Serious Business/Other Media

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


New Media

  • The voice synthesizing software Vocaloid and its characters. The only thing canon about the Vocaloid universe by Word of God is the character names, designs, and voice banks, but the Fanon is quite firmly rooted, to the point where one thing that was officially canon got retracted because of fan outcry. The software and the fandom it spawned has inspired countless songs, and those songs have inspired a stage play, a musical (inspired by only a single song, mind you), and |an anime. The flagship character, Miku Hatsune, is a bona fide Virtual Celebrity, complete with an album reaching # 2 on Japanese charts. She also gave a live concert (as a hologram, backed by live human musicians), and her version of the software has also been installed in a Japanese gynoid.


Newspaper Comics

  • In Doonesbury, the frenzy over Beanie Babies (see the Real Life section below) was mocked in a storyline that saw Uncle Duke steal Alex Doonesbury's collection and hold them for ransom. The whole thing is treated as seriously as an actual kidnapping.


Theatre

  • In the storylines of many ballets, dancing is Serious Business. The hero of Swan Lake dooms his beloved to spend eternity as a swan because he mistakenly dances with the wrong woman at a ball. The titular heroine of Giselle dances herself to death, and later spares the man she loves from the same fate by offering to dance in his place to appease an evil ghost queen who is forcing him to dance again and again. In The Sleeping Beauty, Aurora pricks her finger not from spinning, but from dancing with the spindle despite her mother's warnings that doing so would be dangerous.
  • The Arbiter in the musical Chess not only takes his job of refereeing a chess championship incredibly seriously, he also seems to think it makes him a badass. "I'm on the case, can't be fooled/ any objection is overruled/ I'm the Arbiter, I know the score/ from square one/ I'll be watching all sixty-four..."
    • It's the backup singers and dancers that make the whole thing Serious Business.
      • It's really the music itself that turns the whole thing into Serious Business. Bangkok, anyone?


Web Animation

  • Red vs. Blue; the continuing story of a battle fought over "the galaxy's most important box canyon with a base at each end." (There was more here, but it seems to have been lost. Anyone?)
    • The others still appear to be referred to as privates when not being addressed by name, so either it was a throwaway line that was just Wash being insulting, or the writers themselves forgot Wash said it.
    • The red and blue teams are simulation Troopers. They are a part of the Army, just a part where the soldiers are considered expandable. Its also hinted that the simulation war was a testing ground for Project Freelancer exclusive, which they used to test stuff, train their Agents and recruit new Soldiers(as seen with Donut).And to hide the Alpha. Sarge still qualifies as an example, since no one else of the Blood Gulch Crew takes the war serious.
    • In one PSA, Grif states that "some games are serious business." Apparently, he once "played Donkey Kong so well that he cured kidneyism. It was the best day ever. The End."
  • DigitalPh33r regularly parodies the concept in his Halo movies with unnamed characters brutalizing things in game and/or shouting to the heavens "THIS IS SUCH A BIG DEAL!!!"
  • The classic Flash film Craziest is about someone who considers Scrabble a religion.


Websites

  • TV Tropes is serious business. When you think about it, this site's entire premise takes fiction as Serious Business. Let us please leave it at that.
  • Wikipedia, naturally. Ironically, most college professors don't even accept the site as a legitimate source.
    • Kobe's career summary is also serious business.
      • It's slightly terrifying that there are five pages of people arguing about a basketball player's neutrality and favorite things.
    • Once in a while, certain changes to Wikipedia or references prove how MUCH of a Serious Business Wikipedia is. A recent example - look up "Malamanteau" on Wikipedia and go to its Talk page. It's incredible how a single joke can provoke a reaction of such scope.
    • Also, certain data being on the article is serious business to some people, as the Lamest edit wars page shows.
      • Certain celebrities and politicians have regarded the wiki as significant enough to embellish their own entries or create and maintain their own pages in defiance of the editing policy. To their credit, the administrators tend to snuff out such shenanigans quickly enough.
    • If the topic is of the serious business type (sciences and such), you can use it as a source hub.
  • My Life Is Average has a very dedicated group of people that hate on any story that isn't average or has words like "it made my day" or "Best. X. Ever."
  • In GameFAQs, the Contests are serious enough for the board that discusses them to create a wiki. Also, in that board, "Most Powerful Character" discussions might get a little heated.
  • Deviant ART is taken very seriously at times. Granted some of it is over important stuff like art thievery, but then things just go a little nutty over other topics, such as whether one should comment on a piece before faving it or if the favorite is a comment by itself.
    • Heaven help you if submit a piece in the wrong category.
  • Gaia Online - people's avatars are most definitely Serious Business.
  • I Love Bees had a player try to answer a live call in the middle of Hurricane Ivan. Someone actually had to break character to tell him to get to safety;

Dude, it's a hurricane. Put the phone down.

  • The IMDb Top 250. That is all. Sometimes it even gets rigged to help certain movies. Voters have admitted to giving certain movies a "1" or a "10" just so they can bring the average score closer to their desired number.
  • Facebook. Your parents and grandparents will know everything you do and will get offended at you. Employers will check your facebook first before anything else. And heaven help you if you ever defriend someone.
    • Or, you could just not "friend" your family, and set up privacy so that only your friends can view it. Seriously, who friends their parents?
  • If you ever say first on any forum topic whatsoever, you will be flamed to within an inch of your life. (See also Flame Bait)
  • Confusing "your" for "you're" on a forum. Grammar Nazis will pop out of nowhere to give you a tongue lashing hazardous to your health.
  • Any website with user-generated content and a point system to reward those who contribute the most has the potential to turn a fairly meaningless number that is only occationally noticed by a handfull of people into Serious Business.
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