Back after like 12 years

randomtropeloser

How did like 5 people manage to keep this forum running for like a DECADE?! Please teach me this level of tism so I can use it to create an ai family for myself. Also tvtropes user rottweiler was a piece of shit. I don't know if he's still around but I just wanted to put that out there.

Stormtroper

Hey, I remember you! Well, your username at least.

It's not so much autism as much as it is an inability to move on, but yeah.

On the rare occasions I revisit TVT's forums I end up seeing familiar faces anyways (in a sea of unfamiliar ones), even though the atmosphere is quite different from what it was back then. Also, apparently back then is what is now considered the "wild west" era of TVT.

fourteenwings

It's not so much autism as much as it is an inability to move on.

That's how I see it.

Also I personally don't want to see the big social media companies completely bulldoze the rest of the internet.

lrdgck

My personal take, which I have stated a few times so guys might remember it but you probably don't, is that us here at IJBM is kind of like a run-down bar with the same set of run-down people each evening who, like, do not need to have much in common otherwise but acknowledge each other as fellows.

Also tvtropes user rottweiler was a piece of shit

I would have seen that as a case of autism that was, shall we say, orthogonal to everyone else's vanilla autism.

glennmagusharvey

Stormtroper wrote: »

On the rare occasions I revisit TVT's forums I end up seeing familiar faces anyways (in a sea of unfamiliar ones), even though the atmosphere is quite different from what it was back then. Also, apparently back then is what is now considered the "wild west" era of TVT.

oh gosh, those crazy times when i'd spend an entire day arguing over a rename proposal on tv tropes.

fourteenwings wrote: »

Also I personally don't want to see the big social media companies completely bulldoze the rest of the internet.

Agreed, though this is why I'm interested in open-source and often federated social media like Mastodon/Misskey and Lemmy/Mbin and the rest of the ActivityPub "fediverse" as well as Matrix as well as the non-federated Revolt. Actually doesn't explain why I'm still here -- the reason in this case is that I'm here because I'm still here, basically, and I just like stable hangout spots that I can frequent but not feel burdened with spending time in. And someone's still willing to host this site. Also I'm the only active mod and someone has to be in charge of dealing with the occasional weirdness.

That said, sidenote and IJBM: the sometime tendency on the internet to attribute any sort of curious behavior to "autism". This undersells how inherently weird the real world is. Also, this undersells Florida Man.

fourteenwings

This undersells how inherently weird the real world is.

Good point.

But the autist meme is a good way to ignore how at least 20% of humanity is not "normal" and therefore you're actually not as special as you think you are, guy sitting at a computer at a forum with an average 4 users total.

Stormtroper

Rottweiler always struck me as too self-aware for his thing to be based on autism. It occurs to me that nowadays he'd fit well with the with the unironic retvrn-to-tradition people that have sprung out since.

oh gosh, those crazy times when i'd spend an entire day arguing over a rename proposal on tv tropes.

Man, those were the times. I bet there's been lots of SPOON-based name changes ever since that would make me upset.

I still occasionally find TVT referenced in the wild, I guess it's become an established "internet thing".

glennmagusharvey

I mean, I mention it in the wild.



Also suddenly I'm remember how for several years after most of us left TVT, the lot of folks on IJBM/HH people just didn't want to be associated with TVT, and especially with the term "troper".

I realized that while I had been heavily involved in TVT, other people had probably gone in more heavily.

lrdgck

It occurs to me that nowaday he'd fit well with the with the unironic retvrn-to-tradition people that have sprung out since.

Or one of these guys who are like, "I was there when you kids were still in diapers".

On the topic of established internet thing, well, yeah, seems it's reached that level of recognition.

catch_the_sun

glennmagusharvey wrote: »

I mean, I mention it in the wild.



Also suddenly I'm remember how for several years after most of us left TVT, the lot of folks on IJBM/HH people just didn't want to be associated with TVT, and especially with the term "troper".

I realized that while I had been heavily involved in TVT, other people had probably gone in more heavily.

Admittedly, there was that cringe 'This Troper' business but I hardly see the need to distance yourself from TVT in general. It's a handy enough resource/hangout spot as any, yes?

lrdgck

That's more or less how I see it. 's like any other wiki, sort of. In my case the cringe was not with "this troper", which I saw as an in-joke of sorts, but rather with all the smarter-than-thou kids posting about their unpublished Deconstructed Badass Longcoat fantasy trilogies. Which, I think, was inevitable on a wiki/forum with such a focus, but what have you. Also, Troper Tales, but I don't blame people then in charge for not expecting folks to immediately start bragging about their incestuous trysts.

Also, I like how we never fail to revert into a discussion on a forum we left like ten years ago. (Well, officially left. *sad Hotel California noises*)

catch_the_sun

> left
*stares into my recent posts in Forum Games*

Guess I never really left, lol. Took a break for a few years, yes. Left, no.

lrdgck

's alrighty, I'm not judging. Personally, I left the forums a good while ago since I felt like it doesn't do good to my head, but I still edit the wiki once in a while.

Stormtroper

Remember that time we conspired to have Troper Tales removed?

From what I remember, the whole separation from TV Tropes started out as a friendlier "we got kicked out of TVT so we may as well be our own thing" (if I had known we would be doing that I would have chosen a different username), but not long after some things happened:

• TVT started getting a reputation for cringy and creepy stuff, both inside and outside TVT/IJBM.
• Whenever some drama happened at TVT, it'd find its way here and result in more drama for us (ironically enough).
• Often when a troper got banned over there, they'd come here and repeat whatever behaviour they got banned for in the first place.

In hindsight, that third one was probably the bulk of our new userbase growth. Nonetheless a bunch of IJBMers became bitter over this and thus started pushing for separation more aggressively.

Nonetheless, to this day I still think TVT's unsavoriness was overstated, the site was always almost entirely about fun media stuff, with the cringy/creepy stuff being something you can ignore and not feel shame over, even if it's within the same website.

[Edit: Actually, now I'm having doubts as to how much one can ignore it. Hmmm...]

Also, this could be me getting old, but a bunch of stuff we'd label as cringy back then I'd now instead label as young people having shameless fun. Maybe I should have been cringier.

Regardless, this was harder to find than you'd expect so here it is for posterity:

Arguably, this Troper is probably the youngest of which who suffers from this Trope. This is practically the invisible label that's under the invisible Berserk Button of this 13-year old kid. He broke 33 pencils in his life, and had a good friend break two of those pencils because they were too hard. He even yelled at someone because that guy was the third person who asked if he could be punched for the third time, with a teacher only a mile ahead!

And:

I actually shit myself when I read that. There I realized I wasn't just dealing with the usual horrifyingly egotistical Troper Tale. This person will BREAK YOUR PENCILS without a second thought. Should he meet you, without any regret, he will DESTROY your beloved pencil collection. Your Crayola, your HB, everything. That beloved pencil you had for three years? Snapped in two with no remorse. Even if you reinforce your pencils to try and stop him, he has a good friend, even better in the arts of pencil-snapping. And when he is done, you will be nothing, sobbing in a heap of pencils as broken as your dreams. And he will laugh. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

glennmagusharvey

Ironically, while I don't have that strong aversion to TVT that some people had, I also basically stopped using the site except for the occasional lookup/edit on the edit. Nothing like my previous heavy involvement on the forums.

Perhaps it was a somewhat fortunate thing that I wasn't an amateur writer. I had less incentive to try to use the site as a way to publicize my stuff, and thereby might have avoided some of the more embarrassing behaviors.

As opposed to how ignorable the stuff is, I think that sorta depends on one's perspective.

It's easier to ignore if one's idea is "TV Tropes is a site for cataloguing media tropes" than if one's idea is "TV Tropes is a user community". And it's probably easier to ignore if you haven't gotten deeply involved in the more, uh, "chuuni"? (for lack of a better term) of the user-generated content.

FWIW I still have a TVT account. Same one; I never got alt accounts nor got banned. Though it's been a lot less active than it once was.

Meanwhile, in case anyone was curious, the original Trash Heap thread on the TV Tropes forum eventually got shut down.

Stormtroper

The internet in general has become much less individualistic, every platform is now "social media" even if isn't.

the original Trash Heap thread on the TV Tropes forum eventually got shut down.

Huh, I didn't expect that, it seemed tame from what I remember. Did something change in the meantime? (It was a wonderposting thread, after all.)

Edit: Grammar.

glennmagusharvey

Checking the thread again, it seems that there was some bad user causing drama.

catch_the_sun

Ever thought about setting up another one here? You seemed to enjoy those?

lrdgck

...come to think of it, imagine being Chagen. You may be twice the age you were back then, and yet people still reminisce about that cringey diaper fetishism thing you kept talking about in your kid-on-the-internet years.

Stormtroper