fiction works (especially Biography, Documentary, or Talk Show) must describe either a staged performance (e.g. a documentary Crime Reconstruction), the setting, artistic elements, or the commentary on other works. If a work has none of those, it does not belong on the wiki. Examples are written in the context of the work, not as if these are undisputed historical facts.
- Game Shows and Reality Shows are putting real people in situations where they may act unnaturally and/or using casting decisions and selective editing to create narratives that may not be true to real life. This intentionally blurs the line between what is reality and what is fiction. Most of the time, the people on such shows are not tropable. Only in the case where there is clearly an intent to portray a fictional narrative may tropes be applied, and they may only be applied to that narrative. Examples are written in the context of the work, not describing the people with lives outside of it. The technical structure and gameplay elements of these shows function as setting and artistic elements.
- Sports that are not scripted are not tropable, period. They may be described in Useful Notes articles that talk about the rules of the game, identify important players and events, and list tropes frequently found in media featuring those sports, but tropes and Audience Reactions may not be applied to the sports and players themselves.
- Advertising is tropable because it crafts a narrative and is therefore fictional by definition. However, people and events that are portrayed in commercials do not become tropable just because they're in an ad. Only the fictionalization that occurs within the advertisement is tropable.
- Roleplay articles must describe the unique, creative, narrative content that comes out of the game(s) being played. What the characters in the game do is tropable; what the players do out-of-character is not. Because these are typically derivative works, the settings and game systems are only tropable if they include homebrewed ideas.
- Website articles have to describe the content the website produces, not what the userbase does. If the site does not produce original, creative content that is published under its own name, it may not have a wiki article.
- Newspapers and news websites are simply meant to be chroniclings of real world events and the writers' commentary on them, and thus are not tropeable. They lack a narrative entirely and thus cannot have tropes. Newspaper Comics and Webcomics, even if they are hosted on an otherwise non-fiction newspaper/site, do have a distinct narrative that is tropeable, however, their host paper/site and its non-fiction articles are not.
