That’s part of it; another part is that it’s usually inappropriate, like for example the thread is on fun dance music, and someone just has to come in and post about their extremely obscure (non-dance, non-fun) band. Actually, it’s usually more than just one poster; it’s often a bunch of them, dragging the discussion down.
I don’t mind when someone posts a helpful link to the TVTropes discussion on the topic, but I don’t think that the existence of a TVTropes page on something should automatically negate all discussion of it on the SDMB. OK, yes, TVTropes probably covers a lot of the potential examples that are going to be mentioned here, too, but it’s still interesting to read what people come up with, and any ensuing discussion.
On a sort-of-related note, I dislike the people in “example” threads who simply provide their example, with no commentary. Like, “Name a movie that really made you cry,” and someone comes and just says “Happy Gilmore” or whatever. Well, that’s less than illuminating. At least give a little bit of context, for cripes’ sake.
No, I *completely *disagree with this. If the story involves fantastical sci-fi elements in the real world, then the real world should be portrayed as real. Saying, “well it’s all fiction so who cares,” really misses the point of setting a story with some unbelievable elements in the real world.
Incidentally, it tastes almost exactly like paper (as expected).
I know the “let’s list cliches and bitch about them” genre of thread is already represented… but what gets me is when people list things as cliches… and don’t back it up with listing where the cliches have been used. I swear half of them I would have trouble thinking of 2 cases of that particular event being used let alone enough to make it cliche.
“And of course the sister ends up being gold thief all along and escapes in the submarine… you know that old cliche!” I just read that and think “WHAT?”
OK, the problem with that example is that none of the teachers could even explain why it was so wrong. Sure, it may not be exactly how it works in the real world, but nothing felt unreal about it.
[The Great Carnac]“Wrong again, Buffalo Breath!”[/TGC] 
If a beer oxidizes, it develops a taste that is just like cardboard. This is a common flaw in home-brew that is sloppily handled during racking and bottling.
Perhaps it is just a minor annoyance to most people, but I get very frustrated when someone asks for help in identifying a movie or a book that he/she remembers from when he/she was a kid and never tells us when that was. Some of us were kids in the 1990s; I was a kid in the 1940s.
They’re all games. And there’s more than enough gaming threads to justify it. I could say the exact opposite from you, really: to me it’s the Video Games forum with the occasional annoying intrusion of sports threads. That’s because I don’t bother paying attention to the sports threads most of the time; they’re irrelevant to me.
In “favorite quotes from movies/tv shows/books/songs” threads, just:
“And then he smiled.”
Or whatever. No reference to the source (maybe I want to see/read/listen to it.) No context. No explanation why it left such an impression. But by itself, the quote is meaningless.
Yeah, and they’re 90% of the forum, forcing me to skim it in case there’s a good thread on, say, Mystery of the Abbey, and half the time bemusedly clicking on a thread called “Al’Huizer von Trippelhof crashes motorcycle - is this the end?” because, hell, maybe the rest of the world knows who the hell that is? I know that’s my fault - he’s a goddamned football player or something - but we could segregate that crap so I didn’t have to read it.
See also: politics forum.
Am I the only one who feels bothered by a monthly thread called “Whatcha’ reading?”. Especially for a thread about literature, wouldn’t the proper English be “What are you reading?”
I am only slightly less bothered by that than I am by people who right “wanna” when they mean “want to”.
or write “right” when they mean “write”…
This IS a joke, right? You can’t possibly 1) be asking what the proper English is because you don’t know it and 2) not understand a little humor/slang in the term.
Another vote for wishing board games were back in Cafe. I go to the Game Room once in a very, very blue moon. But food being moved? That just doesn’t make sense. A lot of food questions are also time sensitive, and Cafe gets a lot more views than a new form would.
Turkey tastes like cardboard. Not exactly like cardboard. But really really similar. Maybe like cardboard boiled in incredibly weak chicken stock. At least to me it does.
Dominos has the best cardboard!
That’s the thing that irritates me the most in threads… in a thread about “Movies that have XXX doing YYY”, I prefer to have some exposition behind the answers you give, like “In Midnight Cowboy you have Dustin Hoffman playing…” and I can’t stand answers that are mere lists of films that fit the threads theme: “Lolita, Midnight Cowboy, 3 Men and a Baby, Herbie the Love Bug…”
And, since it has already been mentioned, if you don’t like a restaurant, don’t try to make some big statement about how you detest the way hundreds of millions of people have decided to manage their lives. All you have to do is merely say “I don’t like Applebee’s/Olive Garden/etc”. We get the point - you don’t like Applebee’s/Olive Garden/etc.
Oooh, ooh, ooh, I thought of another one that drives me absolutely BATTY.
It’s when there’s a discussion of things that one might “get”, ie, jokes, hidden subtexts, secret meanings, etc. And someone says something like "oh, I was so surprised the first time I got the double meaning in ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ ". And then they DON’T EXPLAIN IT!!!
There was even one case where someone said such a thing, and then I asked for an explanation, and they responded with something like “oh, just think about it from this point of view”… a clue, without actually explaining it. GRRRRR!!!
Yeah, I hate this. Just put the title of the show in the thread title, for God’s sake. I might have an idea of what you’re on about, but I may not be as committed a viewer as you.
aesiron’s complaint about rap and hip-hop haters is spot on. Ditto for country. Nothing wrong with not liking it, but disparaging an entire genre seems awfully provincial to me.