TVtropes Will Ruin Your Life

[Sapphire225]

I've noticed that alot of us are pretty familiar with TVtropes, if not being tropers. Its become so ingrained, its nearly everywhere we look or applied, justified that it is about things applied, as sensible as that may sound.

Anyway, so what are your thought? I'm a troper that doesn't really put too much up there, and go to it like a drug.

[Atria35]

I'm not a troper, but I lurv TV Tropes! I go when I'm bored or need to research something that I'm thinking of writing to see how it might go over.

[Cognitive Gear]

I read TV Tropes about once every other week, looking at random tropes. I figure that the more tropes I understand, the better my work has the potential to be.

[MomentOfInertia]

I try to avoid it. Every time I go on I lose tons of time in a "wiki walk." ( I think hat's right)
It's fun to read, I just can't keep from reading all the entries for whatever show/movie/comic I started on; and then there's the related tropes.....

[Agloval]

TV Tropes is okay within its limited remit. I'm usually a bit disappointed by its emphasis on the collection of examples over actual thought, and by its failure to recognise how contingent most of its concepts are.

Like, it encourages a tendency to simply say 'Well, it's [trope X]' in a conversation and then feel that the job is done. Without an urge to really dig into the guts of what's going on. And without a sense for how [trope X] is just an idea someone had (in most cases sometime in the present decade) which used to not exist and will one day die -- not some kind of aesthetic principle for all times and places. That's not to say that [trope X] isn't a valid pattern, just that it's rarely as simple as its TVT page makes out.

(I say this as someone who's not a creative writer, just a reader unheathily interested in policing the way we talk about stories.)

But hey, every now and then I see a page on the site which has one or two well-written, witty paragraphs. The fact that titles' descriptions are normally written from an enthusiastic point of view can make each one an interesting indication of what it is that fans of a particular thing like about it.

[Mouse2010]

I don't read there as often as I did a few months ago. I like it, but I have two complaints. The first is similar to what Agloval said: I wish they did a little more analysis of how an example demonstrates a trope or subverts it. What I really like about the cite is all the pop culture analysis it does, but it seems like the format encourages very brief descriptions of examples, rather than thorough analysis.

The second problem is that it is VERY easy to have the ending of a work spoiled if you read TV Tropes too much. This is how I found out about the ending of Escaflowne, for instance, or about the death of a certain character in an anime I'm watching now. It's sometimes possible to avoid seeing the spoilers, but not always.

[Furen]

I'm such a troper....

I had one almost complete, but I decided to finalize it a day too late...

Ah well, it was similar to the Scooby Dooby Doors (I named mine the Hannah Barbarrels [for them creating the enter one barrel, exit another])

[Okami]

Yeah...I think I can count the times I've been on TV Tropes on one hand...

[ShiroiHikari]

I hate TV Tropes, but I can't deny that it's a very good pop culture resource.

[blkmage]

TV Tropes gives people the tools to empower them to perform incredibly lazy analysis of the media they consume.

[MomentOfInertia]

TV Tropes gives people the tools to empower them to perform incredibly lazy analysis of the media they consume.

This.

[SincerelyAnomymous]

I like TVTropes. I mean, I have no acc there, but it's a good place for resource.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

I used to burn hours and hours lurking on there, but when I realized how much time I completely wasted I made it a point to stop going there.

[Hiryu]

Yea, if you have a day or two with nothing to do, it'll keep you busy with looking up silly, but also intriguing things. After about 5 minutes, you'll have like 15 tabs open, and you'll start to wonder how you got from Bubble tape to Bonsai trees.

[rocklobster]

I go at least once a day. I love their witty approach. Besides, they did introduce me to Blind Guardian, Cobra Starship, and Soul Eater, all of which I enjoy.

[Tsukuyomi]

A friend linked an article (forgot what it was about..) there once.. I ended up spending an hour or so reading other stuff xD Such a waste of time, but fun reads =]

[FllMtl Novelist]

I've been there less than ten times. The first few times I made a million tabs, spent a lot of time on there, and got a few laughs. But like others, I decided I'd wasted too many hours on that site. I appreciate the mildly sarcastic tone of most articles, but it's not worth it.

I now mostly avoid it. It eats up my time like a chat room, but I get pretty much nothing out of it.

[Darth_Kirby]

I've been there less than ten times. The first few times I made a million tabs, spent a lot of time on there, and got a few laughs. But like others, I decided I'd wasted too many hours on that site. I appreciate the mildly sarcastic tone of most articles, but it's not worth it.

I now mostly avoid it. It eats up my time like a chat room, but I get pretty much nothing out of it.

lol true, unless you write. Then you might get something out of it. I've become Dangerously Genre Savvy.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerouslyGenreSavvy

[FllMtl Novelist]

lol true, unless you write. Then you might get something out of it. I've become Dangerously Genre Savvy.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerouslyGenreSavvy

...I already am. I predict endings to TV shows and slow books all the time. Sometimes I predict middles, too.

Since I write books, I'd prefer to spend my time reading books. I think I learn more overall. Like how some people were saying, I learn more about how tropes are set up, which as a writer is very useful to know.

[Darth_Kirby]

...I already am. I predict endings to TV shows and slow books all the time. Sometimes I predict middles, too.

Since I write books, I'd prefer to spend my time reading books. I think I learn more overall. Like how some people were saying, I learn more about how tropes are set up, which as a writer is very useful to know.

True. Seeing it in action is always best.

[Contrarian]

TVTropes... Oh mai.

I might be a teensy bit addicted it it.

[Yamamaya]

It's a really nice resource to waste hours and hours of time on.

I just wished certain examples and articles provided a more in depth analysis.

[Atria35]

Engrish and Truth in Television are hilarious- my favorite pages.

[Tarnish]

I generally don't like TV Tropes (Is there anything they don't like/are not creepily attracted to?), but I could spend hours in the High Octane Nightmare Fuel pages.

[Neane]

Tv Tropes is a wonderful site. (I even discovered some great movies using it. And my fellow members at a certain gaming forum use it all the time to show examples.)

[Vii]

2 hours ago: "What's a TV trope?"
Present: *click* *click* *click* *click* *Scroooooooooooooll* *click*


---
Cool site, though I'll probably only go there when I'm really bored or something...

EDIT: Actually, I might go there a little more than that...

[Nekomimi]

TVtropes is the written form of youtube: hit one phrase & you end up going to another, then another, then another... lotta fun, but yeah, time (& sometimes brain) waster. I figure it's better than watching "reality" TV, tho XD

[A_Yellow_Dress]

I love TV Tropes. But tabbed browsing will be my death. I can spend hour upon hour just reading about my favorite media and all the tropes within them.

So addictive.