

Most articles also have various pages within them. TV Tropes does not apply the term to a show, that being a subjective opinion about the show, but cites uses of the phrase by the show ("in-universe"). For example, the page of the well known trope " Jumping the shark", the moment at which a series experiences a sharp decline in quality as in the notorious story point in Happy Days, only contains a list of works that reference the phrase.

These items are not usually storytelling tropes, but audience reactions which have been defined and titled.

In addition to the tropes, most articles about a work also have a "Your Mileage May Vary" (YMMV) page with items that are deemed to be subjective. An article on a work includes a brief summary of the work in question along with a list of associated tropes. The site includes entries on various series and tropes. TV Tropes does not have notability standards for the works it covers. It has also used its informal style to describe topics such as science, philosophy, politics, and history under its Useful Notes section. TV Tropes initially focused on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has since increased its scope to include thousands of other series, films, novels, plays, professional wrestling, video games, anime, manga, comic strips and books, fan fiction, and many other subjects, including Internet works such as Wikipedia, which is referred to in-wiki as "The Other Wiki". It is privately owned, as of 2016 publicly listing two owners besides Eddie. TV Tropes was founded in 2004 by a programmer using the pseudonym "Fast Eddie", who described himself as having become interested in the conventions of genre fiction while studying at MIT in the 1970s and discussion on 1990s internet forums.
