Discussion of TV Tropes

Justice4243 · 2012-01-17 21:54:02

"Oh god I recognize no-one there. 0_0"

I recognize quite a few.

But than again, I'm old as balls.

millercross · 2012-01-17 21:58:57

how old are balls

Tachyon · 2012-01-17 22:00:38

A ball, as the essential feature in many forms of gameplay requiring physical exertion, must date from the very earliest times.

So that's pretty old then.

(Link fixed. - Anonus)

millercross · 2012-01-17 22:17:52

oh god, justice comes from the earliest times! :O

so, justo, what was it like, being a caveman? i herd the women were nice

Justice4243 · 2012-01-17 22:20:08

They were also easy to catch and usually went down with one swing of the club!

lee4hmz · 2012-01-17 23:23:12

ho-lee-shit I had no idea I was posting on the forums before, oh, January or February of 2009.

The post in question is from October of 2008. Wow.

Obā-san · 2012-01-17 23:23:53

How do you find your earliest post?

Anonus · 2012-01-17 23:29:36

Memory.

Yarrun XIX · 2012-01-17 23:30:23

I kind of want to find my first post, but that would require going back to Forum Games.

I still feel uncomfortable with touching that with a ten-foot pole

lee4hmz · 2012-01-17 23:34:18

Man, seeing a bunch of names in that welcome thread that I haven't seen in ages. ccoa, Ruthie, [AOD]...

Anonus · 2012-01-17 23:46:48

There were a bunch of names early on I don't recognize at all.

Justice4243 · 2012-01-17 23:53:05

Pretty sure my earliest posts where on the original Troper Updates.

Anonus · 2012-01-17 23:55:01

I find it amusing that "Troper Updates II, Part II" has existed longer than "Troper Updates II" (which lasted from July 18-28, 2010 before it got glitched by the skullfucker and had to be locked.).

Tachyon · 2012-01-17 23:56:06

Ccoa's still around, in TRS. She went away for a bit, but she's been back for a while.

[AOD] left, then came back later and got banned for trolling.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-17 23:58:14

Yeah, I remember when [AOD] came back specifically to get banned. Apparently it was around the time that SA started noticing TVT and wanted to ban us all from the internet for not calling lolicons names like they do. :P

Anonus · 2012-01-17 23:59:12

I always noticed [AOD] because his name was not compatible with the page name system.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:05:50

^^ See, that's how much things changed. Remember when we used to make fun of that kind of thing? Like the Loli Rape Bunker meme? Which SA took at face value, naturally, because they always assume the worst of tropers. -_-;

It's weird, thinking back, I can actually remember the thread where we were laughing at some guy who married a VN character or a body pillow or whatever it was, and people started to go, "Hang on, why are we making fun of these poor nerds? Who are they hurting? Surely they deserve our sympathies, rather than our scorn?". At the time, I found that reasonably persuasive, though I remember [AOD] was fairly scathing.

Looking back, that was a turning point.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 00:08:29

I remember the body pillow thread. And Korgmeister felt bad for the guy.

Justice4243 · 2012-01-18 00:09:35

Hmmm...I remember the odd body pillow thread and making fun of those that fuck said pillows.

I must have missed the part where we're suppose to sympathize with people who thing things like "meaningful relationships" are things we can have with fictional characters or inanimate objects.

Yes, my moral relativity only goes so far, what of it?

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:10:55

^^ Yeah, Korgmeister could usually be relied upon to offer an alternative viewpoint when the threads got rather homogenous.

Which body pillow thread was that? Was it the Swiss otaku/loli rape bunker guy, or the Asian guy who married a fictional character?

^ Well, they are rather pathetic, aren't they?

Justice4243 · 2012-01-18 00:11:43

It may not have been a thread, we might have just started posting pictures of boy pillows in a mega thread and freaked out about it for a few pages...

Good times.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 00:12:17

Yeah, even AOD himself was OK with that at first. And I didn't want to scorn either the loli rape bunker guy or the body-pillow guy, but I didn't exactly want to praise him either, and that's what SA doesn't get; as far as they're concerned, if you're not screaming "GOD HATES LOLIFAGS" from the rooftops like they do, you must be one of them. For a site that charges 10bux as a way of keeping idiots out, they seem to be pretty dumb themselves. :P

Then again, the fact that people like Signed were around (if not then, later on) didn't help matters. Back in the days of the loli rape bunker thing, it was a rather dark inside joke. Then people start showing up that really do seem to want to screw little girls. Oops. :/

Justice4243 · 2012-01-18 00:13:43

SA does tend to be something of an echo-chamber from what I've seen.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 00:14:18

The Asian guy, I think it was.

Also I never really noticed that about SA. Maybe I just don't hang around there that much or something.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:21:08

I don't think that's fair. SA aren't Westboro Baptist Church. It's perfectly normal to hate people like the Swiss otaku.

Then again, the fact that people like Signed were around (if not then, later on) didn't help matters. Back in the days of the loli rape bunker thing, it was a rather dark inside joke. Then people start showing up that really do seem to want to screw little girls. Oops. :/

I guess. I never really used to think of people like Signed as tropers, though. They were more like unpleasant interlopers, encroaching on our forum, who we just had to put up with. That's why I was completely perplexed by the hate we were getting at first.

That, and I wasn't particularly self-aware or capable of recognising the less overt ignorance and unpleasantness on the site back then.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 00:26:20

I've never understood why TVT seems to bring in people like that. Perhaps it's the "accepting to a fault" thing.

Justice4243 · 2012-01-18 00:30:24

There are certainly some unpleasant people that get to stay long past their welcome.

I remember Falconfly wasn't banned until it was apparent that most tropers would rather abandon a thread than suffer having him in a religious debate.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:30:57

^^ Probably. I know [AOD] thought that was the reason.

But then, even [AOD] was very welcoming to people like Made of Meat, which was clearly a mistake. And he didn't seem to hate melloncollie or me, and we were both pretty daft back then.

^ I remember that thread. "Fuck this thread, I'm out of here!" *rocket chair*

I think it boils down to the "we are not opinion police" thing.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 00:31:10

Fourier: Well, I have to admit I'm no fan of SA simply because I think they're way too quick to condemn things, or at least that's the popular opinion. I've heard the forums that aren't GBS are less quick to anger and less likely to do troll runs out of boredom, but considering I have a low opinion of people who have a low opinion of Internet happenings to begin with (read: I'm a huge fantard inclusionist who left Wikipedia partially because of their love affair with the media), I'm not particularly keen on finding out.

And I wouldn't say welcoming Meaty was a mistake as much as incredibly bad timing. As someone who's had problems with obsessive behavior myself, having friends to talk to has been a huge help in the past...though I also suppose that Meaty had (and likely has) issues that require more than just good friends to treat.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:37:56

It took me a long while to understand the SA "let's laugh at TV Tropes" guys because at first I just figured they were assholes who were laughing at people for expressing themselves in a way that wasn't totally mainstream.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 00:40:58

Yeah, when you've been around obsessed fans for long enough, your tolerance for such things increases to the point where it almost becomes invisible. I know I had some mildly creepy or backward beliefs when I first showed up on TVT in 2008 (shipping Yakko/Dot to the point where I insisted there was subtext where there wasn't, believing my old HS crush would magically come back into my life despite having been out of touch for over a decade) that I'd consider completely daft now.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 00:42:45

...Yakko/Dot shipping?

Justice4243 · 2012-01-18 00:45:01

^^What's important is that you can reflect on that and understand that.

Anyone one remember when the SpongeBob got locked over a hoopla regarding if Mr. Crabs was a complete monster or not?

I believe one or more people where wiki banned for that one...

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:48:10

Back when Meaty started posting, I still thought creepy things were funny, and that attitude seemed fairly prevalent on the forums. Maybe we did her some good, I dunno. I hope we did. But I think we could have done more to discourage her creepier antics before that got out of hand, and we certainly did nothing to discourage her attention-seeking or aggressive behaviour.

She's quite young and clearly not normal. We weren't very responsible, from what I remember.

>Yeah, when you've been around obsessed fans for long enough, your tolerance for such things increases to the point where it almost becomes invisible.

Very much this. I remember I felt guilty for not being as accepting of stuff like lolicon as some of the other people on the site. I thought I must be backwards and prudish. By the time it got really out of hand on the site, I'd stopped caring about it so much.

^ I do remember, yes. Although I think most of us thought that was very silly even at the time.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 00:48:47

AU: There was a quick, blink-and-you'd-miss-it scene of Yakko kissing Dot in one of the later episodes, and a friend of mine from A! fandom and I ran with it, though I don't think ever, like, wrote fanfic or anything (it was just headcanon). Silly me extrapolated that to a scene in Wakko's World that was more cute than anything else and got made fun of behind my back. :P

Seriously, I think I've matured more in the last, oh, almost 4 years than I have in the 13 years beforehand. :P (OH GOD 413)

Anonus · 2012-01-18 00:52:29

Some part of me used to feel weird about thinking loli/shotacon were weird, and then BTL came along and now after a time of simply accepting it, I think it's just pedophilia under a different name.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 00:53:39

^^ I think I can relate, kinda. I think I've matured more in the last year or so than in the previous five.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 00:55:44

I'm not sure how much I've matured, for some reason.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 00:58:48

AU: I always did think 4chan was weird for liking little girls so much. Then again, it was one of those things that was an ironic joke at first, before the actual pedos showed up. :P

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 01:00:33

^^ Actually, that probably means you're wiser.

I shouldn't be talking about myself like this; I wasn't going to do this self-judging/depreciating/aggrandising/pitying/congratulating thing anymore. I know full well that every time I've thought I had grown up in the past, I've done something tremendously stupid and my self-esteem has plummeted.

^ I think as with the whole "ironic racism" thing, it's a pretty irresponsible attitude to have, and shouldn't really be put up with. It's like, it's funny if you're not the one being offended by it, up until the actual racists and paedos come along.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 01:05:02

I feel silly sometimes, in that a lot of the site's problems have to be pointed out to me.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 01:07:23

Fourier: Indeed. While it's a little harder to police in a place like 4chan (/b/ has been considered a shithole for years and typically only get mod attention when something blatantly illegal is going on), TVT really doesn't have an excuse for it now. Hopefully the changes to OTC will help.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 01:08:58

Sometimes I wish I knew more about what was going on in OTC.

I do wonder about the threads themselves, once the mods approve them. Will Best Of and Katrika be able to help stop them from going sour?

Princess Alice · 2012-01-18 01:09:58

then BTL came along and now after a time of simply accepting it, I think it's just pedophilia under a different name

The same happened with me. It feels weird, 'cause for a long time I didn't want to condemn lolicon because it felt like that would mean accepting the "all tropers are pedos!" attitude of the SA thread.

I feel silly sometimes, in that a lot of the site's problems have to be pointed out to me.

Same here. I think part of it is that I was rarely active outside a few places, and they tend not to be the more problematic ones.

lee4hmz · 2012-01-18 01:13:32

AU: The biggest problems are blatant flamebaiting in OPs and thread titles, as well as several regulars (some of whom have been banned now) who think invective and circular logic are welcome at all, much less outside certain threads.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 01:15:56

I see the queue system's point now, and I hope that last problem can be stomped out.

Also I wish the place had a broader topic diversity. When I tried using the place as an IJBM substitute last spring (having tired of IJBM2), most of my threads were about morality, IIRC.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 01:18:11

That sounds about right to me, Lee.

On the whole, though, nobody seems to be in agreement about what the biggest problems are. And I must admit, for all the nonsense that gets spouted about how supposedly sane and rational I am, I'm not actually sure where I'm supposed to be drawing the line. I don't think all the tropers calling for rules reform are actually in agreement on this.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 01:19:26

That agitates me. Nobody can really agree on solutions.

Tachyon · 2012-01-18 01:21:14

Which is precisely why nothing ever got done when we discussed this stuff in the past, of course.

Anonus · 2012-01-18 01:24:03

...not to sound selfish (please tell me if I do), but sometimes I feel weak for being mostly-done with the site. Between fixing it/tolerating it and leaving I picked that.

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