Trope Name
From Tv Tropes
- "Quote from a particularly noteworthy example of the trope."
Statement about something else, ending with firm assertion that the trope is not this.
Elaborate introductory example or reasoning behind the trope, ending in [Trope Name].
Definition of the trope, explaining that the trope occurs when specific lines of dialogue are replaced by general and generic descriptions, giving the appearance of a template.
Explanation that the trope is often used in parody and Deconstruction to highlight patterns and clichés.
Origin of Trope Name. References to other, relevant tropes. Justification of reason trope was split from older, less well-written trope.
See also related tropes. Compare some similar tropes. Contrast conflicting tropes.
Mild warning that this trope is not to be confused with similarly-named non-trope page or similarly-titled and easily confused page. Neither is it This Troper (This Trope redirects here).
On TV Trope Mirror, since the coding differs from TV Tropes, linking the Trope Name to its own page will give a bold unlinked text, instead of a blue link... to the same page. Sometimes it may be linked to "This Trope" so it may become blue.
- Examples
Contents |
Advertising
- There's a new brand of tampons that uses this trope to show how different they are from the competition...
- Carlton Draught's Big Ad. It's a big ad. Very big ad. This ad better sell some bloody beer.
- There's a new Anti-Drug ad by the Partnership for Drug Free America that depicts an argument between a mother and daughter that is entirely made of this trope.
Comics
- About three pages of Paul Cornell/D'Israeli's XTNCT.
Erotica
- Title of Comic from Milk! Issue 16.
Film
- Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis contains a scene with a conversation between husband and wife that consists solely of this. "Generic greeting!"
- The movie plays with language a lot, including a character that speaks entirely in seemingly random phrases (like "nose army"). The conversation in genericspeak is repeated later from the woman's point of view, where the man's dialogue is dubbed in Japanese, which contrasts with her lover's dialogue, which is in Italian.
- Movie Title
- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie had a trailer like this beginning with the iconic "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy has this to say about...".
- The Veggie Tales Jonah movie contains the memorable Song Which Goes Under The Credits
- This is the song that goes under the credits
- These are the credits, so this is where it goes
- Has nothing to do with the movie, so we'll say
- Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey!
Literature
- The Condensation of All Game Fiction published on rpg.net.
- The "Adjective Noun" story, from Hitherby Dragons
- "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself" by David Moser.
- The first chapters of Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler.
- Not strictly self-referential, but Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart contains a "recipe" for an entertainment awards show, with lines like "Expression of gratitude to Supreme Being and to members of honoree's blood lineage".
- This Is A Book By Demetri Martin.
Television
- The theme to It's Garry Shandling's Show:
- This is the theme to Garry's Show
- The opening theme to Garry's show
- Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song
- I'm almost halfway finished
- How do you like it so far?
- How do you like the theme to Garry's Show?
- This is the theme to Garry's Show
- The opening theme to Garry's show
- This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits
- We're almost to the part
- Of where I start to whistle
- Then we'll watch "It's Garry Shandling's Show"
- (whistles)
- This was the theme to Garry Shandling's show!
- How to Report the News
Music
- "Title of the Song", by Da Vinci's Notebook.
- Title of the song
- Naive expression of love
- Reluctance to accept that you are gone
- Request to turn back time
- And rectify my wrongs
- Repetition of... the title of the song.
- "Songwriting Workshop", by Tom Smith.
- This is the verse that sets up the premise
- Of why you have written a song.
- Say what you want, it's your song after all,
- But do try not to make each individual lyric line too long.
- Because it might not scan.
- Properly.
- "This Is The Chorus" by Morris Minor and the Majors.
- 'And this is the chorus,
- This is the chorus.
- It goes around and around and gets into your brain.
- This is the chorus,
- Our fabulous chorus,
- And thirty seconds from now you're going to hear it again.
- From an unidentified folk singer overheard on the radio:
- 'This is the chorus.
- It's the title of this song.
- This is the chorus.
- And it won't go on too long.
- It's sometimes called the refrain
- And it will come back again.
- This is the chorus.
- It's the title of this song.
- Hook by Blues Traveler is a song about generic songs. Read just the first verse:
- 'It doesn't matter what I say
- So long as I sing with inflection
- That makes you feel that I'll convey
- Some inner truth of vast reflection
- But I've said nothing so far
- And I can keep it up for as long as it takes
- And it don't matter who you are
- If I'm doing my job then its your resolve that breaks
- The Heeby Jeebies, parodying The Beatles:
- 'And now we come to the second verse.
- Which I'm singing right now.
- I don't know what I'll say in it.
- Ah well it's over anyhow.
- The cover art of Flipper's Album - Generic Flipper.
- "(This Song's Just) Six Words Long" by Weird Al Yankovic.
- Couldn't think of any lyrics
- No, I never wrote the lyrics
- So I'll just sing any old lyrics
- That come to mind, child
- And similarly, King Crimson's "Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With".
- Then I'm gonna have to write a chorus
- We're gonna need to have a chorus
- And this seems to be just as good as any other place to sing it 'til I'm blue in the face.
- "Coin Operated Boy" by The Dresden Dolls
- "This verse was written
- To make you feel smitten
- With my sad picture
- Of girl getting bitter"
- "The Grunge Song" by Radio Free Vestibule (NOT Weezer)
- "This is the part of the song that's really quiet
- we play very soft, it sounds like a ballad
- AND THIS IS PART WHERE WE PLAY REAL HARD
- IT'S MUCH LOUDER THAN AT THE BEGINNING
- and we go back to the quiet part. Again."
- "Punk Rock 101" by Bowling for Soup
- "Don't forget the delay...lay...lay
- On the very last word...word...word..."
- From "Arica" by Tv's Kyle:
- Arica, this is totally the bridge
- To this musical pep-talk
- It really sounds romantic and self-important....
- Brandon Muller's Linkin Park Parody is a mix of this and very pointed satire.
- Psychostick's #1 Radio $ingle.
- "Well this is the part of the song where I talk about emotions
- And this is the part of the song where I sing about how I feel so cold inside.
- And this is where my producer told me to say "yeah.""
- JonLajoie's parody of typical pop songs, called "Pop Song":
- And now the token rap verse
- That doesn't make any sense
- But helps to get a small percentage of the urban music market"
- Orange Goblin's Tosh Lines:
- This is the first line of my song
- Second line didn't take me all that long
- Third line and I'm about to lose control
- Fourth line is a lesson in rock and roll
- Fifth line is very much like the third
- Line six is the best you've ever heard
- Seventh line and we're getting near the end
- Eight line and that's your lot, my friend.
- This is an album by The Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.
- The Swirling Eddies: "This is the Title"
- An awful lot of Mitc hBenn songs use this as a form of satire, mixed with Hypocritical Humour.
Theatre
- "The Song That Goes Like This", from Spamalot.
- 'Once in every show
- There comes a song like this
- It starts off soft and low
- And ends up with a kiss
- Oh where is the song that goes like this?
- [title of show] follows the spirit, if not the letter, of the trope. It's a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical.
- In musicals, an eleven o'clock song is a show-stopping number which comes late in the second act, shortly before the show's finale. Ankles Aweigh has one titled "An Eleven O'Clock Song."
- The Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies have the traditional "Welcome, Welcome" and "Goodbye, Goodbye" speeches. Each is two words long.
Video Games
- The Rubikon from Planescape: Torment uses this trope to deconstruct the concept of a dungeon.
- Sam And Max: Season One: Episode Six: Bright Side Of The Moon:
- Sam: Random, but innocuous, comment.
- Max: Irreverent reply hinting at mental instability!
- Sam: You crack me up, little buddy.
- Duty Calls, a parody FPS game, also an elaborate advertisement for Bulletstorm, uses these for pretty much every line of dialogue.
- XMen Sentinel in MarvelVsCapcom3 does this.
Web Original
- This bash quote.
- Ironically, ranked #1 of all the quotes in the bash quote database.
- This article.
- The Existential Flame War LiveJournal community.
- This deconstruction of a typical Daily Kos diary.
- This fanficrants post.
- This video, though only tangentially.
- This CRFH rescript NSFW
- Loading Ready Run's Quantum Documentary.
- This blog post, and the thousand plus comments following it.
- Another blog post... For Science!
- Continuation of joke on a more popular science website.
- This RPGnet thread (log-in required)
- This Magic The Gathering article.
- This self-referential story.
- This typical incendiary blog post, and its followers.
- A Trailer For Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever, a Cracked video based on Oscar Bait movies.
- This news website article about a scientific paper.
- This question on Meta Stack Overflow.
- The Manifesto Manifesto.
- This Facebook exchange.
- This anime blog post.
- Stupid AMV Title. Pointless comment about not naming the link "This."
- This 9gag strip with a twist.
TV Tropes
- This.
- And for that matter, this.
- And the subpages below.
- Controversial statement.
- "Silly Pun, Often on Another Trope Name" in the Title Bin.
- All This Trope Name References Itself examples... including itself.
- The template for quoting dialogue in examples in the Trope Entry Template does this for typical three-line banter. (If you don't get the difference between that page and this one by now, I give up.)
Headscratchers
- Really whiny rant that invokes They Changed It Now It Sucks.
- Retort that a Troper thinks is witty, but isn't.
- Denial of Fan Dumb.
- Direction to a website full of it.
- Canon Discontinuity declared on website.
- Direction to a website full of it.
- Straw Feminist or Strawman Political bullshit.
- Just-as-bad retort.
- Rant over really, really, REALLY insignificant thing.
- Lame attempt to Handwave it.
- A well thought-out, researched, comprehensive explanation that unfortunately serves to demonstrate that the person composing it has no life outside his fandom or This Very Wiki.
- Blunt and rather rude dismissal of said well thought-out, researched, comprehensive explanation, complete with pedantic nitpicking over certain minor points.
- Exasperated retort, intended to demonstrate that the Troper in question is a lot more relaxed about the issue than the initial poster but which instead comes off as slightly hypocritical, given how they've expanded a similar effort to respond.
- Indication of MST3KMantra.
- Indication that the MST3KMantra is pointless from a Watsonian perspective.
- Rant that this entry even exists and that people are complaining about it, with sub-rant that TV Tropes is Jumping The Shark.
- Flame War
- Whine about a Ship Sinking.
- Sinking my ass. We all know that both of those characters are Time Lords anyway!]]
- Whine about how much people whine.
- Pointing out that someone is whining about whining, in a fashion the Troper presumably thinks is witty but instead comes off as rather smug.
- Write something that is genuinely puzzling or disturbing, but is then buried under pages of people who whine, people who whine about whining, and the color of goldfish.
- Example complaining about how bad in general this show is.
- Angry rebuttal by fan!
- A question about something that was already asked and answered above.
- Valid complaint
- Nitpick over minor detail of said complaint.
- Me Too.
- Expression of fury about why Tropename is even still on.
- Entry quietly censored out by defensive Fanboy as an alternative to unleashing their Nerd Rage on it.
- Entry updated to replace obsolete markup.
- Just Eat Gilligan
- OVERLY emphasized example TALKING about how this thing fucking sucks and getting AIDS would be better than this. This example will eventually be cut or it will lead to the page getting cut.
- Understated response encouraging the complainer to chill.
- OVERLY emphasized response SCREAMING about how the complainer is a complete string of ad-hominem PROFANITY, and that this is the best thing ever, and would cure AIDS, if people like the complainer didn't turn everyone against it! This example will quickly be restored if the header example is cut.
Playing With
Basic Trope: A trope (a common convention that you can expect to show up in certain works).
- Straight: The trope, played out normally.
- Exaggerated: The trope, taken almost Up To Eleven.
- Downplayed: The trope, played to a smaller extent than normal.
- Justified: The trope has a logical In Universe explanation.
- Inverted: The trope happens the other way around.
- Subverted: We come upon a scenario where the Trope would normally be played straight, but it isn't.
- Double Subverted: ...And then it is soon thereafter.
- Parodied: The trope is mocked, spoofed or straight to ridiculous levels for specific humour value.
- The trope in the form of a Visual Pun.
- Deconstructed: The trope is played in such a way to show various logical and moral problems with the trope as normally played.
- Reconstructed: The trope is played straight, but with the problems brought up by the Deconstruction dealt with or addressed.
- Zig Zagged: The trope is Played With several times over until it becomes a Mind Screw.
- Averted: Neither the trope nor the situation in which it would occur is ever brought up.
- Enforced: Something in Real Life that causes Executive Meddling and/or the authors to use the trope.
- Lampshaded: A Genre Savvy Character points out that the trope will be used and/or the ridiculousness of the trope being used in the current situation.
- Invoked: A Genre Savvy Character sets up a situation where the trope can occur.
- Exploited: A Genre Savvy Character takes advantage of the fact that the trope will occur, possibly-- but not necessarily-- Invoking it in the process.
- Defied: A Genre Savvy Character tries to prevent a trope from happening.
- Discussed: Genre Savvy Characters talk about the trope in a situation where it is likely to happen.
- Conversed: Genre Savvy Characters talk about the trope in a Show Within a Show.
- Played For Laughs: The trope is played in the most comedic way possible.
- Played For Drama: The trope is played in the most melodramatic way possible.
- Plotted A Good Waste: The (normally unintentional) trope is used quite intentionally.
Wild Mass Guessing
- Theory about how this character is a Time Lord.
- Really bad explanation with no mention of what his TARDIS is...or where it's extremely obvious that the theorist has never even SEEN Doctor Who!
- Theory about how this character is Haruhi Suzumiya.
- More really bad explanations go here.
- Just a theory and no explanation.
- Sarcastic response implying a preference for elaboration.
- Claim that the show is All Just A Dream of one character.
- Another really bad explanation.
- Related theory that the entire series either takes place within Ikari Shinji's mind, or takes place during Instrumentality.
Because everything has to be somehow connected to Doctor Who, Suzumiya Haruhi, or Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Blatantly canon WMG.
- Convoluted explanation.
- Saracastic expression of disbelief.
- Jossed WMG.
- ...that a Troper posts not knowing it's been Jossed.
- Indication and example showing that the WMG was Jossed.
- Statement of embarrassment.
- Claims most of the plot is a Xanatos Gambit of the Plucky Comic Relief.
- Half-assed explanation for this.
- Claims that something awesome is powered by Spiral energy.
- Explanation that since it is awesome, it must be powered by Spiral Energy.
- Claims that good guy is a traitor.
- Extremely convoluted explanation including things not actually in the work and taking everything they do as evidence against them.
- Claim that shy nerd on show has autism.
- Long explanation using circumstantial evidence that could describe anybody who is shy or has low self-confidence.
- Shipping claims.
- Made by someone who desperately wants these characters to be together.
- Interesting, original, and plausible theory.
- With lots of explanation that makes it easy for this to be believed. On the other hand...
- Theory related to above theory.
- Which proposes that the complete opposite is also true.
- Corollary proposing a similar theory.
- Theory contradicting the above theory.
- Convoluted, yet easy-to-believe theory about how this is possible.
- Improperly coded example made by somebody who doesn't know what they're doing.
- Theory that Fandom A and Fandom B take place in the same universe.
- Including theory that character from Fandom A somehow became character in Fandom B. Similarities between Fandom A and Fandom B pointed out.
- Theory that sounds really cool and brilliant in the mind of the Troper who posted it.
- Troper is deeply disappointed when no one comments on the theory.
- Theory that really fits a particular fandom.
- Troper realizes after the fact that he just edited the wrong tab...
- Theory that the hero is actually a villain and vice versa.
- Convoluted reasoning that ignores big chunks of canon and invents several other facts out of whole cloth. A number of the invented facts directly contradict established canon.
- Theory related to an above theory.
- Which proposes the exact same thing as a result of not checking the page thoroughly enough.
- Theory that all of the above theories are true.
- No matter how contradictory and absurd said assertion would be.
Web Animation
- The Show's ending chant from this Homestar Runner short.
- To a lesser extent, this email toon.
- Homestar's "TV joke" in this Answering Machine.
- The "prank call" Strong Bad leaves in this email.
- Homestar's grocery list in this email.
- Amazing thing, amazing thing, amazing thing, amazing thing!
- This list.
- Arfenhouse 2 starts off with a parody of badly-made Flash-animated versions of 8-Bit Theater that flooded Newgrounds at the time of its release:
- Fighter: Blatant ripoffs!
- Black Mage: Terrible echo effect!
- Thief: (garbled) Really bad voice-acting!
- Metal Gear Awesome has this.
- Cryptic metaphor!
Web Comics
- The Story Title arc of Bruno The Bandit.
- The Women With Tea strip of Partially Clips.
- This illusionary halfling from Order Of The Stick. Who does not also appear [here].
- How to create a Stickman And Cube comic.
- Legendary has this strip, where the commentary follows this trope.
- Here's Penny Arcade's take.
- This Bob And George comic.
- Irregular Webcomic gives us the Ur-Lightbulb Joke.
- Another joke from the same comic.
- And also a poll question.
- Similarly, Dinosaur Comics offers a barrage of Profession Jokes.
- This Cyanide And Happiness episode.
- This strip from This Comic Sucks.
- This strip from Multiplex.
- The song titles in [this Questionable Content.
- This Sluggy Freelance strip.
- The last panel of [this strip of 8-Bit Theater.
- This One Over Zero.
- This Chainsawsuit, and the commentary below as well.
- This rousing wake-up call from Gunnerkrigg Court.
- This one from Kirby Vs TheSqueaks.
- This XKCD strip.
- This Square Root Of Minus Garfield, of the strip's running gag of Garfield Minus Garfield puns.
- Also, Garfield Abridged.
- This Dead Marlo strip.
- This insult from Khaos Komix.
Joke that didn't fit anywhere else, usually about the page itself, referencing the topic at hand.