Category:No Real Life Examples, Please

Laconic version

For some tropes, having Real Life examples can be fun and sometimes even informative. However, any trope with this message in its description should not have any examples from Real Life. Note that a work portraying real life is still a work - such examples are about how the work portray real life, not about real life itself. What happened in a certain conflict according to a certain movie or book is usually far less ambiguous than what really happened in that same conflict.

Real Life does not have an author in the same way as a film or other work does, and we see real life from the inside rather than from the outside. Thus, tropes that are objective in works are often highly subjective in Real Life. And since trope pages are not discussion forums, a debate about who is right and who is wrong is a distracting (and maybe even destructive) case of Natter or Edit War. Thus, you may notice that most of the pages on this list are the negative tropes, oftentimes pertaining to morality, violence, religion, and other controversial issues that people are likely to get heated about. Yes, there is No Such Thing As Notability, but when we discuss Real Life, the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment takes primacy here.

An objective trope turning YMMV is not enough to earn it this tag. In general, we trust people's common sense and ability to follow the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment. This trope comes up where real life examples are likely to derail the page into huge debates or come across as offensive or even harassing.

For example, let's say a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu walk into an internet café.^[1] All three of them start editing All The Tropes, and they all start adding Real Life examples to Scam Religion. The Christian adds Islam and Hinduism, the Muslim adds Christianity and Hinduism, while the Hindu adds Christianity and Islam. Then they suddenly all feel outraged with All The Tropes, for having their own religion listed as being a scam. (Meanwhile, someone adds Church of Happyology and gets sued. And so on.) Even without considering the fact that we can't see the universe from the outside and that seeing the narrative of the story from the outside is necessary for that trope—let's just not go there.

And thus, some tropes don't allow Real Life examples outside the portrayal of Real Life elements in works. If you have any questions about this, or feel the trope doesn't need this tag, take it to the trope's discussion page. Or to its Trope Workshop discussion if it hasn't been launched yet.

Finally, when a page becomes too controversial to even have fictional examples, a lock and an Example Sectionectomy may follow—but frankly, such an occurrence should be incredibly rare on All The Tropes. Do note that, when a page is given an Example Sectionectomy, then it doesn't allow examples of any category or medium, so listing it there will suffice. Listing a completely exampleless page here is redundant, as well as misleading. Even if examples most likely happen in Real Life only, adding the No Real Life Examples category and/or listing it here will give the impression that fictional examples are allowed, when they're likely not either.

Other times, a page may simply be on this list for other reasons. Perhaps a list of Real Life examples would be too long and redundant to be worth adding. Or maybe it's one of those technical tropes that work in fiction but don't work in Real Life. It may also be an Audience Reaction that only admits In-Universe examples.

And sometimes, especially with the Rape Tropes, we say "Tell the police, not us". When we say that, we mean it – posting rumours here or anywhere else on the Internet could jeopardize any court case against an accused rapist. Don't let a guilty person go free because of a technicality.

In any case, it's to be pointed out that having real life examples is only tolerated, rather than encouraged. So if there's a page where it's asked to not have examples from real life, no matter the reasons (or lack thereof), tropers are expected to not add them at all.