We're Still Relevant, Cleanup!

Various pages about The Peanuts Movie have issues with the "Is there an emoji for Good Grief?" gag from the original trailer. Since we estabilished that references to smartphones, selfies, emojis and social media are not WSRD, the actual trope should be cut from the movie's YMMV page, but I don't know what to do with other trope pages referencing that (like Animated Films)

EDIT: I actually checked the YMMV for the movie. Removing the aforemented line (and a "actual movie defies all of this" that should be cut since you can't play with a YMMV trope), here's the remainder of the trope on the page:

• Were Still Relevant Dammit:
  • The official trailer used "That's What I Like" by Flo Rida in Snoopy's Imagine Spot, which caused some fans to worry that the film would not be using Guaraldi-style smooth jazz scores exclusively. While the score is dominated with Guaraldi's work and orchestral themes, the Flo Rida song in question was during the montage where Charlie Brown becomes the most popular kid in school thanks to getting a "perfect" test score. On the other hand, only the chorus is played.
  • Also, two Meghan Trainor songs were produced for the film. In all fairness, however, they both have a breezy feel to them unlike the rest of her work and jibe well with the movie's tone.
  • Zigzagged with a trailer that has "Baba O'Riley" by The Who playing, but has a few modern songs playing in between (but only for a few seconds per song). The Who's song might be an inversion, because it could be trying to appeal to people who read the strip during their childhood, given that that was when The Who was popular. The most infamous of the modern songs appearing in the trailer is the DJ Khaled song "All I Do Is Win" during the clip of Charlie Brown taking part in the school's dancing contest. Thankfully, that was a trailer placeholder, with "Better When I'm Dancin" being used during the actual scene in the film.

This all reeks too much of "Modern media bad"

Edited by PhantomDusclops92 on Apr 6th 2021 at 7:45:40 PM

Yeah...looking at many WSRD page examples, as well as the main page itself, I feel like the trope has turned into "Modern media bad". I think we might be too late...A cleanup wont help enough.

I'm for the TRS page. The trope has just been a magnet for complaining about a franchise (Or sometimes, even a regular TV show) using or talking about modern media.

Like with the above example, it feels more like complaining than anything else. Kind of like saying “You dare use a modern, relevant song in your movie based off of a classic franchise?”

And to be honest...a lot of this trope feels like that. “YOU DARE USE POP SONGS INSTEAD OF SOLELY SMOOTH JAZZ? SHAME!”

Edited by DookieIdiotNimrod on Apr 6th 2021 at 2:09:12 PM

Let's! This thread can be used for after it has been there.

This is on SCOOB!:

Were Still Relevant Dammit: Some of the attempts to convey a more modern feeling have had mixed responses, such as Brian dabbing in his entrance, Dynomutt calling him a large adult son, the references to Netflix, Velma talking about toxic masculinity, Dick Dastardly's anti-millennial stance, and even Simon Cowell in an already-dated American Idol reference. However, the franchise has always had references to popular trends, or people of the time. Even the original series was guilty of this.

to TRS

NOKE!

So basically this is saying that toxic masculinity and manchildren are dead memes from 2018?

Before we but in the TRS page, we should probably do a wick check. I'll do it, and if anyone else wants to volunteer to help, that would be most appreciated.

If you're not aware, there is a wick check project over in short term projects, good place to get some fresh eyes that might not have looked at this thread...

In fact, the sandbox for it is linked in my signature.

Let's check another long runner, Arthur.

• Were Still Relevant Dammit:
  • "Flippity Francine" has Francine dealing with being in an embarrassing YouTube video.
  • "Brain and the Time Capsule" has Muffy joke that the people using the Brownie camera "must have strained their arms trying to take selfies!".
  • "Sue Ellen & the Last Page" has a scene where Muffy edits Sue Ellen's library speech. It has a hashtag, Sue Ellen's head spinning with lasers coming out of her eyes, a strange colorful background, her voice echoing, and a mention of her riding on a panda.
  • "The Longest Eleven Minutes" includes use of Internet slang like "IRL."
  • A parody of Instagram appears in "Muffy's House Guests."

These are all "Social networks bad, modern culture bad, this show from the 90's should pretend that we are still in the 90's"

Here’s The Wick Check. I’ll put this in that server, too.

From Family Guy S 4 E 4 Dont Make Me Over:

• Were Still Relevant Dammit: The writers mocking Jimmy Fallon for his Corpsing on Saturday Night Live — in June 2005 (which was after the show completed its 30th season and before the show would refresh itself by broadcasting in high-def and hiring Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, and Kristen Wiig as the new feature players [after firing Rob Riggle and keeping Jason Sudeikis]). Sort of justified in that Family Guy was still canceled in 2004 and was trying to catch up with the times, but all the jokes about Fallon and his inability to keep from cracking during SNL sketches dried up as soon as he left. Even The Simpsons' Take That! against Jimmy Fallon (on the season 16 episode "Home Away from Homer"^note the episode where Flanders moves away after Homer tells everyone that Flanders is housing two college coeds who are filming softcore webcam porn) was timelier than this.

The entry tries to justify itself, then goes on to complain "Simpsons did it first". Also, the incident was referenced in 2005, despite happening only the previous year, and the entry even admits the show was canceled when the incident took place, so they couldn't really reference it sooner.

It might be just outdated enough to count as something, but people still make jokes about Jimmy Fallon corpsing on SNL (it's sort of a Never Live It Down thing for him) so I don't think it's a big deal. And the comparison to The Simpsons makes me suspect it's another "Family Guy bad, (older) Simpsons good" kind of deal.

As for the Peanuts thing, I think that might fall under the "franchise that never used memes before uses them in a shoehorned matter."

So for the Wick Check, please add if you could! We really want to get this through, and it would be great to get all the help we could get!

Once we do it, we can start the TRS article.

This trope has a cleanup page now, interesting. But yeah. I added an example of this trope afew weeks ago on Caillou, is this example good?

• Were Still Relevant Dammit: "Caillou Goes to The Toystore" from Caillou's New Adventues has Caillou playing with a Fidget Spinner.^note The episode was released in late 2018.

Fidget spinners still have their fans (I still have one) and still get sold in stores and such. They're just Condemned by History^note well, it's too recent to officially declare that but the sentiment still stands due to the "cringe factor" from their overhype in 2017. If he's just playing with it, and the show's not selling it as a cool and hip toy, then it's probably not WSRD.

So the references have to be outdated and cringey to apply?

I see.

That's what I don't quite get. The definition seems to suggest that the references do have to be relevant when they air, but I think it would be easier to quantify when the references are outdated, because then we can say more easily that it no longer works as an attempt to be "hip."

I think the pop culture references being mismatched and forced in the show's setting is what makes this item work best (which might nullify a lot of Simpsons examples as it was always a satire of modern America, but of course it lasted so long it had to update what modern America is), but I'll save my discussion for the TRS.

From Power Rangers Dino Fury:

• Were Still Relevant Dammit: In addition to the inclusion of techno in the soundtrack, Izzy has used Gen Z slang in battle, like "vibing" and "OK boomer".

...OK boomer

Ok.

So looking at a lot of wicks...I've noticed something.

Not only is the trope a magnet for complaining...nobody actually knows what the hell it means.

Exactly.

Edited by DookieIdiotNimrod on Apr 7th 2021 at 1:59:16 PM

That happens sometimes, especially with YMMV stuff.

As I said, most of the wicks can be summed up as "Modern technology and pop culture bad, don't reference it"

This is on Animaniacs:

• Were Still Relevant Dammit: One of the common criticisms of the Kids' WB episodes is it started relying much more heavily on 90's pop culture references and parodies, such as Speed, Fargo, Friends, and the "Macarena". The episode parodying American Gladiators was particularly bad about this. The Beauty and the Beast parody was another noteworthy example.

I'm not sure about most of it, but the comment about Beauty and the Beast should probably go, right?

Meanwhile, this is on the page for the reboot:

• Were Still Relevant Dammit:
  • Several critics say that the show, particularly much of the Warner Siblings' segments, tries too hard to mock late 2010s culture, with a perception that they often over-explain what they're mocking and thus come across not as witty as they once were. It has been compared to the later seasons of the original show when it leaned more heavily on parodying 90s pop culture trends, such the "Macarena" and Friends. In particular, the reboot makes a lot of political jokes, especially ones targeted at the Russian Federation and then-White House resident Donald Trump, with the swearing in of Vice President Joe Biden as Trump's successor making most of the jokes centered around him to become outdated only two months after premiering. The series also makes jokes about things that were relevant in 2018 (when the show was written), but which had faded from culture by 2020 (when the show was released), such as Pinky and the Brain ending up in a fidget spinner factory or the infamous Johnny Johnny poster gag in the pilot.
  • The Leeroy Jenkins gag from one of the Pinky and the Brain segments references a video from 2005. The referenced video dates back far enough that it's closer to the air date of the final episode of the original Animaniacs (1998) than to the release of the reboot (2020).