Truth in Television: Difference between revisions

And that's pretty much how television works. So please, before adding anything to the list below or describing any existing [[trope]]s as '''Truth in Television''', think for a moment: is or was this used in TV kinda like it really happened? Or is there maybe kind of a lot of hyperbole on one side or the other of the equation to make it fit? If the answer to the first question is a definite yes... [[You're Insane!|Go right ahead.]]

 

 

For example, [[The Mentally Disturbed]] - [[Captain Obvious|mentally ill people do exist]] in [[Real Life]] and therefore the trope belongs on this index. That said, real life mental illness (at least once you include the milder illnesses and degrees of it) is so common that having a list of mentally ill people would overwhelm the entire wiki, and some people would find being listed as examples of mental illness or instability very insulting.

 

 

== A-C ==

* [[AB Negative]]: AB- really is the rarest common blood type with between .2% and 1% of any given population having it. However, [[wikipedia:Human blood group systems#Rare blood types|there are LOTS of really rare types.]]

** The whole aspect of the [[Trope]] in that AB- can only take AB- blood is false. The positive variant (i.e. AB+) is considered a universal receiver of Red Blood Cells (O- is the universal donor), which makes life much easier for the blood bankers, in that they can usually just grab a bag of any old blood type and they won't reject it. AB- (the [[Trope Namer]]) is only slightly more limited; they can receive any negative red cells but not positive red cells (as opposed to how the inverse is possible and is why AB+ is the universal receiver).

** You can usually get away with giving Rh+ red cells to an Rh- patient [[It Only Works Once|ONCE without ill effects]]. Most people don’t have Rh antibodies unless they’ve been transfused with Rh incompatible blood (you can get them from pregnancy too). Once a person makes Rh antibodies giving them Rh positive blood can kill them.

** Regardless of the above, it is standard practice to give patients only their own blood type. Even if one is a universal recipient, using another type is done only if you have no choice. Rarity isn't really an issue either, because if one has a common blood type meaning there are plenty of donors, that also means there are plenty of recipients to split it between.

* [[Abnormal Ammo]]: Dragon's Breath pyrotechnic shotgun rounds. Actually most of [[wikipedia:12 gauge shotgun#Specialty ammunition|shotgun ammunition types]] could be considered "abnormal".

** The blunderbuss will use literally anything you can stuff down the barrel as ammo.

** The British rather ingeniously use (or used) tungsten rounds for cave fighting to prevent ricochet. [[Loophole Abuse|There was a side effect of the bullets acting like explosive rounds in human tissue.]]

* [[Arranged Marriage]]: Believe it or not, there are still places where this is common.

* [[Asexuality]]: It's weird being surrounded by something that you've got no interest in.

* [[Asshole Victim]]: This is what can happen to you when you're the kind of person that others are right to rejoice in your misfortunes. The moral: Try not to be such a douchebag.

* [[Assumed Win]]: Much to the embarrassment of whoever stands up.

* [[Battle Cry]]: Some have hypothesized they came into existence as warning or intimidation, but common through the history of warfare.

** [[Remember the Alamo!]]: A quite common casus belli in warfare is remembering a [[Last Stand]] conducted in fighting against or defending against the enemy.

* [[Bavarian Fire Drill]]: People generally do what they're told, and this can be used against them. "Spearphishing" and other social engineering scams feed off of this quality of human beings.

* [[Bedouin Rescue Service]]: In the modern era, this is mandatory. In ages past... not so much.

* [[Busman's Holiday]]: Carpenters spend their time off fixing the house, IT staff spend their time at home on a PC, musicians tend to spend time off going to others' shows and listening to music, and pilots and flight attendants do hitch rides on their airlines, obviously.

* [[But I Play One on TV]]: Actors, musicians, and others are often recognized for role played or stage persona.

* [[But We Used a Condom]]: To the sorrow of many, and the existence of quite a few.

** If our product doesn't work, Happy Father's Day!

* [[Call a Smeerp a Rabbit]]: European naturalists named some animals, such as the koala bear, after other animals that kind of looked similar but weren't at all related. Example: The Tasmanian tiger, aka the thylacine.

* [[Calling Your Attacks]]: Martial arts practitioners believe that expressing certain phrases or vocalization help build up ''chi'' or ensure proper breathing

* [[The Captain]]: On pretty much every naval ship that exists, and private sailors and pilots also have the title.

* [[Cardboard Prison]]: Some prisons and jails are rather easy to escape. Tended more to happen in the pre-camera past or in the Third World.

* [[Casting Couch]]: [[Real Life]] examples abound from film to fashion and music (where it's more common now). Somewhat subverted in that unlike in fiction, where complying may well benefit the victim, in reality, the victim may very well get nowhere at all for his or her trouble, or end up destroying his or her career doing this for real. Of course, there's also porn staged around the idea with fully willing participants...

* [[Casual Kink]]: In some places far, far more than others. If you're in such a place, you probably either are very aware of it, or don't even recognize it as unusual.

* [[CAT Trap]]: If you're suffering from claustrophobia, you don't want to spend too much time in a closed scanner.

* [[Caught with Your Pants Down]]: Because some people [[Your Door Was Open|don't remember to lock the door]], and others are exhibitionists.

** It's the countries that take soldiers hands away you really have to watch out for.

* [[Empty Cop Threat]]: Even if the cops can't ''actually'' charge the suspect with obstruction of justice, they can still ''threaten'' to do it—and some cops do.

", or as most people would call it, a skirt. -->

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: There are real situations that keep from someone becoming a [[Complete Monster]], even if they had crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon|line]] in some areas the resulted in them being vilified. There are also [[Pet the Dog]] moments as well.

* [[Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry]]: Because bright colors or unusual colors attract the human eye.

** [[Gem-Encrusted]]: Some people can really overdo this now that Swarovski crystals are more common...

* [[Evil Debt Collector]]: <s>Most</s> '''All''' of them. No exceptions. See Palisade Collections or the collections department of Wachovia Dealer Services as typical examples.

* [[Evil Power Vacuum]]: Anytime a dictator or a really powerful dude is deposed. Colombia, for example, sank in a chaos of guerrillas and rival crime lords after Pablo Escobar got killed.

* [[Evil Uncle]]: The laws of primogeniture, where the deceased's son gets estates ahead of the deceased's younger brother, sometimes provoked younger brothers into this sort of thing.

* [[Explosive Overclocking]]: In memory of all those who turned their CPUs into grilled silicon after overclocking them to 6&nbsp;GHz.

* [[Extreme Graphical Representation]]: [http://lainos.sourceforge.net LainOS] is a FreeBSD-based operating system whose goal is to recreate the extreme graphical pizazz of the computers from ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]''.

* [[Face Doodling]]: If you haven't done this to someone, you're either lying or you've had this done to you.

** [[Take a Third Option|Or both]].

* [[Fan Boy]]: To an even ''more'' annoying degree.

* [[Fashion Show]]: Another one that's existed in real life long before it was a trope.

* [[Fast Roping]]: Lifted directly from a standard (if somewhat dangerous) Real Life rappelling technique.

* [[Fatal Flaw]]: <s>Lots of people</s> ''Everyone'' will have one. Some have more than one.

* [[Hot for Student]]: [http://readjack.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/lafave1.jpg Debra La Fave] comes to mind. Or Mary Kay LeTourneau.

* [[Human Popsicle]]: Cryonics companies such as [http://www.alcor.com/ Alcor] and the [http://www.cryonics.org/ Cryonics Institute] offer to preserve your whole body or your brain (currently done by keeping the whole head) at low temperatures just after you're legally dead until someone finds out how to cure whatever was killing you. Research shows this ''might'' work someday, as the method they use now allows us to freeze and thaw small organs. They'll also, of course, have to cure the effects of freezing on the brain, which is somewhat more complicated. Oh, and figure out how to make new bodies for the heads-only crowd.

* [[I Always Wanted to Say That]]: Because offline, at least, your brain comes up with that great quip far too late.

* [[I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!]]: Capsaicin (the stuff that makes chili peppers hot) is very addictive.

* [[I Hate Past Me]]: Everyone at one point or another has looked back on their life and asked at different points "What was I thinking?!".

* [[Idle Rich]]: Because for some people, being rich ''is'' their life's accomplishment. Aversions, however, do exist.

* [[Insufferable Genius]]: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

* [[The Internet Is for Porn]]: And/or downloading music. And/or, according to some, buying drugs.

* [[I Surrender, Suckers]]: The reason why police officers will keep one gun pointed at a dangerous suspect at all times until his arms are fully handcuffed.

* [[It's All About Me]]: Narcissists and sociopaths on the more extreme end, individual survival and forgetfulness on the more benign.

* [[It's a Small Net After All]]: In Mexico, ''everybody'' uses MSN Hotmail, MSN Spaces, and MSN Messenger, thanks to an alliance between Microsoft and Telmex, the latter a nigh-monopolic telco led by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world.

 

== J-L ==

* [[Jerkass]]: Who hasn't met at least one in real life? If you haven't, you may want to look in the mirror.

* [[Jews Love to Argue]]: The Talmud itself is a result of legal arguments regarding Jewish religious laws. This emphasis may have also been a contributing factor in the amount of Jewish lawyers, [[Unfortunate Implications|stereotypical]] and otherwise.

* [[Joke Item]]: Plenty of them exist, some for the point of using them in practical jokes, others for many other reasons.

** Krav Maga, the deadliest martial art, was made specifically for Jews getting accosted by the SS.

* [[Leave Behind a Pistol]]: Intentionally leaving a suicide method in reach of someone likely suicidal has happened.

* [[Lensman Arms Race]]: World War II and the Cold War. Consider: the Germans only made very primitive payload rockets with long range work somewhat in WWII, and America couldn't launch a rocket as late as 1957. We were on the moon just over a ''decade'' later. ([[The Space Race]] being guided on both sides by [[Herr Doctor|genius German rocket scientists from Nazi Germany]], who were unaware of each others' existence as competitors for quite some time). And of course, nothing says "my <s>dick is bigger</s> kung-fu is better than yours" like the ever-more-powerful nuclear weapons tests of the 50s and 60s.

* [[Lethal Joke Item]]: Some items are far more dangerous or even deadly than they would look, either by themselves or when combined with something else.

* [[Misleading Package Size]]: Overpackaging, fraud, or the desire to present something as more valuable than it is can make this happen.

* [[Miss Conception]]: If sex education doesn't exist. More common in the past, still sometimes happens in restrictive religious communities.

* [[Mistaken for Gay]]: Many times, a result of the conflation of traits attributed to binary gender and sexuality. Yes, [[Captain Obvious|feminine men and masculine women can be straight]].

* [[Mistaken for Special Guest]]: See [[wikipedia:Guy Goma|Guy Goma]] for an example.

** The FCC and "concerned mothers". Both are also [[Acceptable Targets]].

* [[More Than Mind Control]]: How [[Brainwashed]] and [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] actually happen in [[Real Life]]. The amount of ways that people can be turned against their own interests, their own consciences, and even their own bodies and lives, or pressed into [[Happiness in Slavery]] or resignation to slavery are enough to be [[Nightmare Fuel]] and [[Paranoia Fuel]].

* [[Mundane Luxury]]: To someone living in a third-world country, simple things like ''clean'' running water can be considered luxuries.

* [[Music Is Politics]]: Protest songs of the 60s were practically their own subgenre.

* [[No, You Hang Up First]]: A manifestation of the "sunk cost" fallacy in that someone who is speaking in such a conversation will want to stay on as long as they can even if it would be better to stop talking.

* [[Obligatory Swearing]]: Middle and high school. The [[Music/Hardcore Punk|Hardcore Punk]] [[Heavy Metal]], [[Music/Hip Hop|Hip Hop]], and [[Visual Kei]] music scenes. Sailors and truck drivers.

* [[Oblivious Adoption]]: Oh, it happens alright. More often than we like to think.

** Fortunately, [[Happily Adopted|the other way around]] also happens.

* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: Is there a chapter in the Mexican 19th century that doesn't has one of these? Also, any revolutionary group in the history of ''forever''.

* [[Rain of Arrows]]: A key strategy of the English during the Hundred Years' War and of the Chinese.

* [[Randomly Drops]]: Dollar stores, thrift/consignment shops, and lost and found are this trope's [[Real Life]] counterpart. Also, in large cities or other places with a lot of people, people will often drop or forget things from loose change to occasionally expensive or hard to acquire items.

** Thieves (and on the other side of the coin, police raids of thieves or drug dealers) also run into this trope - things stolen or acquired in a raid can range from absolutely useless even for resale, to incredibly valuable and/or rare.

* [[Roboteching]]: Many guided weapons actually do this.

* [[Rock Beats Laser]]: Though not common, superior tactics or sheer weight of numbers have defeated superior technology. This was apparently one of the reasons the Japanese won in the Russo-Japanese war, too. There's also the Whack-a-Mole theory: wherever you wipe out insurgency one place, they'll just pop up somewhere else, ad infinitum. Iraqi insurgents, the Viet Cong, and Afghanistan over the last 50 years are examples.

* [[Runaway Bride]]: An anonymous bride left the groom at the altar ''and ran away with his witness '''who was also his best friend'''.'' And they all lived happily ever after (except the groom).

* [[Ruptured Appendix]]: Yes, it happens in [[Real Life]]. And it IS fatal if untreated (this is why, if you have severe stomach pain in the lower right side or that started there and spread, you go to an emergency room, and you DO NOT take a laxative.)

* [[Slave Mooks]]: Unfortunately so.

* [[Somebody Else's Problem]]: Fascinating to sociologists, not so much for the victims. Most notably the case of Kitty Genovese.

* [[Snipe Hunt]]: A very common form of hazing or practical joke is to send someone on a search for something nonexistent.

* [[Something's Different About You Now]]: People change over time. That fat nerd you knew? Dropped the weight and became hot. That man you knew? Was actually [[Transsexualism|a woman.]]. The [[Hollywood Atheist]] you remembered from college? Is now a devout churchgoer. Can be very difficult, especially if the changes make your relationship now incompatible.

* [[Stout Strength]]: Incredibly strong men often look more rotund than body-building. Just watch the weightlifting portion of the Olympics. Or sumo wrestling.

* [[Stylish Protection Gear]]: Silk has properties that allow for diminished arrow penetration (note: there would still be ''non-lethal'' wounds). It was used by Mongol warriors and samurai. It's also fireproof.

* [[Street Urchin]]: One of the most serious social problems everywhere in the world.

* [[Succession Crisis]]: Plenty of historical examples. There was even a whole war called "The War of Austrian Succession".

== V-Z ==

* [[Verbal Tic]]: It happens, just not with every single person.

** English-speaking Canadians [[Canada, Eh?|will often append "eh?" to the ends of their sentences]]. It's become a pastime of many Canadians to play it up when around Americans.

** Francophone Canadians often say "lá" ("there") at the end of each sentence.

* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: Turkmenbashi was a very... eccentric ruler. Yes, he was a dictator. But he didn't have gulags and didn't violate any human rights. He was just weird.

* [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]: The need for food is universal among animals and humans, and larger amounts of and specific kinds (more nutritious in specific ways, or providing of certain ingredients) of food are needed for those whose occupations or hobbies are physically (and in some cases mentally) demanding.

* [[The Worf Effect]]: Used by police to break up fights and riots before they really start.

* [[Worthless Foreign Degree]]: Sadly true.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Tropes of Legend]]

[[Category:Nonfiction]]

[[Category:The Shades of Fact]]

[[Category:Index]]