Viewers Are Geniuses: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

The public's been clamouring for some more intelligent television in the wake of [[Reality TV]] and [[Lowest Common Denominator]] [[Recycled Script]]s. So, you go and write a series loaded with difficult quantum mechanics, quoting obscure 17th-century philosophers, with characters who are [[The Philosopher|philosophical]] [[Magnificent Bastard]]s who speak [[Bilingual Bonus|a dozen languages]] while conversing to each other by sending Shakespearean Zen koans hidden into chess move patterns, and packed with [[Rule of Symbolism|allusions to ancient Sumerian religion]]. You make sure all your [[Techno Babble]] is [[How Unscientific|scientifically plausible]] and go to great lengths to make sure [[Anachronism Stew|all your ancient Roman soldiers are wearing exact replicas of period equipment]]. Now it's [[True Art]], right?

 

See also [[Viewers are Morons]], the opposite side of the coin. When this trope and the latter trope conflicts however, you can wind up with an [[Unpleasable Fanbase]].

 

== Media in General ==

* Almost every [[Mockumentary]] and [[April Fools' Day]] hoax ever, to the extent that they practically constitute a subtrope. Surely viewers are smart enough to work out that there isn't ''actually'' an alien invasion going on right now, without having to say "THIS IS NOT REAL!" every 5 minutes, right? Wrong, as these examples show:

** ''Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real'' apparently convinced several people that ''dragons really existed''.

** And ''Flying Penguins'', although this was ''perhaps'' [[Lampshaded]] by it being a publicity piece for their online TV-on-demand service

** As Daniel Handler found out when writing ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'', people will accept anything labeled as "based on a true story" as true, no matter how outlandish it is. Never mind that the series involves at various points a four-year old movie director, a bikini made of lettuce, eagles used as transportation, and a sawmill that pays people in chewing gum and coupons that will employ a baby to bite pieces of wood, people still criticise the movie (which is more obviously a comedy than the books) for disrespecting the memory of the (entirely fictional) Baudelaire children!

** A number of [[Urban Legend of Zelda|video game rumors]] got their start as April Fools' Day jokes in the video game magazine ''EGM''.

** ''Inquest'' Magazine is the source for the oft-persistent rumor that ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' is getting a sixth color. It was, of course, an April Fool's joke (although the card Water Gun Balloon Game can put a 5/5 pink creature into play, so in a sense there is a sixth color already).

*** In a sort of ascended meme, [[Wizards of the Coast]] was actually considering adding a sixth basic land to the game for Invasion. It was known as "Barry's Land" during testing and would have produced colorless mana. Its sole use would have been to pump up Domain decks.

** [[The Second City]] went to the ''[[The Daily Show|Rally to Restore Sanity]]'', of all places, with a sign reading "Obama = Keynesian," and got [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBrHkxqNT7s a fair number of bites].

* [[Bilingual Bonus]] is usually a [[Genius Bonus]] but overuse, often combined with having to "get" them in order to understand the plot, falls into this.

* ''Byte'' Magazine used to run an ad every April advertising some form of "write-only memory", such as "erasable write-only memory" or "high-speed write-only memory". Every May they'd print some of the orders they had received.

* Denny's restaurants had a bacon-themed special called "Baconalia," a pun on "Bacchanalia," which were cult orgies in Ancient Greece and Rome. One wonders if Denny's wanted their patrons to get the (relatively) esoteric reference or not.

 

* ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]'' is pretty hard on the brain. ''Ghost in the Shell 2'' is harder on the brain than ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]''. ''Stand Alone Complex'' discusses sociology and memes, and if you understood it fully the first time, you either already had an undergrad understanding of sociology, or earned one in the process of puzzling it out.

** While difficult enough at parts the comparatively lightweight anime series has a tendency to have characters spout plot points (often convoluted political situations) at an accelerated clip. It then rarely, if ever, repeats itself. Example: In 2nd Gig the full source of the title 'Individual Eleven' and its supposed contents are explained once. Despite coming in in multiple episodes before and after the explanation. The extent of the subtleties in these conversations are enough to quickly lose all but astute Political Science majors the first time through, much more so than the sociology and philosophy references.

* ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]''. The central theme revolves around highly technical aspects of computers and networking, and the series is a well-known member of the [[Anime]] [[Mind Screw]] Club.

** And don't forget the extended Jungian metaphors.

* Many anime series produced by the Bee Train studio (most famously, ''[[Noir]]'' and ''[[Madlax]]'') require so much reading between the lines and background cultural knowledge that most viewers refuse to believe that something worthy was there in the first place. As a result, the rather small fan community deliberately positions itself as "intelligent fans", actively shunning whom they refer to as "fanboys" and "haterz".

** Well, I think there's big difference whether high school or university level knowledge of a subject is required. The former is easily achieved by just hearing things here and there without even having to ever go to high school. When watching Ergo Proxy I don't remember ever having that 'what the heck?' feeling like with Lain or Ghost in the Shell, despite being just in high school then.

*** While you may not need an understanding of any of the references to appreciate the concrete plot, how many people caught the City Lights bookstore (real one located in San Francisco) and its importance to the beat poetry movement, or that Re-L's name was listed as "124C41+" in a computer database, referencing early sci-fi novel Ralph 124C 41+ published 1925. Even [[Red Shirt]] characters have names from obscure ancient religions.

* [[Nasuverse|Kinoko Nasu]] really, ''really'' loves winding philosophical debate, and he expects you to as well. The rules governing said 'verse can get pretty complex as well, with a huge amount of [[Mr. Exposition]] giving [[Instruction Dialogue]] regarding borderline game-breaking abilities. [[Fate/stay night]] is particularly guilty. For example, several <s> [[Visual Novel|pages]]</s> episodes will be dedicated to explaining the minute details as to why imagining swords into being real is a stupid, useless form of magic, and then later {{spoiler|Shirou manages to summon every sword ever made ''at the same time''.}}

* ''[[Darker than Black]]'' never explains ''anything'', and on the rare occasions it does, [[Unreliable Expositor|the source is usually less than trustworthy]]. Most of the background [[Riddle for the Ages|is left deliberately vague]], and it ends with a [[Mind Screw]]y [[Gainax Ending]]. In short, if you want to sort out the overall plot (rather than the 2-episode sub-arcs; those tend to be fairly self-contained), you'd better have a very good memory or be taking notes.

* It feels weird sticking a fanservice manga/anime here, but ''[[Ikki Tousen]]'', to some extent. The series seems to take for granted that all of its audience has some basic awareness of the historical characters it's portraying, which... for the most part, particularly in the West, they don't.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' has Ryukishi07 go on about the basics of Schroedinger's Cat, Raven Paradox and Devil's Proof. He also makes lengthy articles about his philosophies of anti-mystery, cultural noise and chessboard logic. And to top it off, he makes numerous references to famous mystery writers. However, his critics accuse him of not knowing what he's talking about, even when it comes to his own inventions.

** Counterargument: {{spoiler|Shkanonyasutrice.}} {{spoiler|The Second or, possibly, the Third.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* Nearly every panel of ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' features obscure references to English literature and/or comic art. The accompanying text-stories are, if anything, even worse/better.

{{quote|'''Jack''': There's nothing wrong with being elite.

Or another example.

This one isn't about collectibles but it's the same kind of thing. I'm in a book store ... for new books. I've gone a little bit crazy and I'm about to spend a couple of hundred bucks. I murmur under my breath "money's too tight to mention".

* Really, ''most'' [[Crisis Crossover|DC Crossovers]] are like that; though [[Final Crisis]] takes the cake for being both poorly paced (jumping from one sequence to the next with no segue) and including obscure scientific or philosophical references many people have never heard of. But it's [[Grant Morrison]], so he gets away with it.

* Garkin's assorted belongings in Phil Foglio's comic adaptation of the first ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' novel contains, among other things, a The King In Yellow paint-by-numbers book.

 

* A ''[[Death Note]]'' fanfic, apparently about random American civilians during Kira's reign, starts off with a [[Seinfeldian Conversation]] about how easy it is to do a feminist critique of classic literature, which further digresses into this exchange:

{{quote|'''Character A''': Y'know, if ''Sir Nigel'' does come up on the test, I'll thank my lucky stars it wasn't, say, ''Rodney Stone''. Would've refused to read it on principle.

'''Character A''': So I'm predictable. }}

** If you knew without Googling or proceeding to the next chapter that this is supposed to mean Character A is predisposed toward a particular side, well, I'm glad you came down from your [[Daydream Believer|terrifying]] [[Fan Wank|ivory tower]] long enough to watch a cartoon, but... chances are you're the author.

 

== Film ==

* Some people found ''[[Donnie Darko]]'' hard to follow, so a Director's Cut was released that basically went to [[Viewers are Morons|the opposite side of the spectrum]], replacing all the interesting ambiguity with a lot of flat explanation.

* Hardly anyone understands all the vital plot points from ''[[The Descent (film)|The Descent]]'' first time 'round. Either they completely missed that {{spoiler|Sarah went crazy}} or they didn't connect the dots and get that the crawlers were evolved from cavemen who stayed down in the cave or they would miss the subtext that Sarah possibly only imagined the crawlers or they would make a more simple mistake and forget the [[Chekhov's Gun|seemingly unimportant singular lines of dialogue which would explain things later on]]. To top it off, it's very difficult to tell who's who in the dark, and fans are still arguing over what the hell the ending ''means''...

* The climax of ''[[Trading Places]]'' involves a surprisingly complex commodities market scheme. However, earlier in the film, the Duke brothers explain the basic concept of commodities trading in such simplistic turns that Billie Ray give an [[Aside Glance]] to the audience.

* ''[[Videodrome]]''. A good understanding of Marshall McLuhan's media theory is required to really get it.

* ''[[Inception]]''. There's a lot to keep track of in this film, including dream rules and levels, and after the initial period of exposition and heist planning, Nolan expects you to figure it out for yourself. [[Epileptic Trees|Differing opinions]] on just how difficult the film is to understand caused some [[Hype Backlash]].

** Though it never gives you all of the details, it does explain ''how'' things happen at the end via flashbacks.

* Much of Peter Greenaway's work fits this trope. For example, he commented in the DVD bonus features for ''The Draughtsman's Contract'' that he did not want to explain the plot and its ending within the film, feeling that the audience would understand what had happened. Much of said audience disagrees.

 

== Literature ==

* Authors who [[Gratuitous Foreign Language|put non-English phrases or sentences]] into their English-language novels and, instead of leaving them as a [[Bilingual Bonus]], make them central to understanding the plot.

** [[Agatha Christie]] sometimes does this in her Hercule Poirot novels, or else puts [[Bilingual Bonus]]es in places where they ''look'' like they might be important.

* Authors using the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] sometimes have this happen whether it is their intent or not. For instance, some early reviewers of the first ''[[Flashman]]'' novel thought it was an actual memoir (despite the fact that the protagonist is a character from Victorian fiction). Oddly, one book, ''Dickens of the Mounted'', is a [[Spiritual Successor]]/pastiche of the Flashman series and actually has a [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo]] from Flashman was also interpreted as being the actual memoirs of the protagonist (who was in this case actually a real person, the n'er-do-well son of [[Charles Dickens]]).

* You can read all the way through Erskine Childers' ''[[The Riddle Of The Sands]]'' just for the gripping conspiracy that invented the modern espionage novel or the beautifully verbose and poetic descriptions of the sea... but having extensive knowledge of sailing in small boats certainly ''helps''.

* Michael Crichton is notorious for this; many people who read ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' right after seeing the movie were overwhelmed with Crichton's stifling detail of anthropological and palaeontologic minutiae.

** Then in the second book there are extended sections of dialogue explaining how much of the exposition from the first book was wrong, many of them due to [[Science Marches On]].

* [[Umberto Eco]]:

** ''[[Foucault's Pendulum]]'' is a [[Deconstruction]] of [[Ancient Conspiracy|conspiracy theories]] that spans forty years or so, is told [[Anachronic Order|nonlinearly]] using [[Flash Back|flashbacks]] and a [[Framing Device|frame story]], and references hundreds of names and concepts related to politics, history, science, religion, and occultism.

* [http://www.lostgeneration.com/hemfaq.htm#iceberg Ernest Hemingway's "theory of omission" or "the iceberg principle."]

** Though this depends on how you read it - some say Hemingway is simply championing understated [[Beige Prose]] as opposed to overwritten [[Purple Prose]], therefore adopting a nice middle ground between [[Viewers are Morons]] and Viewers Are Geniuses, others say it is this trope.

** However, he ''did'' do the research; he's known to keep track of "the invisible literature" - scientific research papers.

** Remember that this story is set in the future. Even extrapolating from the time that Gibson was writing, it states specifically that the Tessier-Ashpool clan had been in orbit for an unspecified but significant length of time; long enough for the clan's progenitors to establish the satellite and die of old age, as well as the next generation going into cryogenic freeze for a motal generation (Molly's lifespan at the time of the story), possibly having done so several times. The process of creating the Boston Atlanta Metropolitan Axis would require at least a full century, which in turn would allow solid-state (silent) desktop computers to become as common and inexpensive as their current real-world equivalents.

* [[James Joyce]]'s ''[[Ulysses]]'' requires intimate knowledge of the history of literature (especially English-language literature), geography of Dublin, history of Ireland and a genius ability at recognising allusions. ''[[Finnegans Wake]]'' requires ... surrendering the possibility of comprehension, which was perhaps the point.

** Given that the title is the Roman name for Odysseus, understanding Homer's ''Odyssey'' is incredibly significant to the book. It also helps if you're familiar with Shakespeare's ''[[Hamlet]]''

** And to make matters worse, Quentin is narrating his part of the story while having an extended mental breakdown. For the record, he didn't have sex with his sister, he only claimed to have done so because he felt it was better than the alternative.

* [[Stanislaw Lem]]'s works are usually loaded with science and philosophy.

** Most of his parodistic works, like ''[[The Cyberiad]]'' and ''Mortal Engines'' also require good knowledge of literature theory.

** Once you've done that, make sure to study 14th and 15th century Italian painting and political history. And the world of prewar Europe. And Greek mythology.

* Even worse: Thomas Pynchon's ''[[Gravity's Rainbow]]''. Even having the necessary knowledge in history, statistics, physics and linguistics to understand the background might not be enough to get through the [[Mind Screw]] it is.

* William Gaddis' JR is a 700-plus page novel with no chapter stops that is almost entirely composed of conversational dialogue that is sometimes packed with financial jargon.

* ''Idlewild'' by Nick Sagan and its sequels, several times. For instance, the character of Fantasia averts [[The Schizophrenia Conspiracy]], but you're assumed to know what hebephrenic schizophrenia ''is''.

** To elaborate: the novel relies heavily on computer science and information theory concepts without bothering to explain them, and is literally ''written in [[Expospeak]]''.

{{quote|''Don't trust anyone whose state vector hasn't forked for more than a gigasecond'' <ref>Don't trust anyone over 30</ref>}}

* S.S.Van Dine was even worse than [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]. Philo Vance uses quotations not only from Latin, but also from French, German, and Italian. They usually are at least somewhat important, and they may be a paragraph, not just a sentence, long. He had one multi-paragraph footnote in German.

* ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' is filled to the brim with allegories, intended to be read by an early modern [[Upper Class Wit]] with an extensive library of contemporary and ancient works. Modern readers can substitute the library with Google and [[The Other Wiki]].

* One can only really understand Dan Simmons' ''Ilium'' and ''Olympos'' after studying ''[[The Iliad]]'', ''[[Odyssey|The Odyssey]]'', and Shakespeare's ''[[The Tempest]]'', and be familiar with [[The Time Machine]], the complete works of Marcel Proust, Shakespeare's sonnets, and Hans Moravec's writings, and should know a decent amount about quantum physics, the Voynich manuscript, terraforming, transhumanism, and biosphere theory. Then it might make sense. No guarantees.

** It helps that there are characters who love talking about Proust and ''[[The Iliad]]'' while much of the rest can be taken as [[Techno Babble|"awesome magic stuff"]].

* Part of the fun of watching a [[Game Show]] is shouting out the answers from your couch. It can be difficult, however, when the answers are so [[Unexpectedly Obscure Answer|unexpectedly obscure]]. ''[[Jeopardy!]]'', which usually crams 61 clues into a single game, is probably one of the most demanding shows for those playing at home.

** Brits have ''[[University Challenge]]''. In a given episode, it's entirely possible for 80 questions to be asked and for a viewer to be able to correctly answer about nine. It's exactly this extreme difficulty that helps make it so popular, though.

* ''Alternative 3''. A British documentary series decides to have a bit of fun for April Fool's day, and claim British scientists are being taken to a secret base on Mars to protect them from a terrible disaster. Twenty years later, the show is now a central part of a great many conspiracy theories by those who failed to get the joke.

* ''[[Carnivale]]'' had knights templar and tarot card mythology, [[Mind Screw|obscure symbolism]], cultural references from the 1930s, fabulous and expensive-looking recreations of the depression-era midwest, and refusal to provide helpful exposition to the audience. It got cancelled after two seasons.

** The E-Space Trilogy was, according to the DVD specials on "Full Circle," partly written to start the show including science that "wouldn't be laughed at" by legitimate scientists. This is especially true in "Warriors' Gate," which takes place in a shrinking universe at coordinate 0 and has some connection to the I-Ching and the nature of randomness. Adric's frequent coin-flipping? Yeah, it means something.

** Depending who you ask, Steven Moffat's major story arc involving River Song and the Silence is either this or just plain full of [[Plot Hole]]s. There ''are'' fans who insist that everything you need to know about this storyline is obvious from the show, but get them discussing it in detail and it turns out they don't agree among themselves about anything but the broadest strokes of the plot, which isn't the part that confuses people.

* While most of the more obscure stuff in ''[[Lost]]'' falls under [[Genius Bonus]], it does fall under this trope when it comes to the plot, which has become increasingly complicated as the show has gone on, with innumerable callbacks to previous episodes, [[Continuity Lock Out|making it extremely hard for new viewers to understand what the heck is going on]]. Not to mention flash ''forwards''.

** ...Or the fact that in season five, the Island {{spoiler|skipped around in time. ''Literally''}}. ''[[Lost]]'' requires the utmost of attention, or else the viewer will be utterly confused. In fact, it's not uncommon for a viewer to miss an episode and be completely [[Incredibly Lame Pun|lost]].

** The [[Trippy Finale Syndrome|finale]] has this in spades. In what can only be described as the exact ''opposite'' of [[Creator Provincialism]], understanding it fully requires the viewer to have knowledge of obscure, mostly dead Eastern philosophies ([[Gnosticism]], [[Zoroastrianism]], Stoicism, Manichaeism) or concepts that don't crop up a lot in America. Case in point: everyone knows [[Karma]], but how many Americans know that "dharma" means a divine duty that leads to the [[wikipedia:Moksha|"moksha", or "letting go"]], one of the show's [[Arc Words]] and a super-critical concept in the final season?

* The 1980s TV Series ''[[Max Headroom]]'', of all things, was short-lived largely for this reason.

** Done by other, different-style riffers as well, such as "The Agony Booth". "Hey, it's ''The Death of Socrates''! They told me there wouldn't be any French neoclassical paintings in this movie!"

** The riffs that revolve around these things are written so that they just sound funny even if you don't get the reference. ("It looks like a Frank Frazetta of Frank Zappa", "You look like Maude with a hellbeast", etc.)

* ''[[QI]]'' full stop. For a show about comedians (and the odd political figure) talking about whatever happens to cross their mind, the show is extremely smart. [[Stephen Fry]] is a certified genius to begin with, then adding in questions that question common knowledge ("How many moons does the Earth have?"<ref>It's still one, but [[Science Marches On|science at the time]] classifed other small, wide-orbiting bodies as moons to Earth as well, giving us offically "2", then later "4", before being reclassified</ref>), ''then'' the fact that said comedians are often specialized genusi themselves.

* Occasionally showed up in the [[End-of-Episode Silliness]] on ''[[Welcome Back, Kotter]]'', such as the story of one of Kotter's innumerable uncles, a tailor who had a friend he hadn't seen in years named, improbably, Euripides Feldman. One day, the story went, a man who looked like his long lost friend walked into the uncle's shop carrying a torn pair of pants. [[Uncle Herbie]] studied him a moment, then asked, "Euripides?" The other man replied, "Yes. Eumenides?"

 

== Music ==

* So, you want to start deciphering the plots of [[Sound Horizon]]'s [[Concept Album]]s and [[Rock Opera]]s? Well, better learn six languages and start scrutinizing every. single. lyric. for a potential double meaning.

* Most of [[Ian Dury]]'s lyrics. [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in the sense that they appear intelligent (and for all intents and purposes ARE intelligent on more than a handful of levels) but Dury wrote for the common man so expected everyone to understand at least ''something''. Don't expect [[The BBC]] to [[Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll|catch on]] though...

 

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

** You could possibly argue that Vince Russo believes that "all viewers are Smarks," and as far as his opinion goes, a smark is a moron who believes they're a genius. If you think of his logic this way, his entire career is basically spend in a massive attempt to outsmart the smarks. Unfortunately, the only real way to trick people in a story where they usually already know, at the very least, half of what's going to happen before it happens is to make the story incomprehensible with obscurities and [[Shocking Swerve|inexplicable plot twists.]]

* WWE commentator Matt Striker slips a ''ton'' of obscure references into his commentary. Most are designed so that they are bonuses for the hardcore fans, such as referencing past names that wrestlers have used. Sometimes, though, he goes for extremely obscure comments such as saying that Ghanan wrestler Kofi Kingston will be bringing his title back home to Prince Nana (a [[Ring of Honor]] manager who is the ruler of Ghana in that promotion's [[Kayfabe]]).

 

== Theater ==

* [[Tom Stoppard]]'s play ''Hapgood'' initially flopped because so much of the plot exposition is contained within one character's metaphorical double-speak about Quantum Physics. The re-write makes the metaphors easier to understand even if you've never heard of quantum physics, and the plot significance is better signposted. Many people can treat it as a straightforward who's-the-defector spy mystery, missing the revelation (in the first act, in another rambling metaphorical monologue) of who the bad guy is and the idea that the rest of the play is about how they prove it, not about finding out.

** In fact, Tom Stoppard continually walks the line on this trope, and most of his (theatrical) work can be argued to be either refreshingly intelligent and stimulating, or purposefully obscure and elitist.

** ''Pacific Overtures'' is a historical pageant detailing the opening of Japan to the West in the late 1800's. Again, personal involvement is kept to a minimum, and the events are viewed through a [[Unreliable Narrator|purposefully biased Japanese perspective]]. The score includes a 9-minute mini-opera detailing American, British, Dutch, Russian and French trading treaties with Japan, and a 7-minute Taoist meditation about observation and memory in which ''nothing happens''.

** ''Sunday In The Park With George'', despite its minimalist, Britten-like score, can still be enjoyed as a classic tale of an artist (Georges Seurat) who alienates his lover for the sake of his art. Until the end of Act I, at which point the action fast-forwards ''a whole century'' to focus on contemporary instillation artist George, great-grandson of the original. Repeated viewings help tease out the direct, micro- and macrocosmic parallels between the two Acts to make the whole work serve as a treatise on art and posterity.

 

== Video Games ==

* Shizune's route in ''[[Katawa Shoujo]]'' has a very subtle narrative style that requires allot of reading between the lines in order to truly understand, especially when it comes to the dynamics of Shizune and Hisao's relationship. It also helps to have a working understanding of the subtlies of how sign language works as a medium of communication and how it differs from spoken language. Unless you are really paying attention allot of this will go over most players heads leading to people complaining about the "lack of romance" in her route.

** Rin's route is as much a mediation on the nature of genius, philosophy of art, and the question of whether or not it is truly possible for two people to understand one another (as well as whether it really matters), as it is an [[Eroge]] love story.

 

== Western Animation ==

{{quote|"You don't even know who I am!"}}

* ''[[American Dad]]!'' frequently relies on political history, much of which you would have to have studied the subject to know about.

** Roger (and to a lesser extent Greg and Terry) will also drop some references that you have to be [[Genre Savvy]] of gay culture and icons to understand.

* It's [[Your Mileage May Vary|debatable]] whether or not it's a "gross overestimation" of the viewers' intelligence given the [[Periphery Demographic]], but [[Phineas and Ferb]] regularly references things like quantum theory and existentialism, throws words like [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness|sesquipedalian]] around and makes occasional (full) use of [[Layman's Terms]]. The creators once commented on this; it went along the lines of "We make the show for ourselves but don't exclude anybody from the enjoyment."

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' occasionally becomes this.

* ''[[Achewood]]''. Full of obscure references to pop culture, music, history, and foreign languages.

** ''[[Among the Chosen]] gets'' confusing in a hurry. The mil-speak, the [[Techno Babble]], mythological references, and the tendency to mention important information exactly once all contributes to this.

* ''[[Dresden Codak]]'' is very guilty of this, frequently covering subjects such as Jungian philosophy and transhumanism.

** During one [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004623 off-hand flashback] referencing something not all that memorable that ''did'' happen in a split second during a long, intense Flash presentation over 1500 pages back, the [[Lampshade Hanging]] could not be avoided:

{{quote|Remember how that happened? That didn't stop being a thing that happened or anything.}}

* [[Your Mileage May Vary]] with ''[[Last Res0rt]]''—the concepts don't require much outside knowledge, but the plot is just that involved (The start of Volume Two, for instance, is complicated by {{spoiler|a [[Reality Warper]] whose presence is only figured out well after they're raiding a ship and being affected by it}}), and the [[Art Evolution]] gives the comic an experimental feel that makes a few scenes harder to follow than they should be because of the way the camera jumps. About half the readers get it, and the other half will need some help, most likely from [http://www.lastres0rt.com/cast/ the Cast page] and [http://www.lastres0rt.com/new-readers-welcome/ New Readers' pages].

* ''[[The Packrat]]'' is impossible to get without fundamental knowledge of synthesizers. Fortunately, it is targeted at and hence only known to synth geeks.

 

== Web Original ==

** Although most of the time they will simply tell you to "[[RTFM|LURK MOAR]]".

* In Season 1 of "[[Invention Pioneers of Note]]", Winston Whitworth declares, "As you already know, Plato once said..." Any idea of the viewers possessing intelligence is dropped for the later seasons.

 

== Other ==

* Some aspects of [[TV Tropes]] aren't exactly newcomer friendly. For instance, some tropes, trope names, and even rules of this wiki can be confusing to some people. This is also the reason why several tropes have their names changed. As an example, the trope "Dropped A Bridget On Him" had its name changed to the (admittedly less creative) [[Unsettling Gender Reveal]], largely because people who have never heard of the meme or ''[[Guilty Gear]]'', where said meme comes from, would possibly have no clue what that trope is about until they open it.

* William F Buckley Jr's essays, and show, was loaded with this, along with several helpings of [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]. He tended to include Spanish, French, Latin, and wildly obscure English in his essays, which were generally high-minded "plane of ideas" type pieces about public policy and the theory thereof. Try watching his show Firing Line. If you drift off for a second or aren't well-versed in interventionism, the Federal Reserve, US education, and sexual morality, have fun figuring out what's happening.

 

== Real Life ==

** They treated their viewers as geniuses, but rightfully assumed that [[Viewers Are Lazy|viewers are also lazy]].

** Completely averted by the (sadly uncommonly-used) [http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ WTFPL].

** It is more complicated. When software is sold in bulk to an undetermined client, the agreement cannot be customized, so it must cover all possible variants and scenarios, hence the complexity. Just to avoid smartasses who would eagerly abuse any less precise terms of use.

* "[[This Trope Name References Itself|Ignorantia juris non excusat]]". Every government on Earth (ironically enough) says you have to know what it means: "ignorance of the law does not excuse". You are required to know every single one of the thousands and thousands of laws, rules and regulations that apply to you. This includes the legalese of every contract you sign and every tax you have to declare. In reality, absolutely no one (including lawyers, politicians, presidents) knows all laws in their own country, let alone all countries. In practice, judges tend to grant a bit more leniency when it comes to the more obscure laws and regulations (though if one is in an occupation where they ''should'' know them, that is no defense), and the main practical application is to prevent people from pleading innocent because they [[Sarcasm Mode|didn't know that breaking into their neighbors house to swipe their TV was illegal]].

*** However, Times ''New'' Roman (the font used in the forgery) is not the exact same font as Times Roman, and did not exist in 1973. Furthermore, Times Roman was under exclusive license to the Times newspaper in that decade and would not possibly have been used in semi-official US government correspondence. In addition, variable-width typesetting was possible in that era only for typesetting machines (the two 'typewriters' capable of doing so, the IBM Selectric Composer and the Varityper, were in practice desktop typesetting machines) and TrueType font kerning (also used in the forgery) wasn't possible ''at all''.

*** For that matter, simply looking up image scans from the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library (the forgery's alleged date was 1973) would show you what kind of typewriter the personal secretary of the President of the United States used in that year (answer: an ordinary IBM Selectric, which uses the fixed-width Courier font), making the idea that a far more expensive IBM model was being used by the secretary of an obscure US Air Force colonel in the Texas Air National Guard completely laughable.

 

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[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]

[[Category:Viewers Are Indexed]]

[[Category:Intelligence Tropes]]