Saturday 7 August 2010

So Yeah

I'm leaving this sentence or thought incomplete, but you should already get the point I'm trying to make, so... yeah. Not to be confused with If You Know What I Mean.

.....Still here? Okay, okay. So Yeah is basically a half-assed way of explaining the Self Explanatory. The most popular version of this trope has someone going into some detail about some scenario that's going on, but not going into the implications of the events, leaving the thought incomplete in the hope that said implications are so blatantly obvious that the other person can figure it out on their own. Sure, you can explain how the Big Bad is going to take over the world, and why, but only those with an IQ of broccoli won't get why it's bad for him to succeed, and what would happen if he does.

It's also common for So Yeah to be used when it's assumed that nothing more can be said to adequately explain what's happening, or when the user just feels lazy or honestly embarrassed about what's being said. In other words, "I've explained all I can about this, so you'll have to Figure It Out Yourself", or "This is making me feel really weird or uncomfortable, so I'm going to just leave it here". In a media setting, it is usually done to add drama to the scene, letting the audience figure out the rest along with the other character and shuddering when they do get it, but in real life, it just comes off as a half-assed, lazy response.

Unix geeks have been known to refer to this kind of expression as "tab completion", whereas literary nerds will call it aposiopesis.

Also "Do the math."

Basically, though, this is a page so that we can make a link when we want to say So Yeah at the end of an example of an actual trope.
Examples:

Live Action TV

* An episode of Sex and the City had two of the main (female) characters visit a gay men's dance club. When they need to use the ladies' room, it turns out there's only one bathroom "because... yeah".
* The whole idea behind the Seinfeld episode "The Yada Yada".
* Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Faith Lehane was fond of ending nasty remarks with the expression, "but, hey," assuming the listener would get the picture. Example:
Bondage looks good on you, B. The outfit's all wrong, but, hey.


Music
* The chorus in One Republic's "All the Right Moves"
"All the right moves in all the wrong places, so yeah, we're going down."

* The last track on Kyuss's Blues for the Red Sun is "Yeah". That's it. Song named "Yeah", which is just some guy saying "Yeah" (one of the band members?). Probably supposed to be taken in the context of "Yeah, that's it. You've listened to our album, and this is where it ends. So... yeah."
* Lady Gaga's Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) is practically about this trope.

Western Animation
* In a full length half hour episode of The Powerpuff Girls, the girls are forced by their Satanic enemy, Him, to solve a series of riddles and tasks of increasing danger and complexity or else their creator, the Professor, "will Pay!" The girls solve all the other tasks with great difficulty but fail in the last one...only to discover that the Professor was eating at a diner Him owned, and Him was betting the Professor a free breakfast that the girls couldn't solve all of Him's challenges. With the girls having failed the last one, the Professor will Pay...the full price of the breakfast. The Narrator ends the episode, not with the normal "And So Once Again The Day Is Saved thanks to the Powerpuff Girls!", but with, "And so...um...hmm. Yeah."
* Family Guy - "If you're watching a TV show and you decide to take your values from that, you're an idiot. Maybe you should take responsibility for what values your kids are getting. Maybe you shouldn't be letting your kids watch certain shows in the first place if you have such a big problem with them, instead of blaming the shows themselves..... Yeah."
* The Venture Brothers subverts this with a "so, yeah" moment that doesn't really explain anything:
Orpheus: [sees Jonas Venture Jr.] What is...
Brock: That's Doc's deformed twin brother he absorbed in the womb who's come back for revenge but now they've made up, so...
Orpheus: [beat] 'Kay.

* Avatar The Last Airbender uses quite literally in the episode "The Firebending Masters." Once Zuko and Aang learn that the Sun Warriors and dragons still exist and that the real source of firebending is like the sun, Zuko exclaims, "Did you realize this?" The response:
"Well, we are called the Sun Warriors, so...yeah."
* Yyyyep.

Fanfiction

* Appears everywhere in Kyon: Big Damn Hero.

Film

* John Ritter's character in the comedy Noises Off! spoke nearly entirely in 'So Yeahs' when not acting (he himself was an actor in a farce), seemingly unable to completely finish a single thought or sentence.
* In The Informant! There is a disclaimer at the beginning of the film stating that it was a real event, with some modifications. It ends in "So there..."

Real Life

* Jeff Goldblum seems to be like this in real life.
* This is extremely common in spoken Japanese, especially when either explaining something uncomfortable or asking someone to do something. Implying is always more polite than saying it directly.

Comedy

* Eddie Izzard uses this rather often on his shows. In part to link together the portions of his sketches since he doesn't really follow a script, and in part in the sense we mean. So Yeah.

Comic Books

* In one issue of the Avengers: The Initiative, one character with super-soldier abilites was asked to reveal his powers. This was neatly avoided, until the annual, where it was revealed to be the result of a special diet and exercise regimen concocted by his Mad Scientist great-grandfather. The responding quote was this:
"You mean.. the source of your amazing strength is diet and exercise?

Web Comics

* In Schlock Mercenary, this is Kevyn and Doctor Bunnigus' response to seeing a clone of Xinchub naked. Well, Kevyn's goes a little further (that is, on a bender).
* Used in the literal sense in this episode of Mountain Time to segue to the resolution.

Web Original

* The Nostalgia Critic's review of Transformers 2, which is done mostly in Bum Review style and derails into this for every large Plot Hole in the movie (in other words, several times).

Video Games

* In a literal way, while playing Left 4 Dead during the elevator in No Mercy, Zoey will sometimes say "So, uh... yeah." while no one responds.
o Specifically, after the other three survivors have started whistling elevator music as the machine grinds slowly and tensely upwards.
* Battlefield: Bad Company
Preston: With the army, there's always a hidden agenda. So they made us an offer that... you know.

... So, yeah.

First they came for This Troper...

...and I did not speak out because it wasn't that important.

Now, though. Now the mods have cut one too many of the fun trope pages. The ones that, while they weren't in the charter of the wiki, contributed to the atmosphere of aliveness and became part of the shared language where you could communicate a block of concepts by potholing - Tim Berners-Lee's hyperlinking at its finest. ThisTroper, TheToblerone, RapeTheDog have all fallen. Taking SoYeah was the straw that broke the dromedary. People are always the most creative when they're unrestricted, which is what There Is No Such Thing As Notability was supposed to encourage - though I wondered from the start how long this growth would continue.

When reminded some tropes are more notable than others, that the mods have the power by the exercising of that power, fear sets in. A chilling effect has been introduced and creativity slows down.

I can't stop them from cutlisting, I don't have the time or the energy to join in to every discussion. But I can archive the pages and give them a final resting place.

(Sorry about the hiatus - guess this blog will have a purpose after all!)