I suppose trope has a negative connotation but I view them as tools in a writer's toolbox, not as an indicator of lazy writing.

Having said that, tropes are usually a little more specific or identifiable than just the concept of "mean characters", so it probably wasn't the best use of the word.

Actually it's not just this comment here, I see trope being used everywhere.

Google ngram search for the word: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Trope&year_sta...

Why exactly are you upset by this? It's a word that describes commonly used narratives. It's incredibly common to tweak or reuse commonly known narratives and there's nothing inherently negative about that.