tv tropes taught a whole generation of readers to mistake basic pattern recognition for gotcha criticism and a whole generation of writers to feel insecure every time they came up with an idea that happened to be in conversation with other ideas

Honestly I trace it back to the death of disco. A bunch of nightclubs, suddenly less popular, discovered a good way to use the floorspace was to host standup comedy. Fast forward a few years and we're all noticing to each other that it's always the guy in the red shirt who gets shot on Star Trek.

I think Cinema Sins and Red Letter Media carry more blame

This reminds me how "art" seems to now be defined by many "artists" (and "art critics") as being limited to only "authentic" creations from within the artist. In this view, the inclusion of anything at all recognizable from outside the artist deserves criticism for being "inauthentic".

Is a trope a bit like a football referee? Ideally, you wouldn't particularly notice its presence. But if it's *all* you notice, that may be because there's not a lot else going on?

To be fair, I don't think they meant to do that.

TV Tropes doesn't make any claim that using recognizable tropes is somehow a bad thing. People came to that conclusion all on their own😛

I'd say don't confuse 'a whole generation of readers' with just really loud annoying internet bros.

I think Cinema Sins also bears that some level of responsibility for that.