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Cowboy BeBop at His Computer - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Feb 12 2022

This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Cowboy BeBop at His Computer (trope)

"Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for that rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."

— Erwin Knoll

This is when a work contains blatantly incorrect facts about another work that any fan of the work the mistake is about or — in the most egregious cases — even just someone with any kind of passing knowledge of said work would know to be wrong. It seems like some people just can't be bothered to do any fact-checking. Let's face it — sometimes, it's easy to do.

While any kind of work can contain this kind of mistake, a lot of these errors come from the news. Newspapers, a News Broadcast, national news, etc.? It is in their job description to do at least some research, to make sure they aren't stating factual untruths.

This rule apparently doesn't apply much to works of fiction. Maybe the creators of the works that make these mistakes don't seem to care as much as about whatever effect it had. But that's no reason to make an error that could have been avoided by looking into the material a bit, especially if said error involves news media making serious accusations like blaming a child's death on imitating something they saw on TV. This often results in examples either factually incorrect, from minor to grossly wrong like the Trope Namer itself, or taking some "facts" from The Theme Park Version of a larger entity, which to some is much worse than just not doing the research.

Subtrope of Referenced by... and Common Knowledge. Compare Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch. See also Fandom-Enraging Misconception (for particular errors that will incur the wrath of the fandom), Animation Age Ghetto (when people dismiss various kinds of cartoons as family-friendly when they, in fact, are not) and All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles (a problem endemic to Anime and Manga). I Am Not Shazam is a key trope involved. Also compare Falsely Advertised Accuracy, the version for fictional works. When TV guides do it, it might be either a Manual Misprint or Acquired Error at the Printer. Also see New Media Are Evil, though if you find yourself constantly annoyed by this kind of thing then you probably believe Old Media Are Evil. May also overlap with a Shallow Parody if the parodists in question are really careless with their research.

Not to do with characters using technology outside of their era, yeehaw.

Examples go in subpages: