IdeologyTropes

[Cain]

Our friend at Chaos Marxism, Doloras, has been hatching a cunning plan.  I'll lay out the post, then chime in with my own comments at the end:

http://chaosmarxism.blogspot.com/2009/02/im-goddamned-batman.html

Bullfinch's Mythology - or perhaps Crowley's 777 - for the new millennium, ladies and gentlemen and smizmars. Or, to put it another way, a guidebook to the mass media equivalent of the "sephiroth" and "pathways" between them. Or - to put it in plain language - a guide to the memetic structure of the early 21st Western cultural infosphere, or at least that part of it which appeals to internet nerds. Thank goodness it's in Wiki format so it can keep continually expanding, self-reforming and becoming more complex.

The next step after you have a Table of Correspondences, of course, is to use it. The link between this site and the Real World of Horrible Jobs can be seen on those pages which have a "Real Life" section - i.e. where some contributor gets the levels confused and uses a meme to explain a real world event, rather than the other way around. (That's pretty much the Chaos Marxist definition of "ideology".) As we've said before here, once memes are set loose in the infosphere they will keep going until forcibly stopped, which is generally a real bitch to do (Newton's First Law of Memetics?) But it's much easier to subvert them - to impact the rolling ball so it rolls in another direction, with even a small amount of momentum impacting at just the right angle.

This work is only a fraction of what we need, of course. We need a "Ideological Tropes" wiki, where all these memes from fiction are linked into the memetic complexes of advertising, politics, news reporting, etc etc etc. If we can build something like that, it would be like mapping the genome of industrial deathculture. And then our "memetic engineering" will become less like praying for victory before a battle, and more like precisely focussing our own memetic artillery to pwn the enemy where he stands.

===

Your reports on using TV Tropes or similar grimoires as a resource to create a work of art or propaganda with real socio-political consequences are awaited eagerly

I don't know about anyone else, but IdeologyTropes (or realitytropes or whatever you want to call it) sounds like a damn good idea to me.  I know of late when I have read fiction (or even in some cases, nonfiction.  Reality is Unrealistic, after all) I have sometimes found myself making references to some of the Tropes mentioned.  And, as I said on the blog, I have been saving pages from TV Tropes in the hope that they will aid me and help spur on ideas when writing fiction.  I am trying to apply them, to some degree, to The City, for example, though to do it properly I'd need to create a hypertext document where I could link to the references instead of having to explain them.

But yes.  I think IdeologyTropes could be an awesome idea.  Especially if its kept mostly ideologically neutral (ie slightly dismissive of all of them) and it gets enough input from, say, the spags from here to make it an interesting site for others to contribute to.  I also think it has the potential to be quite massive, when you consider the potential of the topic and the interest it would generate.

What say you?

[Kai]

Yes, this is an AWESOME idea

[Triple Zero]

at first glance, sounds like a very interesting pursuit.

i gotta check this out in a more sober mindstate. i'll put out a reminder for myself, or you or Kai or someone can remind me on IRC later. thanks.

[Requia ☣]

I want in on this, if only so I can watch it go up like the hindenburg when the fundies of various factions find it and turn it into a battleground.

[Requia ☣]

I've sent a request for free hosting on wikia, there are some other options I'll investigate if that gets denied.

[Template]

Exciting.  Delicious.  A time-waster.




I would like to see this very much.  Obviously, though, it should be called PsychoTropes.

[Requia ☣]

Exciting.  Delicious.  A time-waster.




I would like to see this very much.  Obviously, though, it should be called PsychoTropes.

Too late

hxxp://ideologytropes.wikia.com

[Cramulus]

import * from Mike Reed's Flame Warriors system.

[Cain]

I'll pass the link along to Doloras. 

[Requia ☣]

I don't think the flame warriors thing is really the goal of the project, my interpretation is that this is more about ideas than people.  I suppose you could try stretching the flame warriors archtypes to major figures within an ideology.   (but what do I know, I'm just running the wiki).

That said, its a wiki, as for forgiveness, not permission.

[Cain]

My email activation never came through.  Do you know what's going on?

[Requia ☣]

No, you should be able to do most things until its figured out though (I know you can login without the confirmed email).

the one thing I can think of is to login, go to your My preference page (under more in the upper right corner) and see what it says about your email.

[Cain]

Ah, a dot had got into the name, somehow.  That's removed. 

OK, next thing is next: I'll spend tonight poring over TV Tropes and my own theory texts and come up with some ideas for entries.

[GPBennessimoMFBA]

Brilliant Idea.

Sounds like this could easily turn an irc chat into a meme listing machine.

On the topic of the eventuality of factions fighting for words, I don't see a reason why they would even find out.  The product of creating something like this is valuable.  I don't really think its something that should be public for long.  This will create us a good tool, why give it to the enemy too?

[Cain]

Because that's stupid?  Three or four people are not going to get this thing going.