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{{trope}}
 
[[File:weirdness-censor_buffy_145censor buffy 145.png|link=Buffy the Vampire Slayer|frame|<small> "This is our year. If we can focus, keep discipline, and [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|not have quite as many mysterious deaths,]] Sunnydale is gonna rule!" </small> ]]
 
 
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** They ''do'' live in the same town as a technical engineering college. If those people get bored enough, they can disassemble your car and then reassemble it. Inside your living room.
** Amazingly enough, the fire brigade actually turned up in one of the latest manga chapters. They ended up thinking it was a false alarm though, as all the damage had already been fixed with supernatural means.
* ''[[Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan]]'' [[Lampshade|lampshadeslampshade]]s this in the first episode. She introduces herself to the class as an angel (after turning a classmate into a monkey and making another one completely vanish) despite Sakura's insistence that she keep it a secret, but they just nod and accept it fully. In fact, Sakura is the only one who seems the slightest bit weirded out by the situation. "This should really bother you! Say 'Ahh! Angels exist?!' or something!"
* The citizens of the [[Dragonball Z]] universe seem to quickly get over the fact that several towns and cities suddenly explode when a [[Monster of the Week]] comes by. In one episode, Nappa is seen destroying a naval fleet sent out to stop him, but after that, the military is never seen retaliating against future villains other than against Perfect Cell.
** Perhaps the most blatant example of this was how the entire world became convinced that Cell was just a monster and chi attacks were just special effects. This despite the fact that not two decades earlier one of those special effects ''blew up the moon on global television''.
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** In the manga a doctor commented in it being more or less a bunch of delinquents beating each-other to death. He seems to be the only one that has noticed.
* In ''[[Windy Tales]]'', almost nobody notices the huge amounts of cats that ''fly around'' on air streams, not even when they're cluttered together in a huge ball consisting of dozens of them during a typhoon.
* In ''[[Princess Tutu]]'', the typical townsperson (and the majority of the main cast in the beginning) doesn't question any of the "odder" stuff that goes on in Kinkan, including ballerina-dancing Anteaters (and other anthropomorphic animals). Even visitors to the town are affected--oneaffected—one women wonders if her troupe leader used to be an electric eel before arriving to the town, then quickly brushes it off. Later on in the series, it's revealed that it's because of {{spoiler|the story magically controlling the town and the people inside of it}}. The only people that ever seem to realize something's off with the town are either important to the story, or actively go ''looking'' for something odd in the town.
* Nobody seems to notice their friends strange behavior and obvious paranoia, or at least do anything about it, in the answer arcs of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]''.
** {{spoiler|This trope is subverted in Tatarigoroshi-hen, or actually ''any'' arc where they try to save Satoko. In Tataragiroshi-hen in particular, Rena and Mion notice Keiichi's paranoia, unlike Onikakushi-hen, and try to cover his actions up.}}
** And in [[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]] Battler uses it to deny that the Beato/Virgilia battle happened {{spoiler|even better example in ep 5, after being defeated by Battler on the gameboard Erika suddenly stands up in her chair during the meal and starts talking in blue truth and exclaims to her master [[Complete Monster|Bernkastel]] that she has won and has to be acknowledged. Then she suddenly sits down in her chair eating. The family collectively thinks they were hallucinating}}
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has this is spades early on when it seems like the even with [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight|Unusually Uninteresting Sights]]s abound within the [[Elaborate University High|Academy]], no one with the exception of Chisame could care to notice the blatantly odd things surrounding them. It was later revealed that mages keep their [[Masquerade]] protected by spells put in place to heighten people's ability to dis-believe information they intake (they also rely on people's inherent ability to doubt). This naturally makes for interesting situations whenever the very odd is shown.
{{quote|''[[Muggle]] 1: I see, if it''s a robot, it all makes sense [nod nod].''
''[[Muggle]] 2: A-a-ah, I see, sure [nod].''
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* Used maybe as irony in ''[[Code Geass]]'': "You will disregard any strange events." The geassed people usually reply if they're asked why they're not doing anything about a crisis situation, or even reassure themselves, or warn the watcher that they are geassed with the line "I see nothing out of the ordinary."
* In ''[[Uta Kata]]'' nobody wonders about the tsunami that threatens Kamakura out of the blue, or about the fact that it is deflected by a flying, screaming young girl.
* In the anime version of ''[[Prétear]]'', Shin's spell Beyondios creates a [[Phantom Zone|dimensional zone]] wherein the Leafe Knights can fight Demon Larvae without destroying nearby real estate. Obviously this is impossible to do when Shin isn't around, or when the monsters can't be placed under the shield for whatever reasons -- butreasons—but they ''still'' manage to stay unnoticed even by the [[Magical Girl|protagonist's]] family, who only become aware that ''something is going on'' when the [[Big Bad]] invades their [[Big Fancy House]]. And ''then'', it takes awhile for them to notice. At least a few episodes. In which they go on a "ghost hunt".
* In ''[[Venus Versus Virus]]'', only a few people can see a Virus. Not only that, the Virus likes to attack people who are able to see it.
* Played with in ''[[Love is in the Bag]]'', where everyone except the London transfer students know about Kate turning into a bag.
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** The same is used in ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' with the twins.
* A running joke in the ''[[Invincible]]'' comic book is that [[No Peripheral Vision|people without powers never look up]], so heroes can change in back alleys and fly away and no one will see. (It's also a play on "Look! Up in the sky!", a phrase associated with [[Superman]].)
* Up until the "Gang War" storyline several years ago, the writers of DC [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned [[Batman]] so that he was still an urban myth not believed in by everyone in Gotham. An air of mystery around him is believable, or even confusion over what he is, but it was often taken too far. It's hard to explain away the thousands of criminals Batman has taken down, along with the [[Epic Hail|Bat Signal]] shining up every night, the dozens of supervillains committing crimes just to get his attention, as well as numerous public appearances with the [[Justice League]]. And apparently, a guy like [[Superman]] is perfectly normal, but a guy dressed as a bat is ridiculous. As Monkey Joe says, "A hero operating as an urban myth only works in his first year. Tops."
* ''[[Aztek]]'', for [[DC Comics]], is about a technologically enhanced superhero working in the town of Vanity. Aztek's support group, believing his existence will help save the earth, employ active weirdness censors to help him out. Shouting out his secrets in the halls of his workplace does nothing.
* ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]''
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** The [[Transformers Generation 1|original cartoon]] had a sort of masquerade for the first few episodes, but after a bit the Transformers didn't bother with hiding from humans as a whole (though many people still seemed unaware of their existence, considering all the episodes where a human mistakes a Transformer for a normal vehicle and react with shock/fear/awe when the Transformer reveals himself). By the movie and season three, there was no masquerade anymore.
** [http://www.moviemistakes.com/film5953/corrections Moviemistakes.com], correcting a submission for the [[Transformers Film Series|live-action film]]: "This isn't a movie mistake; the passengers [of a car turned into a Transformer - its steering wheel, at least -] ARE oblivious to the fact that giant robots are destroying their city."
* Mentioned in the background material for the ''[[The Matrix]]'' films. Apparently (it's not well conveyed on-screen) as well as the The Matrix's ability to revert an area and people's memories to remove an incident from history, the leads are supposed to have a "bubble effect" which prevents passers-by ([[NPC|NPCs]]s, if you will) from noticing them or interacting with them unless they do something dramatic (like stealing their phone).
* The ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' franchise sometimes takes this trope to extreme levels. Despite the Ghostbusters very public defeat of Gozer in the first movie, a judge in the second movie still referred to them as conmen, making one wonder "Did he NOT see the 50 feet tall marshmallow man?" Another example is in the first episode of ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]'', where the mayor accuses Egon of the Ghostbusters scamming the city, even though at that point the city had been completely overrun with monsters several times.
** The spinoff cartoon ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' had averted this trope by portraying the world as largely accepting the existence of the supernatural and the legitimacy of the Ghostbusters after the first movie. This made things awkward when the cartoon writers tried to work ''Ghostbusters 2'''s story, in which the public had initially gone back to treating the Ghostbusters like frauds, into the cartoon timeline. The results were so awkward, in fact, that the effort was quietly dropped after one season.
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* In the first ''[[Blade]]'', no one even glances at the dude driving the souped-up muscle car, with the funny hair and tats, dressed in a black leather duster with a sword handle sticking out of it. He beats up a uniformed cop on a populated street in broad daylight and no one cares.
** This is inverted in ''Blade 3'', which admittedly had some plot holes, where the vampires use a recording of Blade shooting a human masquerading as a vampire with a stake gun in a public street.
* ''[[The Sixth Sense]]'' is a weird case--thecase—the ghosts themselves "see what they want to see," protecting themselves from the [[Tomato in the Mirror]].
* In prose, at least early on, the police denied that the Shadow existed, claiming he just represented a contemporary rumor. In the 1994 Alec Baldwin film, a woman scoffs at the Shadow as just a rumor to get people to listen to the radio and read newspapers. (Earlier, the Shadow, while as Lamont Cranston at the Cobalt Club, used his powers of suggestion to dissuade Commissioner Wainright Barth from assigning his officers to investigate the rumors of the Shadow.)
* "[[Iron Man|Just a regular training exercise.]]"
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** Perhaps in the later stories by other authors; Lovecraft's own stories involved people being traumatized and unable to ''forget'' the weirdness that they encounter, even if it was just a photograph, a shadowy image, or a cloaked figure.
** In Lovecraft's stories, the terrible truth is normally so out of sight people don't need to censor it... except perhaps in the form of not acknowledging how vast the cosmos is and how little they know. The stories tend to be about when it ''does'' come into view.
* In the ''[[Narnia]]'' book ''The Magician's Nephew'', Uncle Andrew is incapable of believing animals can talk. When he encounters animals talking, the narrator takes glee in describing how Andrew's own [[Weirdness Censor]] engages at that moment, rendering him incapable of understanding them. Ironic in that Uncle Andrew spent his ''whole life'' looking for magic, and when he was finally confronted with real power, he just couldn't handle it.
* ''The Last Battle'' has another instance set after Narnia's end, where the dwarves eat delicious food in a beautiful meadow but perceive it as stale bread in a muckhole due to their cynical incapability to accept the paradise.
* In ''The Voyage of Dawn Treader'', after entering Narnia Eustace Scrubb seems completely certain he is still in Britain despite the fact that he was ''pulled through a picture in the wall''.
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** The author makes a point of justifying this every now and then, and gives at least one long speech about it. It actually makes sense, so you accept the blatant use of this trope.
** It also helps that the various supernatural powers in play have a pretty big stake in making sure humanity does ''not'' find out about them, given that for all the contempt most of these creatures have for humans, the last thing they want to do is get humanity as a whole riled up.
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' novels, the [[Narrator]] explains that most humans have formed a very strong idea of what is "normal", and anything that doesn't fit into that idea is [[Invisible to Normals]]. This includes [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] and other [[Anthropomorphic Personification|Anthropomorphic Personifications]]s, and [[Talking Animal]] Gaspode the Wonder Dog (since "everyone knows dogs can't talk"). There are some exceptions, including witches and wizards, by training, and small children, because they haven't learnt what "normal" is yet.
** Employed more subtly in the Discworld novel ''[[Discworld/Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]''. Rincewind, on yet another foreign jaunt, figures out nobody really notices men on horseback because doing so tends to get people stabbed.
** An unusual example is in ''[[Discworld/Mort|Mort]]'', where the titular character changes history by saving the life of a princess doomed to die, and everyone in the kingdom except a wizard find themselves unconsciously acting as though she had died, and feeling upset and nauseous when confronted with the fact that she still lives, then revert back to believing her dead once away from her.
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** Subverted in ''[[Discworld/Wyrd Sisters|Wyrd Sisters]]'': Death was visible because the audience expected he was an actor. He fit in quite well, since he forgot the lines just like the other actors.
** The Weirdness Censor appears to have been (mostly) left out of ''[[Discworld/The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents|The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents]]''. When said rodents decide to have a talk with the townspeople, it takes a few minutes for most of the humans to accept the existence of talking rats.
** Lord Rust in ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]'' confirms that it's not just the supernatural that falls subject to this trope on Discworld: his personal [[Weirdness Censor]] is so strict that it even blots out his perception of ''rudeness'', on the grounds that a lowborn churl like Sam Vimes wouldn't possibly dare snark off to an aristocrat like him.
** Moreover, it is described in both ''[[Discworld/Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'' and ''[[Discworld/Guards Guards|Guards! Guards!]]'' as a kind of permanent level of intoxication generated by the brain to be able to ignore things that could drive it to madness. Some people are naturally "super-sober" or it can be achieved by, say drinking extra-strong klatchian coffee, and they are aware of everything normal people are not, sometimes leading to madness.
** There's also ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'', where an actual horse (Binky) walks into a library to pick up Susan. Except that everybody knows that that doesn't happen, so it's obviously not real and therefore nothing to be concerned about.
{{quote|"The historians paid him no attention. Horses did not walk into libraries."}}
* This is one of the central themes of Pratchett's lesser known works, the ''[[Johnny Maxwell Trilogy]]'', where the title character explicitly lacks those kind of mental filters, so he's usually the first (and sometimes only) one to notice the weird things around him. Ironically, that same lack of mental agility makes him best equipped to actually ''deal'' with said weirdness, as his friends tend to try to deal according to the way things are "supposed to" go.
* In the ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' books, a magical force called Mist acts as an active [[Weirdness Censor]] to cover up whenever a mortal sees gods or monsters. A few mortals are known to be immune to its effects.
* In the ''[[Clan of the Cave Bear]]'' series, the Clan are unable to see someone who has been sentenced to death. The person sentenced isn't killed; the medicine man says "you are dead" and everyone else assumes that to be true. Even if they do "see" the person they assume it's an evil spirit pretending to be that person. Ayla (the main character) even tells her BF in a later book that if she were to tell some Clan people they've just met that she had been sentenced to death they would instantly be unable to see her.
** The explanation in the books regarding this is quite fuzzy. The Clan don't appear to physically lose the ability to see the person; they just believe the person is a spirit, and that if the spirit is ignored for long enough, they will disappear.
* Lynn Mims uses this in a story in a ''[[Darkover]]'' anthology--Calebanthology—Caleb Hargrave’s Weirdness Censor is so strong that it cancels out psi powers. {{spoiler|He’s a walking telepathic damper... but it only works when he’s nearby.}}
* In the Hitman novels of the 1970's, featuring Mike Ross, private investigator who operated in the guise of the hockey masked figure the Hitman, the Hitman stood as legendary figure only hinted at by the media. Possibly some cover occurred.
* In Christopher Fowler's novel ''Roofworld''. Why has no one noticed a shadow community living on the rooftops of London, rappelling along telegraph lines? They just don't look up much, and dismiss a glimpse of anyone they see up there if do.
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** ''Secret City'': While a general [[Masquerade]] is in effect, most humans will easily believe claims that data were forged, witnesses drunk or drugged and people claiming to use magic used clever technology or hypnotism. The eponymous Secret City dwellers also actively support skepticism in the population.
** ''Enclaves'': In an otherwise cyberpunk setting, several [[Ancient Tradition|AncientTraditions]] survived and some changed, generally working by [[Religion Is Magic]]. People will yet actively ignore obvious supernatural events, e.g. a person outrunning a projectile, and cite secret research or evidence failure to that end.
* In [[Michael Kurland]]'s ''The Unicorn Girl'', the characters visit a Victorian-like world where most of the people literally cannot see a naked person--aperson—a fact which some thieves are very happy to take advantage of.
 
== Live Action TV ==
 
* "Sunnydale Syndrome" (this trope's alternate name) is ascribed to the residents of Sunnydale, California in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', a town where people live in [[Somebody Else's Problem|comical denial]] of the vampires, werewolves and other supernatural forces that roam its streets. This does see occasional [[Lampshade Hanging]]: people on the sly mention all the "mysterious" deaths, and musician Aimee Mann says she hates playing vampire towns. A particularly large lampshade is hung at the end of season three, where the graduating class of Sunnydale High gives Buffy an award as "Class Protector", while admitting they don't usually acknowledge there's anything to be protected from. This indicates that they probably know that something's going on with their town, and something odd as well, but they don't suspect supernatural forces to be involved. In season 6, a typical ''Sunnydale Times'' headline reads "Mayhem Ensues: Monsters Definitely Not Involved". Then again, Snyder mentions lying about vampires attacking the high school in season 2, telling journalists it was a gang on PCP -- whichPCP—which the chief of police says is the usual story.
{{quote|'''Giles''': People rationalize what they can and forget what they can't.}}
** Towards the end of season 7, the residents finally start to clue up that the town isn't safe, leaving en masse. The weirdness censor is broken ''globally'' in season 8, when Harmony is photographed biting Andy Dick and vampires, demons, Slayers, and magic are brought to light.
* This continues in ''[[Angel]]'', most notably in S1's "victim of the week" stories. Unfortunately, starting from those same eps, we see half of the LA underworld, a major law firm, numerous small businesses, churches, every street gang etc all know about the supernatural; that'd be narrative convenience for you. It gets ''really'' silly when S4 sees bizarre manifestations, a rain of fire, the ''sun being blotted out for days'', vampires swarming the city, and finally the whole city (and soon surrounding county) being brainwashed & ruled by a supernatural entity, and seemingly ''thousands'' of deaths - a number of those deaths being very public massacres. Nobody seems to remember in S5, or ''notice'' outside of LA (the government and army know about demons, where ''are'' they?)
** In Angel: After the Fall, the masquerade gets broken for all of LA when its sent to a Hell dimension. It is put back on Earth via time reversion to the moment it was taken, undoing all deaths and damages, but everyone retains their memories. So some people want to dismiss it all as a delusion, but most know better. {{spoiler|And one particular devil named Eddie Hope isn't letting people who committed atrocities in Hell have the luxury of engaging their inner [[Weirdness Censor]]}}.
* Taken to extremes in the surrealist [[BBC]] Three Sketch Show ''[[The Wrong Door]]'' when no-one seems to find a woman dating an Albertasaur odd at all, merely commenting on his age. Even when he eats one of their friends in front of them no one bats an eyelid.
* On ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the [[Weirdness Censor]] is used to cover the fact that the Doctor's adventures frequently take him to large, populated areas that would probably notice an alien invasion, for example. [[Lampshaded]] on a couple of occasions:
** "Boom Town": The Doctor tells Mickey that people don't notice the TARDIS parked in the middle of 2006 Cardiff, despite the anachronistic look of a 1960s police box, because of this. Torchwood has the spot the TARDIS was in retain its effect permanently. "The Sound of Drums" later [[Retcon|Ret Cons]] this (or adjusts the explanation) to say that the TARDIS has plot-specific [[Applied Phlebotinum]] that causes people to quite intentionally not notice, "like when you fancy someone, but they don't even know you're there."
** "The Sontaran Strategem": {{spoiler|This time, regarding a Sontaran teleporter in the office of the headmaster of a "genius school." Justified in that everyone would assume it was just another weird device invented by the genius kid. Unless, like the Doctor, they'd seen one before.}}
** The first page quote comes from when Ace was saying that she would know if there had been an alien invasion in her recent history. The Seventh Doctor informs her that there have been ''several'' alien invasions in her recent history that she hadn't know about.
** Due to more lax continuity in the 60s and 70s, there were several stories with attacks in public - The War Machines, The Invasion, Spearhead From Space, The Ambassadors of Death, Invasion of the Dinosaurs etc - in which everybody notices. The show just never mentioned it at all in later episodes or made a big deal of the Sudden Revelation (as New Who tends to do), and just carried on as if nobody had noticed without drawing attention.
** Mid-90s Who book "Who Killed Kennedy" (ho ho), following a journalist during the Third Doctor days, had it that people ''did'' notice (some of) the weirdness - which was viewed as brutal terrorist attacks and disastrous failures by the government, leading to the (real life) collapse of the Harold Wilson government. This did involve casually [[Retcon|retconningretcon]]ning away stuff like the War Machines being a public, reported threat, but oh well...
** Subverted in "Victory of the Daleks"; {{spoiler|Amy doesn't remember a thing about the Daleks invading in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End"... and the Doctor is extremely disturbed, because ''everyone'' should remember something like that, and if no one does...}} And later {{spoiler|the Doctor realizes that's far from the only incident, kicking himself for not noticing that the giant Cyberman rampaging through London in "The Next Doctor" seems to have been completely forgotten.}} Although {{spoiler|Doc10 did notice this at the time. When Jackson Lake said that the day would go down in history, the Doctor said something like "Yeah, funny that" with a quizical expression on his face clearly lampshading the fact that he knew no one in the early 21st Century remembered any such thing. Anyway, it turned out that these two events, at least, had been swallowed by the Cracks in Time}}.
** A "perception filter" is an [[Applied Phlebotinum]] Weirdness Censor.
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{{quote|'''Fr. Dougal:''' {{spoiler|THOSE WOMEN WERE IN THE NIP‼}}}}
** "Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse": From his previous experience, Dougal gave Ted an idea on [[It Makes Sense in Context|how to kick their boss up the arse and get away with it]]. The plan relied on the Bishop's weirdness censor kicking in: Kick him up the arse and act like nothing had happened, because such a thing couldn't possibly happen. Like Dougal, the weirdness censor failed within twenty-four hours after the event. Although Ted still managed to convince him that he'd imagined the whole thing - until he saw the 10 foot high photograph of Ted kicking him that Ted had commissioned the last night after his celebratory drinking.
* ''[[The Lost Room]]'' had a subculture of collectors, hobbyists, organizations and criminals looking for some [[Artifact of Doom|conspicuously destructive objects]] that shunned the laws of physics, thermodynamics and entropy while [[Artifact of Attraction|consuming / destroying the lives of most people who came across them.]] Despite having been tracked, coveted and recklessly experimented with for 40 years, the Police (including [[Papa Wolf|our hero]]) seem to have no way of anticipating or dealing with them. Moreover, these quirky little atom-age [[MacGuffin|MacGuffins]]s subtly influenced the laws of probability to get closer to one another, making them even easier to track. Either some unseen government power tries to keep all those pesky cases of spontaneous combustion out of the news with a hypnotic roll of toilet paper, or [[Agent Mulder|organizations like "The Order" and "The Legion" are just too damn nerdy for most people to take seriously.]]
* The ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' sketch "The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker" features a very boring stockbroker going about his business, not noticing things like the fact that the bus on which he is traveling is full of terrorists shooting everyone, or that the newsagent where he purchases a paper is staffed by a topless woman.
* ''[[The Flash (TV series)|The Flash]]'' TV show had episodes where the Flash met Dr. Desmond Powell, an African-American doctor who had, in the Central City of the 1950s, operated as "the mystery man" Nightshade. More in line with the Shadow, the Nightshade, not a metahuman, ended up dismissed by most people as just a rumor, since the police hushed up his activities. (The show admitted that some of this attitude at least initially also applied to the Flash, but since the Flash had actual metahuman powers, he could not "lurk in the shadows" for very long.)
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== Radio ==
 
* Played with in a few of [[Bob and Ray|Bob & Ray]]'s Wally Ballou skits, wherein the newsman, searching eagerly for a story, ends up interviewing the most boring man alive (in the most memorable version, a cranberry grower) while resolutely ignoring the obvious disaster -- gunshotsdisaster—gunshots, sirens, screams, crackling flames etc -- happeningetc—happening all around them.
 
== Tabletop Games ==
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* The Swedish horror game ''[[Kult]]'' makes this the central premise of the world's mythology: Humanity has been imprisoned in an illusory world by the [[God Is Evil|Demiurge]] and blinded to the real world around them. When supernatural events transpire around them, the illusion-spell in people's minds makes them rationalize it away as normal accidents.
* In two of the four main variants of the [[Tabletop Games]] ''[[D20 Modern]]'', monsters roam the modern world. However, most humans can't believe that they exist, so they just see humans where player characters see monsters. (These settings are called Urban Arcana and Shadow Chasers, if you're wondering.) The average joe walks around in a state of autopilot, it's explained, so while they do see monsters as monsters while they're around, their mind subconciously edits it out later, remembering a troll as a massive brute of a man, the dragon's fireball as a gas leak, the gnoll in the corner a shady guy wearing a trenchcoat. They also don't notice things that the more alert player characters and "aware" NPCs do, such as aforementioned shady man having slightly protruding ears...
* The ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' core rule books advise the DM and the players to ''avoid'' this; if you're playing in a setting where you can buy and sale magic items fairly easily, it kind of behooves the [[NPC|NPCs]]s to notice magic, and not knock it as "superstition."
** Except in ''[[Ravenloft]]'', where noticing what's ''spooky'' and magical can get you killed. Natives of domains such as Richemulot or Zherisia, where the populace is infiltrated by monsters, find it a ''lot'' safer not to admit they've seen anything suspicious, even to themselves.
** There are also the ancient [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|demon lords]] ''Pale Night'' and ''Dagon''. When a mortal being encounters them, the [[Weirdness Censor]] is the only thing that keep your head from exploding.
* In [[The Dark Eye]] German Pen&Paper, its fairly normal for elves and dwarfs roam the cities. The bigger cities have their mage academies. Goblins and orcs are fairly well known in the wilderness. Yet [[Muggles]] are particularity shocked whenever something magical happens around them, and are fast to shrug it off as something mundane instead of magic. This is played [[Up to Eleven]] with the kobolds, which in this setting are supernatural beings of near infinite power... and only use it for mischief or if enlisted by an deity for a particular job to guard an area. Like in [[Real Life]] if some mishap is going on, they are going to handwave it towards the kobolds as fairy tale, [[All Myths Are True|but maybe more true as they want it to be]].
* ''[[Nobilis]]'' averts this. [[Muggles]] may go mad from encountering what they could not possibly understand and [[Player Characters|Nobles]] must take pains to ensure that this will not happen. However, their bosses, the Imperators, are powerful enough that reality itself will censor their actions. If an Imperator blots out the sun, not only will everyone believe it's a solar eclipse, but scientists will have retroactively predicted it several weeks ago.
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* At the end of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'', {{spoiler|a gigantic superweapon crashes into New York City. From the wreckage emerge a white haired pretty boy wielding a sword and the former president wielding two swords and wearing a suit of tentacled power armor. They proceed to fight a battle on the roof of Federal Hall, culminating in the villain being stabbed and falling from the roof.}} You'd think the cops or someone would take interest, but it just shows everyone going about their daily business like it was Japan and they were used to that.
** [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty/Recap|Not that the rest of the ending was any more rational]].
* Only partly averted in ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]''. Pedestrians will freak out and the military will open fire if the PC Alex Mercer reveals some of his [[Lovecraftian Superpower|Lovecraftian Superpowers]]s, but running along a wall ''upwards'', leaping across a street or ''gliding''? Nah, that's fine. There's a small chance that a pedestrian or marine will look at you, look away, and say "fucking New York." Apparently, [[Weirdness Magnet|that sort of thing happens all the time here.]]
* Huh. That ten-year-old is [[Pokémon|running around with a giant, super-rare, legendary creature following their every whim]]. Nah, that's probably just a transformed Ditto.
* [[Banjo-Kazooie]] runs on this (and [[No Fourth Wall|fourth wall breakage]]).
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* For some reason in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days]]'', nobody seems to notice how many monsters are in Twilight Town. For that matter; it almost seems to be a ''ghost town'' whenever you have to be in there. Bonus points go to when you consider that {{spoiler|Xion's final form is ''floating in the air'' in front of the train station. And she's practically an [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever]].}} How on ''earth'' did people ''not'' notice that or even come to investigate?!
** {{spoiler|[[Fridge Brilliance|But they probably would have forgotten about seeing Xion, actually]].}}
* In ''[[Golden Sun]]'' and both sequels, Psynergy itself is [[Invisible to Normals]]... but people still should be able to see the objects that move without being touched, fires starting and stopping, sprouts growing into giant vines in a matter of seconds, puddles freezing into giant ice pillars, and that group of [[Anime Hair|Anime Haired]]ed teenagers that always seems to be around when strange things happen. The number of situations where anybody notices Psynergy in use or the effects thereof, in all three games, can be counted on one hand.
 
 
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** Moreover, the aliens in the comic, when [[Alien Among Us|walking among humans]], use a system of disguise that involves wearing shirts bearing the label 'human'. Despite their natural forms looking like [[Little Green Men]], this method somehow successfully convinces anyone who has not been explicitly informed of their existence.
** It's not a huge leap for Elliot's parents. After all, Ellen {{spoiler|is not their biological daughter but a magical gender swapped clone of their son created by a cursed diamond.}}
* ''[[Narbonic]]'' partially subverts this by showing that, while Dave Davenport's brother Bill is unable to see such things as talking gerbils or dancing androids, Dave proves equally blind to Bill's flaws as compared to himself, determined to see Bill as having a better life than he does. Also, when the clone-Dave is under the effect of the [[Mad Scientist|Mad Science]] cure, he too is affected by the [[Weirdness Censor]], even while in the midst of a running battle.
* In ''[[Megatokyo]]'', nobody even seems to notice when someone or something starts breaking stuff in Tokyo, no matter if it's Ping the overpowered [[Robot Girl]], a giant drunken turtle, or a Rent-a-Zilla. This is [[Justified Trope|justified]] to some degree, because not only does Tokyo get destroyed so often that nobody really cares, but also because the destruction rampages are scheduled and supervised by the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division. There is also some suggestion that many of the more outrageous aspects of Tokyo life are in fact literally [[Invisible to Normals]], but the actual extent of this effect remains unclear. Also, the people don't look up particular iteration is alluded to in ''[[Megatokyo]]'' as well, where Tohya tells Yuki that the civilians are "just as afraid to look up as you are to look down".
** In the fifth collection of Megatokyo, Gallagher FINALLY detailed [[Word of God|his explanation for this phenomenon]]: "[http://wikitokyo.mt-talk.net/wiki/What_is_Megatokyo_all_about%3F ...the main theme of Megatokyo is how everyone has different perceptions of the world around them...]" Everyone sees the world slightly differently. Piro and Largo are on the extreme ends of the scale--Piroscale—Piro only sees "mundane" things (and dismisses the fantastic things as mundane things) and Largo only sees "fantastic" things, and comes up with fantastic explanations for the mundane things he sees. Everyone else is somewhere else on this scale, nearly always between those two extremes.
** It seems as though [[Dark Magical Girl|Miho]] has the power to ''turn off'' other people's [[Weirdness Censor|Weirdness Censors]]. In [http://www.megatokyo.com/strip/1000 this comic], she tells Kimiko to open her eyes, which leads her to notice that the restaurant is under attack by killer robots.
{{quote|'''Miho:''' Now close them. [[Extra-Strength Masquerade|Close them real tight]].}}
* Most of the populace of Generictown in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' appears to have this trait to one degree or another (especially Mr. Bystander). Even Bob himself often refuses to acknowledge just ''how'' bizarre the situations are that he finds himself in. The only castmember completely free of this trope is Jean, leading her to exclaim at one point, [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20071006.html "Ye gods! I'm the only sane person in town!"]
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* Played with in ''[[Walkyverse|Shortpacked]]''. For some reason, everybody who works at the titular store (or, at least, the ones who weren't involved in SEMME-related adventures), don't remember any alien-related stuff that happened over the past few years. Everybody else, on the other hand, usually does.
** It seems more like they just ''really'' don't care. For instance, at one point Amber goes to New York, and mentions "huh, you would never be able to tell this place was destroyed a few years ago."
* Present in ''[[Thunderstruck]]'', where supernatural entities of all descriptions operate right under the nose of the general populace -- partlypopulace—partly through passive Weirdness Censoring among the general populace, and partly through active [[Masquerade|Masquerading]]. Children lack Weirdness Censors, though -- inthough—in fact, they're actually ''drawn'' to the supernatural.
* In ''[[Everyday Heroes]]'', it seems at first that Uma and her father are just using the standard [[Paper-Thin Disguise]] of wearing glasses to pass as human. Later, they mention using an [[H 2 G 2/ptitlex 7 dt 39 fg|"Adams Field"]], implying that the glasses have some sort of [[Weirdness Censor]] built into them.
* In the ''[[Shadowgirls]]'' universe; enough templars in an area disbelieving hard enough can shut down magic users entirely. Which leads to {{spoiler|Starkweather circumventing said limitation by somehow tapping into an older magic.}}
* In ''[[Emergency Exit]]'' it is revealed that the Apartment has one of these only after it temporarily takes it down, allowing police attention to come to the large hole in the wall, because "It thinks it's funny" to do so.
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* The [[PPC]] use actual SEP fields taken from the ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' continuum to protect themselves from being seen by the characters in the fanfics they're sporking. Unfortunately, [[Mary Sue]] characters ''can'' see them, so they have to actively hide from the targets of their wrath. It's also possible for them to break the SEP field by attracting too much attention to themselves.
* ''[[New York Magician]]'': Lampshaded repeatedly; most New Yorkers people won't notice [[Invisible to Normals|unless something really incredible is happening]]. In fact, Michel muses that it's easier for him to get away with using magic in public than it is to get away with waving a gun around; people rationalize magic, but they call the cops for guns.
* In the ''[[Paradise]]'' setting, humans are randomly, permanently transformed into [[Funny Animal|Funny Animals]]s (and occasionally [[Gender Bender|gender-changed]]) by causes unknown. A powerful "Reality Distortion Field", otherwise known as "the Veil", renders these changes [[Invisible to Normals]], who will continue to see the Changed as their original human selves (and genders). It is only able to cover their bodies, however; they will still leave animal footprints, and any fur, horns, claw trimmings, etc. they shed will be visible to others. It begins breaking down as the series goes on and finally starts failing completely in 2009, leading to [[The Unmasqued World]] as the Changed finally make themselves fully known.
 
 
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{{quote|'''Frank Grimes:''' I'm saying you're what's wrong with America, Simpson. You coast through life, you do as little as possible, and you leech off of decent, hardworking people like me. Heh, if you lived in any other country in the world, you'd have starved to death long ago.}}
* ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'': [[Is This a Joke?|"I'm glad everyone bought the You've-been-Punked story we feed them."]]
* Became a running joke in ''Transformers: Robots in Disguise'', in which one woman is constantly harassed by Sideburn--whoSideburn—who is trying to get jiggy with her car. By narrative convenience, she starts being in range of the giant robot battles nearly every episode.
* In contrast, ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' has maybe five people actually see the constant robot battles. This is partially justified as apparently all but a few of the Mini-Con panels appear in unpopulated areas, but still.
* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]'', Danny feels perfectly secure transforming into a ghost if he ducks inside a locker or even stands behind another person to do so. Apparently nobody makes the connection that a kid moving to a just-concealed area, disappearing, and being replaced by a ghost might mean something. Also, people can be attacked by giant ghost wasps and such like at school and will run screaming as expected... but the next day, everyone's fine; law enforcement is never called and nobody seems to remember being terrorized by supernatural entities.
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== Real Life ==
* When there's any kind of convention or gathering (such as cosplay) that involves people in costumes wandering around, non-participants generally fall into one of three categories -- thecategories—the people who are accustomed to it; the people who openly gawk at the weirdos in costumes; and the people who determinedly ignore the whole thing.
** In University towns and cities, on any given night, you can determine who's a local, who's a student, and who's not from the area by their reaction to a group of students in fancy dress. The locals have [[Seen It All]], the students wonder what the occasion is, and the out-of-towners openly gawk
* The game of [[wikipedia:Geocaching|Geocaching]] relies pretty heavily on this. Geocache containers can be hidden in highly unusual places, quite often by virtue of small size, camouflage coloring, or by being disguised as something so commonplace it is easily dismissed and overlooked. Searching for geocaches often calls for stealth ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching#Controversy_and_issues ) some cachers have reported that the easiest way to conceal their search is by acting mildly nuts or wandering at complete random, and thus they can find their objective without anyone taking much notice.
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