Somebody Else's Problem: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"It's like a blind spot. It's something you don't see, or can't see, or your brain doesn't let you see because it assumes that it's [[Trope Namer|Somebody. Else's. Problem]]."''|'''Ford Prefect''', ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (though this is actually describing a [[Perception Filter]])}}
Does somebody need a million dollars to pay off a loan shark? Is he bleeding to death on the street? Will a nuclear war start if he doesn't get the launch codes? [[Torture Cellar|Has he found out that young girls are vanishing into a house where the windows are coated with human blood]]? Whatever it is, he begs people for
Sadly, this trope is often [[Truth in Television]]. People have died while an entire neighborhood watched and listened to them scream for help. When asked why they didn't call 911, most reply that they figured someone else would. Sometimes this is used to demonstrate [[
It can be one of the reasons why the heroes are [[The Only One]] group dealing with a problem, [[With This Herring|even if they don't have the adequate resources for it]]. It can also explain [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|why they often grow to think that they must personally deal with everything]].
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== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Code Geass]]'': "My mother is dead!" "Old news, what of it?" {{spoiler|This dialogue took place between a boy and his father. Just days after it happened.}}
** Justified in that {{spoiler|acting this way was part of the father's really bastardy [[Xanatos Roulette]]<ref>
* Ichigo Kurosaki attempts this in ''[[Bleach]]'', but [[Can't Stay Normal]] and [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] get the better of him and eventually he's stabbing bad guys with the best of shonen heroes.
** What's odd is he's been able to see ghosts (called Pluses in ''[[Bleach]]'') and cares for them, but when [[Call to Adventure|The Call]] finds him, he takes his new powers, saves his family, and then tries to hand it right back. To be fair, it's probably a heroic case of [[Not What I Signed on For]]. Ichigo's used to helping ghosts with last requests and the occasional bit of [[Bully Hunter|bully hunting]] at the most when he starts out. He didn't plan on fighting massive demonic monsters who eat human souls.
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* Seems to be a prominent theme in ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]'', notably at the beginning; when the wrong man is sentenced to death, all any of the departments care about is that the problem doesn't trace back to them.
* Rick Blaine in ''[[Casablanca]]'' appears this way for a while ("I stick my neck out for nobody"), especially when he seems willing to turn over a resistance leader to the Nazis because he is married to Rick's former lover. Eventually, however, we see that Rick isn't nearly as selfish as he lets on.
* In ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy 1999]]'', O'Connell tries to convince Evy that ''the end of the world'' is
* A man on the street frantically screaming "They're here!" only to be ignored / assumed mad in most if not all versions of ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]''.
* In ''[[Se7en]]'', Somerset tells Mills, "The first thing they teach women in rape prevention is never cry for help. Always yell 'Fire!' Nobody answers to 'Help!' You holler 'Fire!', they come running." After all, "In any major city, minding your own business is a science." Presumably fire is less
* ''[[Big Jake]]'': ''"I haven't interfered in anyone else's business since I was eighteen years old... and it damn near got me killed!"'' He changes his mind when he witnesses a [[Kick the Dog]] moment on the part of one of the goons.
== Literature ==
* In Terry Pratchett's ''[[Discworld/Making Money|Making Money]]'' Moist von Lipwig notes that people pay more attention to small noises than big ones, because while small noises are immediate and threatening, loud noises are 'everyone's problem, and therefore, not mine'.
* Richard Mayhew's refusal to yield to this trope, when he found Door bleeding on the sidewalk, led him into London Below in ''[[Neverwhere]]''. His fiancee declared it
** Residents of London Below tend not to be noticed by the Above folks in the first place. Later in the book, his fiance recognzies him for a brief moment, then is unable to even -see- him.
* In the [[Gone (novel)]] series, 90% of the Perdido Beach kids have this attitude. An apartment is burning down with a kid inside? Sam can deal with it. We're running out of food? Sam can find more. The Human Crew is running around trying to kill the mutants? That's the Sam's problem, not ours. Caine and Drake have gotten into the Power Plant and are going to feed uranium to a monster? It's Sam's job to stop them!
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* The attitude of the general population towards demons in ''[[Becoming a Better Writer|Demonic Symphony]]'', and oh boy does it backfire
* There's an [[SCP Foundation]] that lets people literally get away with murder by doing this.
** And a hat that functions as an SEP
* [[Fine Structure]] weaponizes this with a weapon that turns a person into
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* Most characters in ''[[Drawn Together]]'' (considering the prevalent [[Jerkass]]-ness) have done this at one point or another, but Captain Hero, a superhero whose [[Catch Phrase]] is "SAVE YOURSELVES!", is probably the worst offender. His response to [[Bambi]] wailing to him about his dead mother (that he shot no less) is:
{{quote|'''Captain Hero:''' "Sucks to be you!"}}
* Every character in ''[[Futurama]]'' has decided, at least once, that the current crisis is
** Scruffy the Janitor may be the most blatant offender here: when asked why he didn't fix the boiler, his reply was "schedule conflict" and another flip of his porn magazine. When said boiler was getting ready to go critical ''ten feet away''.
{{quote|'''Scruffy:''' "Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived." (licks finger, turns page)}}
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* The Williams Street cartoons for [[Adult Swim]] specialize in this.
** In ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'', Master Shake has a different (and often bizarrely random) reason every episode for not caring about what's going on - even in "Revenge of the Trees," where the [[Monster of the Week]] was looking for revenge on Shake.
** ''[[Sealab 2021]]'' does this a lot. In the pilot episode, "I, Robot," Quinn is trying to save Sealab from
** In ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'', Zorak and Moltar frequently get bored with Space Ghost's show, and decide their jobs on it are
* This is very prevalent in ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]''.
** In "That Old Black Magic, every [[Exclusively Evil|anti-fairy]] escapes from prison, and Jorgen prepares to round them up. Then his shift ends, to which he responds "Your problem."
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