The New Tens Cleanup Thread

Brought me from this ATT Thread.

As nobody had took attention of this outside of the Discussion thread until now, a thread was called regarding this matter.

Somehow, The New '10s got a bit long and heavy, not only with page size, but with topics that are controversial and divisive such as generation gap, economics, and politics (especially with current American politics). It doesn't help that much of the tropes in the list are filled with ROCEJ and NRLEP examples.

UPDATE: Costanton 11 started WAY ahead before starting, cleaning up the NRLEP tropes in the process.

Edited by alnair20aug93 on Aug 8th 2018 at 5:48:11 PM

Does it have to be reverted? I mean, a trope being No Real Life Examples, Please! seems like a good reason not to list it.

Perhaps so. It's just a bit premature that he would do this before we could start discussing over those. Though I would appreciate his contributions.

Edited by alnair20aug93 on Aug 3rd 2018 at 5:04:29 PM

Everything he removed as written wasn't great. But some of these tropes might be salvageable if re-written as in-universe examples explaining their popularity in works from the time period.

I'm talking about these: Capitalism Is Bad (questionable), Crapsaccharine World, Darker and Edgier, Manchild, Nice Guy, Police Brutality (also questionable), Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, UsefulNotes.The Millennium Age Of Animation (not a trope, but definitely relevant to page and not ROCEJ violating).

As I see it, the point of a tropes list on this kind of page is to list tropes that were popular or codified in media in that decade.

Edited by naturalironist on Aug 3rd 2018 at 9:36:50 AM

Perhaps some of the examples can also be brought up in the ROCEJ thread.

You can go ahead with that. First things first, I'll go ahead on removing Medal of Dishonor; that has to go.

The Last DJ is a no real life examples trope, but it used on the page to refer to politicians. Should it be removed?

I'd make an argument for Capitalism Is Bad, in that the "there is no alternative" attitude is definitely losing ground, with figures like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders (even if he probably isn't actually anti-capitalist) making explicit belief in socialism more acceptable in the Anglosphere than it's been since at least the end of the Cold War. We just need to make sure that we only note that the trend exists, with no editorializing as to whether it is good or bad.

Since The Last DJ doesn't allow real-life examples, I see no reason why it shouldn't be removed.

Also, should this example of Bad Future on the page be removed?:

Regardless of what you think of current events, Bad Future is about alternate timelines and since time travel is impossible in real life as far as we know, there's no way to know for sure how things would have turned out differently in real life. And I don't think the In-Universe examples from dystopian stories the first sentence brings up are examples since there's no mention of them involving Time Travel.

Edited by ADrago on Aug 3rd 2018 at 6:36:23 AM

The second half should definitely be cut.

Re-writes to tropes mentioned in my previous post. Wasn't sure what to do about Nice Guy or Crapsaccharine World, maybe they can say cut. The Millennium Age of Animation should be linked to somewhere in the trope description, which needs to be re-written to be more about media.

Capitalism Is Bad is still a real life example but hopefully written in a more neutral and less US-centric way. If there are still objections I would be ok with cutting to just the last sentence which is about socialist media.

Edited by naturalironist on Aug 4th 2018 at 12:50:07 PM

for that.

Looks good, though the Capitalism Is Bad entry should probably just be regarding the trope in media, as it's NRLEP.

Edited by costanton11 on Aug 4th 2018 at 12:52:24 PM

What do you think of my take? At x7

Edited by TheMountainKing on Aug 4th 2018 at 6:59:16 AM

The trope seems to refer to being a theme in works, but I’m unsure.

Maybe it should be cut, with the relevant real life information mentioned briefly in the description (oh god, does that need work).

Can we talk about all the uses of Discredited Trope in the list, most of which I think are wrong or not relevant? It seems strange to me to list tropes that weren't used in the decade, unless there was something distinctive that happened.

• Basement Dweller- Needs a re-write. I don't this is a discredited trope at all, it's still used as an insult sometimes, and it being more common increased its presence in media. Maybe Undead Horse Trope.
• Blackface- Cut. Fallen out of use in the 60's, and definitely by the 90's. All the commentary in Spike Lee's Bamboozled, from 2000, relies on blackface being offensive.
• Bury Your Gays- Keep. But the stuff about anti-gay violence doesn't seem necessarily relevant and possibly ROCEJ-violating?
• But Not Too White- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin is more appropriate.
• Christmas Cake- Cut.
• Hide Your Gays- Cut. Again, why write about tropes that aren't used? Also ROCEJ violating
• Insane Equals Violent- Cut. Not actually discredited, entry is somewhat ROCEJ violating.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing- YMMV trope, no opinion otherwise.

Edited by naturalironist on Aug 5th 2018 at 11:01:34 AM

Remove the part about real life anti-gay violence in Bury Your Gays, since that trope is NRLEP.

Here are some re-writes to some entries for your consideration. [Comments in italicized brackets]

• Basement Dweller: Many works made during the early years of the decade featuring characters staying with their parents into their early/mid-20s^note Which is rather unusual in English-speaking countries. (either playing it straight or averting it), being unable to go ahead in a post-Great Recession economy.

• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Became more prominent as a result of the late-2000s crisis, with traditional (as in pre-Richard Branson) businessmen being (almost) universally portrayed as greedy men in suits only concerned about the "bottom line", even if it means wrecking the lives of a lot of people.

• Darker and Edgier: "Gritty" interpretations of well-known works have become very popular, influenced by the critical and commercial success of The Dark Knight saga.

• Nice Guy: After being portrayed as "wide-eyed fools" for most of the 90s and 2000s, many works began to see this kind of character in a more sympathetic light, especially in works made during the first half of the decade.

• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Works made during the first half of the decade were remarkably close to the middle of the scale, being defined by the use of Gray-and-Grey Morality—While most carried a rather idealistic note, it should be noted that many of these were dark (even dystopian) tales in which the protagonists had to fight for a better world, often emphasizing The Power of Friendship (or at least the necessity of teamwork), while quite a few light-hearted works had an ironic tone. On the other side, cynical works not only kept their late-2000s era popularity among critical circles and mature audiences, but became more prominent in the mainstream as cable TV was filled with gritty series in the vein of Breaking Bad. By the second half of the decade, the pendulum swung towards the cynical side, with even the most idealistic characters becoming liable to take a darker turn and more works taking a political edge.

• Retraux: "Retro-ironic" imagery has become very popular during the decade, especially in video games.
• Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: As with the "idealism v. cynicism" example, works made during this decade were quite set at the middle, avoiding the kitschy and "brown-realistic" extremes that marked the 2000s.
  
  Here's hoping these are of help.
  
  P.S.: Does someone else think the page description might need some improvements?

Edited by RAraya on Aug 6th 2018 at 12:31:42 PM

I believe that we call the romantic use of "Nice Guy" Dogged Nice Guy. How's this?

• Dogged Nice Guy: A major push against the trope's application to real life has lead to a shift in its use in fiction away from straight examples and towards deconstructions and subversions. Expect any character who repeats the once accepted wisdom that "girls only like assholes, not nice guys like us" to be portrayed as an entitled, misogynistic creep.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Aug 6th 2018 at 2:19:22 PM

I re-wrote Darker and Edgier and Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism earlier in post 11, and I sorta like mine better... Any other opinions?

Corrupt Corporate Executive is No Real Life Examples, so I don't think that entry as written can stay. If a lot of these showed up in media, then you could write that (I'm not sure if that's true or not, though there are things like The Wolf of Wall Street).

Basement Dweller should also mention its use as an online insult. The trope is older, but the name I think was coined during the New 10's as a sort of slur against whoever you don't like online.

Oh god yes, the description absolutely needs to be changed.

Edited by naturalironist on Aug 6th 2018 at 5:30:46 AM

I would like to reiterate what I said here about the list of tropes that concern Trump. (If I had the time at the moment, I would expand that for this thread's purposes, but I need to get to work.)

The "Latin craze" part of the Foreign Culture Fetish entry can be understood as being propelled by the election, with some commentators pointing at the President (or at least anti-immigrant sentiment) as a catalyst.

The parts of Hide Your Gays not regarding "closeting" and media representation might fit better under the Good Old Ways entry.

Regarding the History Repeats entry:

• The "Reconstruction" part could be merged into The Gilded Age (which began after The American Civil War, whose entry could see some changes as well). Furthermore, the "minorities being in the cultural spotlight" part and comparisons between the "alt-right" and the Klan should be cut.
• The 1930s part could do without the "hope this doesn't spiral out..." thing.
• The 1940s part needs to get rid of the comparison between anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant sentiment and anti-Japanese sentiment during WWII.
• The 1950s part really doesn't need the second "bullet" (mentioning some anti-Clinton leftists comparing the so-called "Russian plot" to the Red Scare).
• The 1960s mention The Generation Gap in two separate instances (first "left-leaning youth vs reactionary adults" and then "youth getting more politicized by the end of the decade"). Merging them both (and changing some of the language) might be a better option.
• The last sentence about the 1980s ("rollback of civil rights") needs to go.
  
  The Nazi Hunter entry should rub out the part about "left-wing militant groups being far morally superior than their far-right counterparts", especially considering that both are political extremes.
  
  La Résistance must go.
  
  Regarding This Means War!, "fascism" is not the right word.

Just my two cents.

Nazi Hunter should probably just be cut. Every other entry on this wiki regarding antifa indicates that it is not a subject we should touch. The idea that "all extremes are bad" would just be us hitinng the Golden Mean Fallacy.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Aug 7th 2018 at 4:14:32 AM

As I said in the other thread, I think they should all be cut, as they are all troping controversial elements of real life, and not trends in fiction.

That point about the Nazi Hunter trope reminded me of the claims of Antifa. I was thinking of adding them under a point for the He Who Fights Monsters trope, where, given their recent increasing tendency towards violence and profiling certain people, I would compare them to Neo-Nazis;

• He Who Fights Monsters: While Antifa is aggressively opposed to fascism and the Nazis, they have become increasingly similar to Neo-Nazi groups. Reasons include increasing and violent protests on their part, a tendency to single out certain groups of people and even attacking people for voicing disagreements with them.

I'll also tweak a few of the trope points; some of them have some thinly-veiled left-leaning agenda edits, so I'll try to make them more neutral. On that note, would it be worthwhile reaching out to the tropers who made those edits and try to get a dialogue going? otherwise, I think this risks degenerating into an Edit War.