The free falling elevator trope is so overused that audiences know just what to expect when "things go wrong" with an elevator while main characters are on board, but would you know what to expect in real life?
Elevator cables almost never snap in real life, and when they do most commercial elevators have secondary cables, brakes and air pressure on their side to keep the elevator, and its occupants, from going splat.
That being said, it never hurts to discover some new survival tips and tricks, and watching this video from Business Insider might make all the difference if you ever meet with an elevator mishap.
-Via Lifehacker
Above all, a trope is a convention. It can be a plot trick, a setup, a narrative structure, a character type, a linguistic idiom... you know it when you see it. Tropes are not inherently disruptive to a story; however, when the trope itself becomes intrusive, distracting the viewer rather than serving as shorthand, it has become a cliché.
Note that currently the Oxford English Dictionary actually recognizes the definition "a significant or recurrent theme; a motif", its earliest quotation for this meaning being from 1975. Merriam-Webster also somewhat recognizes this meaning, but twists it into "a common or overused theme or device: cliché", which seems unjustly condemning.
The next time you're looking for a place to talk trash and pick a fight via comment look somewhere else Travino, I really don't appreciate your snarky attitude.