Talk:shocked Pikachu

Do you think this is a pun on shock, since Pikachu is an electric-type Pokémon? Arlo Barnes (talk) 18:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

SOP

Seems SOP to me. All attestations are similes or simile-like constructions. See my last comment at WT:RFVE#creeper (to be archived at Talk:creeper). FYI @DCDuring. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 11:13, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

RFD discussion: August–November 2022

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shocked Pikachu

"An expression of shock or disbelief."

Definition is not entirely accurate, as it ignores the explicit reference to Pikachu. This seems entirely SoP, though it does require some cultural familiarity with Pikachu, which one can gain from the corresponding entries at Wiktionary or Wikipedia. DCDuring (talk) 18:32, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Delete. As I've already opined at WT:RFVE#creeper (to be archived at Talk:creeper), usage in similes does not generate additional senses. If I said to somebody "You look like a tiger.", that sentence doesn't invoke tiger in a sense along the lines of "A human that has certain characteristics resembling a tiger (sense 1).", it is the simile (here in particular, the word like) that does the heavy lifting of transferring certain semantics from the animal onto the human whereas the word tiger is simply used in its trivial literal sense. The same is true for "blow up like a creeper" or "look like a shocked Pikachu": creeper and shocked Pikachu are used in their plain boring meaning. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 18:48, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I've explained before that the prevalence of "blow up like a creeper" citations is an artefact of tailoring searches to try to winnow out results for other senses. "Like a creeper" proved insufficient for finding Minecraft-related uses because it turned up results like "following me like a creeper" (e.g. a stalker) and "clinging to me like a creeper" (e.g. a vine). Thus I resorted to including terms related to Minecraft creeper behaviour ("blow up," "set off," etc.) to cut down the signal-to-noise ratio. CFI only requires that entries referencing fictional entities be attested with citations that are idiomatic and without direct reference to the source work of fiction. Anyone who feels that sixteen citations spanning a decade is insufficient is welcome to devote an hour of their life to rummaging around Twitter like I did. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

@WordyAndNerdy: Yes, the citations you've dug up for creeper were perfectly fine from a WT:FICTION standpoint; I thank you for finding them (I was the one who initiated the RFV to save the term from speedy deletion after all). What was not fine was that you (or somebody else?) created a sense "something that explodes violently" and put the quotes there. Quotes of the form "like a creeper" attest the sense of a Minecraft creeper (which should have been kept), not the sense of "something that explodes violently", just like the quotes for shocked Pikachu of the form "like a shocked Pikachu" attest just that, a shocked Pikachu, not "An expression of shock or disbelief." It's the same kind of error in both cases. Whenever you're unsure about a proposed definition, try just plugging it in: does

I swear to god I had both of my eyes bulging out with my mouth wide open looking like a shocked Pikachu.

convey the same meaning as

I swear to god I had both of my eyes bulging out with my mouth wide open looking like an expression of shock or disbelief.

? — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 22:42, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, glossing it as a noun with the definition "an expression of shock or disbelief" seems wrong to me. If kept, maybe this should instead be defined as an interjection, with the non-gloss definition "an expression of shock or disbelief".

Btw, I've mostly commonly seen this as "surprised Pikachu face", but I guess both forms are used. And isn't it often sarcastic? I.e. not expressing the speaker's surprise, but rather making fun of how others are surprised by something they view as predictable. I might be off the mark here. Feel free to correct me. 70.172.194.25 01:07, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

@WordyAndNerdy: As the person who raised the issue with the simile sense of creeper, I fully agree with Fytcha's comment above. The citations you added were very valuable, and I think they successfully show that the Minecraft enemy should be listed as a sense of the word. The fact that it's currently not included is in my view an unfortunate consequence of the way the vote was worded, and I would support a vote to restore sense 17 (but not 17.1). 70.172.194.25 00:53, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

It used to be the case that terms referencing fictional entities stood a better chance of surviving RfV if they had an idiomatic definition (e.g. Jabba the Hutt, which I attested in 2013). This was the framework from which I approached creeper. I'm not particularly married to my definition. Feel free to change it to something describing the Minecraft enemy if this seems to work better. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 05:49, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Should be at RFV really. As noted above, the existing citations are inadequate. Equinox ◑ 19:55, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Send to RFV. AG202 (talk) 20:15, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Seeing as though the second sense has been cited and I'd expect that the first sense will be cited as well, I'm voting Strong keep per the arguments given by the present keep votes (especially WordyAndNerdy). AG202 (talk) 15:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Strong keep. How is this not idiomatic? Are some editors really so out of the Internet culture loop that they don't know about the "Surprised Pikachu" meme? I made a point of mentioning the meme in the etymology section for that reason. This isn't simply shocked + Pickachu. It refers to a specific expression made by Pikachu in a specific still from a specific episode of the first Pokémon anime series. Is Nancy Reagan gaze SOP because Nancy Reagan reputedly looked at her husband this way? Is Kubrick stare SOP because Stanley Kubrick featured this expression in his films? This is attested 100% with print cites and yet someone is still gunning for it. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 20:34, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Let it be known that this is a vote of confidence for my continued participation in this project. I'm sick of having to fight tooth-and-nail for even the smallest change and then having to constantly re-litigate everything I do. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 21:12, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Delete: even though the term apparently refers to a particular expression of Pikachu, the quotes indicate it is used in the form “looked like a shocked Pikachu” which to me suggests it is SoP. It’s no different from stating that someone “looked like a surprised monkey” or “looked like a sad Keanu”. — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:04, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Strong keep per WordyAndNerdy. Binarystep (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

If kept, should the main entry be surprised Pikachu? That appears to be more common. 70.172.194.25 00:48, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Strong keep - but the definition needs reworking. It's more of an interjection like surprise surprise, with the sarcastic meaning that somebody is acting aggrieved, while being the cause of their own entirely preventable problems. Send it to RFV. Theknightwho (talk) 01:11, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree. At least in my experience it's mostly a sarcastic interjection; it could be used in other ways too, maybe as another part of speech, or without sarcasm, as currently claimed on the entry. We should check quotations and follow usage.

That is to say, it is quite reasonable to have an entry for this term, but the current definition isn't satisfying. 70.172.194.25 01:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The additional definition ("A Pikachu with a specific open-mouthed, erect-ear expression signifying shock and astonishment.) doesn't seem to be any better. Furthermore I don't see how the citations support all the details of the ridiculously detailed definition. DCDuring (talk) 02:20, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The two "like a shocked Pikachu" cites are not conveying that the characters look like Pikachus that are surprised. They are conveying that the characters look like the meme image known as "shocked Pikachu" or "surprised Pikachu." I've always been conflicted on how to optimally define meme-derived terms. Should one define the meme itself or the idiomatic meaning that has been attached to it? I think either approach has its merits. I'm not particularly married to the current definition. What isn't at issue is the fact this term exists. Not every nuance of a definition needs to be reflected in the text of the citations. Citations are provided as much to attest usage as meaning. The citations here confirm this term is used. The finer points of meaning are supported by the articles in the references section. The cites at Gippermania don't state that Ronald Reagan was an actor and U.S. president. That portion of the definition is supported by the linked-to Wikipedia article. I agree with Theknightwho that this also occurs as an interjection or adverb. That usage is almost certainly attestible from Twitter. 70.172 may also be correct that "surprised Pikachu" is the prevalent form. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 05:38, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I’m still not seeing why “looking like [''a specific meme''] makes the name of the meme itself idiomatic. A bad college essay might state that “her face looked like a sad emoji”; that wouldn’t make “sad emoji” idiomatic. On the other hand, if the term itself is used as an interjection (“Shocked Pikachu! I can’t believe that just happened.”), that would suffice. We’d need suitable quotations evidencing such use. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:45, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

"Sad emoji" could refer to a dozen different emojis with a range of expressions. "Shocked/surprised Pikachu" refers to a specific image featuring a specific expression. Sad Keanu is probably an apt comparison here because that meme refers to a specific image: wearing a hangdog expression while having a hunched-over, round-shouldered posture, particularly while doing something mundane in public. I've always been puzzled by how users seem to only have Legitimate Concerns™ about the idiomaticity of modern coinages. If it's from Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Joyce, it's fine, but if it came from the gutters of Tumblr or 4chan, it's too uncouth to sully our pristine digital dictionary. Similes in citations are selectively held as evidence of the un-idiomaticity of modern coinages when there's 600+ entries in Category:English similes. Anyway, I've said as much as I can here, and done as much as I can for this project. I'm clocking out. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 06:29, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Specificity of meme does not convince me particularly. "Captain Kirk" is a specific person, and you could well say "X looks like Captain Kirk", but that is still something for an encyclopaedia and not a dictionary. Equinox ◑ 09:48, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

1. One of your several arguments suffers from a type/category (logic) error. That similes are legitimate terms has no bearing whatsoever on whether use of another term in a simile meets our practice or policy as evidence of attestation of a definition.
2. Modern coinages usually have not escaped their original SoP meanings, as one would expect from an evolutionary process. Hence our legitimate concerns. Also, modern coinages have a disproportionate influence on young, impressionable minds, producing feelings and thoughts that the terms have durable idiomatic meaning. But such meaning is often inchoate and rarely attestable.
3. We have a specific policy, WT:FICTION, designed to prevent us from being overwhelmed by commercial creations or memes therefrom derived (such as this one). DCDuring (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

   I don't see how any of this is relevant, when a clearly non-SOP definition has been given, and this isn't used in fiction Quite honestly, it just seems like linguistic snobbery. The idea that we don't include terms derived from fiction is a gross distortion of what WT:FICTION actually says, and none of this has anything to do with the Pokémon franchise anyway. Theknightwho (talk) 16:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

1. Pointing out alleged logical fallacies is an r/iamverysmart tactic that creates the ambience of reasoned consideration without offering much in the way of substantive rebuttal. The point is that the goal posts keep shifting on why shocked Pikachu is allegedly not inclusion-worthy. First it was deemed SOP. Then issues were raised over two of the citations containing similes. Now it's being objected to on WT:FICTION grounds. No counterargument or evidence is going to be satisfactory when the basis for this nomination is a subjective idea of what constitutes "proper" dictionary material.
2. You have expressed opposition to proposals to minimize or exclude offensive terms. You stated that you were "sickened" by the mere discussion of such proposals. You expressed the fear that society is "edging into a new Victorian Age." So colour this Pikachu shocked that someone who is concerned about protecting the free exchange of ideas on Wikimedia projects would unfacetiously argue that a term referencing a cartoon character in a completely innocuous way should be excluded because it is somehow corrupting "young, impressionable minds." Either moral considerations are a valid factor in determining what terms we include or they are not. (The question of how to optimally cover contested terms is different from the question of whether to include contested terms at all. I'm a "Wiktionary is not censored" absolutist on the latter front and far less permissive on the former.)
3. It's been explained multiple times that WT:FICTION doesn't say what you think it does. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 21:55, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

About point 1: you do seem to be confusing things, though. You're seemingly complaining about like a shocked Pikachu not being treated with the same consideration as the entries contained in Category:English similes. But even if like a shocked Pikachu were as lexicalised as those (which remains debatable imo), you could not deduce shocked Pikachu's idiomaticity from it. shocked Pikachu and like a shocked Pikachu are not the same thing. Compare charge like a wounded bull, for example: it's the simile itself that's idiomatic, not wounded bull. PUC – 22:26, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I've never advocated having an entry for like a shocked Pikachu. I've argued that, in the context of this discussion, objecting to two cites containing similes is a specious distraction tactic. We have a whole category full of similes. It's not like those fall outside the scope of CFI if I were seeking to create a like a shocked Pikachu entry. This whole thread is an exercise in throwing objections at the wall in the hope something will stick. WordyAndNerdy (talk)

If you mean my suggestion, it’s no more “ridiculously detailed” as a concept than something like poetic justice. Theknightwho (talk) 09:46, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I read the long definition of the term as having five features that need to be supported: 1. "Pikachu", 2., "open-mouthed", 3., "erect-eared", 4., "signifying shock", and, 5., "signifying astonishment". In principle there should be citations that attest to each of these five. The first and fourth seem automatic because of the SoP reading. Perhaps we should accept labeled images as evidence of 3 and 4, though such labels are not to be found at the images at Commons. I doubt that we can find any attestation for simultaneous shock and astonishment. Rewording with or instead of and won't solve the absence-of-labeled images problem. I wonder whether the expression in attributive use means anything different from "deer in the headlights" or "stupefied". DCDuring (talk) 15:21, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

In attributive use, it describes the expression or reaction of somebody who is acting aggrieved, while being the cause of their own entirely preventable problems. Alternatively, something that is imitating the meme image. Theknightwho (talk) 16:50, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

@WordyAndNerdy, AG202, Theknightwho, DCDuring, Sgconlaw, PseudoSkull: We are probably overdue for a policy that dictates whether strings that refers to one very specific entity are inclusion-worthy. Comical Ali and Baghdad Bob were deleted even though they are a lot less deducible than the single-word epithets Hitlery, Drumpf, Maggie, or Suckabee. Other deleted multi-word epithets that are not really deducible based on their parts include Gun Girl, Kent State Gun Girl, and Big Red. Leaning Tower of Pisa on the other hand was kept (capitalization is usually not taken to absolve a term from SOP-ness). The term in question falls into the same bucket as far as I can tell, referring to a very particular Pikachu in conjunction with its (?) facial expression and implied mental state. Special attention has to be paid to both the factors of encyclopedicality (Mona Lisa was kept) and SOP-ness. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:53, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fytcha Those are all proper nouns. This is not, and we should be defining it as an interjection (or at least by reference to when it is used as a noun, which is figuratively). We shouldn't conflate a term's etymology with its use. If I'm perfectly honest, I'm feeling similarly to WordyAndNerdy about relitigating the same points. We put terms like this under far more scrutiny than others, seemingly with the intention of finding excuses to delete them. Theknightwho (talk) 13:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems we are constantly having to re-litigate fandom slang, fiction-derived terms, and online sources in some form. I'm tired of having to repeatedly wage the same battles. It very much feels like the Red Queen metaphor: running while the ground moves under you, and thus getting nowhere despite great exertion. Earlier this year we finally expanded our stable of allowable citation sources after a decade of pressing for this much-needed change. But instead of making a dent in my to-do list, I've had to re-litigate whether fandom slang falls under CFI, a question last year's landslide 13-1 vote should've settled. I'm older and crankier than I was ten years ago. I don't always show the level of patience I ought when put in a position of having to explain things that seem common sense or obvious to me. I've spent a decade butting heads with a small clutch of editors who've been here longer than me and treat CFI like it was handed down from the mountain and can never change. The only strategy I've worked out is going away (sometimes for years). But the same systemic issues are always waiting when I return. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 22:32, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

None of the examples you mentioned should've been deleted in the first place (except Big Red since it doesn't refer to a public figure). Baghdad Bob and Comical Ali were deleted solely because they refer to a specific person, even though we have an entire category for such entries. Gun Girl and Kent State Gun Girl were deleted for lack of notability, even though Wiktionary doesn't have a notability policy, and the person those nicknames refer to actually is notable enough for a Wikipedia page. If anything, you've shown how RFD is frequently abused to delete entries that are explicitly allowed under our current CFI. Binarystep (talk) 23:55, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

That is because defining what belongs and what doesn't is a tremendously hard problem, so the hope is that people are able to apply the spirit of CFI and their own common sense to make collective decisions. Sometimes something which doesn't seem to exactly match the CFI as stated should probably be included, and sometimes something which clearly fits within the CFI probably should not be kept. That is OK. - TheDaveRoss 12:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Deleting terms randomly with no regard for policy is a terrible idea. There's nothing "common sense" about deleting CFI-compliant entries for made-up reasons (e.g. "no nicknames" when we have a category for them), while providing no actual justification beyond "I don't like it". Binarystep (talk) 02:37, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it seems idiomatic so my !vote is weak keep as of now, though I agree the definition and part-of-speech may need revision, and if we struggle to find cites that'd be an RFV issue. Saying "...then he dumped me" "shocked Pikachu", or that someone "was all shocked Pikachu" or even (especially) "looked like shocked Pikachu" isn't suggesting the person has any of Pikachu's distinctive attributes like yellow skin, smallness, electricity or repeating only their name, in contrast to saying someone looks like Captain Kirk, it's only referencing the expression/emotion from the meme (which is, AFAICT, uncharacteristic of Pikachu). Sgconlaw's and Equinox's points do make me think about other comparisons someone could make, like you could say someone "talked like Jonathan Ross" or could call someone (who was not Sean) "that fucking Sean Connery motherfucker over there going on about his shubshtanshial donations", and I'm not inclined to have entries on celebrities just to list all their attributes that could be invoked in simile, so I concede shocked Pikachu may be on a spectrum I wouldn't want to include one end of.
What POS or definition is best will require thought; like Theknightwho, I've seen this as an interjection, but the idea of defining it as a noun as the meme is also interesting. I agree we shouldn't have citations are of the form "like a shocked Pikachu" or "like shocked Pikachu" under a definition "expression of shock", that doesn't work, the definition would need to be worded differently/substitutably, or else would need different cites. To Sgconlaw's emoji point, I don't know about sad emoji, but maybe we should have an entry for e.g. laugh-cry emoji defining it as 😂, it does seem to exist on the same spectrum as having hook above defined as ◌̉ (or, at the far inclusion-worthy end of the spectrum, zeta defined as ζ), no? - -sche (discuss) 17:59, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Keep per WT:FRIED, as it does not refer to any expression in which Pikachu expresses shock, but only to a specific one. Old Man Consequences (talk) 20:32, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Let me comment again that, despite a lot of long boring Pokémon ranting, the existing citations are inadequate so we either kill it or send to RFV. This isn't old white men hating your fandom (although I do deeply hate your fandom) but simply our everyday application of rules, which you think you can overlook because you are a big fan of Japanese shit. Equinox ◑ 02:48, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

In fairness, this has almost nothing to do with Pokemon. You do have a point about cites, though. Theknightwho (talk) 13:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

• RFD-kept: no 2/3-supermajority consensus, whatever the merits. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  That is not a legitimate basis for closing a discussion, as we do not require a 2/3 supermajority (as you know). Theknightwho (talk) 19:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  In this, I do agree with Dan Polansky, as it has been a month since the last comment and there are a clear majority of keeps, so RFD-kept. AG202 (talk) 02:56, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks. The overridable default threshold is 2/3 per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-09/Meaning of consensus for discussions other than formal votes created at Wiktionary:Votes. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  Which is not a requirement, and should not be used as the sole basis for a close. Theknightwho (talk) 13:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  The fact that this is very often used sarcastically was not addressed. I think it could go in a usage note. 98.170.164.88 18:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)