26 Tabs

“it (is) like heroin mixed with crack mixed with anime”

I started off several days ago, amused by some link I saw somewhere about The Dung Ages. As my regular readers know, I have a few issues with the whole idea of The Dark Ages, illusions of recency, and The Dirty, Stupid Past. So the link-intensive piece on The Dung Ages led me to Medieval Morons and The DARK Ages.

TV Tropes looks like a lightweight site, but in short order I’ve been through dozens of tabs (part of the addictiveness is the brevity of many of the articles), and I’m extremely impressed with the scholarship here. It’s more intelligent, and far less snarky, than so many “this is how” websites about pop culture, writing, or television. It also goes far, bar beyond “TV” and examines sources back to ancient mythology and oral traditions.

This might not be a site to use for research if you need a depth of understanding, but I’d call it a hell of a reliable one-stop-shop for general understanding of … well, many things. It is great for writers (though dangerous, and filled with The Bunnies of the Plot), or just consumers of entertainment. It’s even responsible and intelligent.

TV Tropes is also an absolutely superb place to educate yourself, if you have a nerd of almost any sort in your life whom you do not always understand. Five minutes’ reading can teach you a lot about their obsessions!

Of course, five minutes reading there is not possible …

I would caution against clicking even a single one of the TVT links (mine are probably safe; I am not addicting except in very limited ways!) for a few minutes’ reading. The very brevity is what makes clicking “just one more” all too easy. You can get a wide array of tabs open, and winnow your way back down to a mere three, the tantalizing promise of “I will stop” so close before you, and that hope will disappear when five more fascinating links present themselves in those three innocuous little tabs. TV Tropes may be a cruel mistress.

But dang. Sure is fun. Enjoy! Carefully …