TV Tropes
| Official site logo | |
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English, German (translation occurring slowly in French, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Italian, Esperanto, Quenya and more) |
| Revenue | Advertising |
| URL | http://tvtropes.org/ |
| Commercial | Ad-supported |
| Registration | Optional (anonymous editors must click through a notice screen) |
TV Tropes is a wiki[1] which collects and expands on various conventions and devices (tropes) found within creative works. Since its establishment in 2004, the site has gone from covering only television and film tropes to those in a number of other media.[2][3] It is known for approaching topics in a casual tone[4] — author Bruce Sterling once described its style as "wry fanfic analysis"[5] — but Robin Hanson characterized it as rather a possibly "great data source for studying fiction's functions."[6]
Content
TV Tropes found its beginning with an initial focus on the television show Buffy The Vampire Slayer,[1] and has since increased its scope to include thousands of other series, motion pictures, novels, plays, video games, anime, manga, fan fiction, and other subjects, including internet phenomena such as Wikipedia itself (which is often referred to as "The Other Wiki").[7] Among its longer standing policies, and possibly contributing to the high number of articles, TV Tropes does not require notability standards behind its entries and examples.[8]
The site includes entries on various series and tropes. An article on a work includes a brief summary of the work in question along with a list of associated tropes. Trope pages are the inverse: after describing the trope itself, it lists the trope's appearance in various works of media.
Trope pages are generally created through a standardized launching system, during which other site members, who are referred to as "tropers", have the option of providing examples or suggesting refinements. Tropes are generally named after a particularly memorable use of the concept. However, there is still an undercurrent of natural selection in both creating and naming tropes, as every one of them is subject to comment and criticism both before and after the new trope becomes official. A new trope must attain a certain level of consensus that it is both original and sufficiently ubiquitous in the media before it makes it to the index. Additionally, there is an ongoing process of changing some of the more obscure and/or difficult-to-understand pop-culture references to more explanatory or self-explanatory ones.
2008 saw considerable redesign in some aspects of content organization, such as the introduction of namespaces, while 2009 saw the arrival of other languages, of which German is the most developed.
"TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life"
TV Tropes use and contribution teaches the user to analyze and dissect works of media. An unanticipated side effect thereof is the inability to see the forest instead of the trees: some tropers become jaded and cynical about consuming media, "[replacing] surprise almost entirely with recognition".[9] This can be a burden when attempting to enjoy a work of media solely as a consumer.[2]
References
- ^ a b From Mary Sue to Magnificent Bastards: TV Tropes and Spontaneous Linked Data - Kurt Cagle. Semantic Universe. Retrieved on 2009-05-22.
- ^ a b "The Current - TVTropes.org: Harnessing the might of the people to analyze fiction". Thecurrentonline.com. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
- ^ Zachary Pincus-Roth (28 February 2010). "TV Tropes identifies where you've seen it all before". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 March 2010.
- ^ Annalee Newitz (2010-02-24). "Behind The Wiki: Meet TV Tropes Cofounder Fast Eddie". io9. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
- ^ Sterling, Bruce, TV Tropes, the all-devouring pop-culture wiki, Beyond the Beyond, Wired, January 21, 2009.
- ^ Hanson, Robin (2009-05-09). Overcoming Bias: Tropes Are Treasures. Overcoming Bias. Future of Humanity Institute. Retrieved on 2009-05-22.
- ^ "Wikipedia - Television Tropes & Idioms". Tvtropes.org. Retrieved 2010-08-08.
- ^ "There Is No Such Thing As Notability - Television Tropes & Idioms". Tvtropes.org. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
- ^ "TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life - Television Tropes & Idioms". Tvtropes.org. Retrieved 2010-05-18.