History Main / JustIgnoreIt

* In a ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' storyline, [[GenreSavvy expert video gamer Jason]] spends a long time struggling to defeat the "Red Orb Guardian", but when he finally puts the controller down his eternally clueless sister Paige gets past it in moments -- she just walks right by, and the monster doesn't attack because she didn't attack it. When she explains what she did, Jason is flabbergasted at the thought of an [[BonusBoss incredibly powerful enemy]] you're ''not'' supposed to fight. It gets a lampshade when Jason calls this counter-intuitive, and Paige points out that he still harasses her despite the fact that her response is always to pound the snot out of him.

* This is the approach that the developers of ''New World Online'' have taken to Maple in ''LightNovel/BofuriIDontWantToGetHurtSoIllMaxOutMyDefense'', due to her breaking the game so much and so often that they have even yelled at someone on the team pointing out she did it again.

* ''Webcomic/MierukoChan'': Miko's policy for dealing with [[ISeeDeadPeople the bizarre and terrifying ghosts and spirits she sees]] is to ignore them and hope she doesn't draw their attention. This isn't easy when her best friend Hana seems to be [[WeirdnessMagnet a magnet for the supernatural]] and her self-proclaimed rival Julia keeps trying to goad her into revealing the truth.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', the heroes use the technique of "wu wei" (basically, "do nothing") to stop the Technodrome. Understandably, this technique was never used again. This itself is a rather... ''unusual'' interpretation of the idea of wu wei, which is more along the lines of "don't waste time thinking, just act, guided by intuition." Basically, the opposite of doing nothing. In this case as many, the RuleOfFunny wins out.
* ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'': In "The Troll", Wander and Sylvia are called to aid the warriors of Baaa-hala protect their food sack from a troll that attacks them once a year. The troll starts out puny, but is obnoxious, and gets bigger and stronger the more the warriors get tweaked by his insults. By the time he reaches Wander, the troll is the size of a building. But when Wander doesn't react, the troll starts shrinking. This inspires the others to do likewise, and the troll shrinks back to its original harmless size.

* On many websites, "Don't Feed the {{Troll}}!" is listed as common advice. The idea is that your average troll is trying to be an AttentionWhore. Getting them kicked out/banned/etc. without otherwise acknowledging their presence will make them give up with time, since they're not getting the attention they want or otherwise having their bad behavior rewarded.

* The final episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda'' played this trope smoothly. Ganon's minions overthrew Ganon and attempted to attack North Palace by themselves, which for them ended in hilarious disaster.

In a world where innocent people are dying left and right, some people take it on themselves to be willfully ignorant. These folks tend to believe that all you have to do is ignore the problem and it will solve itself.

* Jurgen Ohlsen, the young star of a very famous Hitler Youth propaganda film, wasd later discovered to be gay. The Nazis not only ordered him to report to a concentration camp, but ordered his execution. How did Jurgen escape his fate? Did he flee the country, or seek refuge in the forests of Germany with the Edelweiss Pirates? Nope, he just didn't report to the concentration camp. As a member of the Hitler Youth and something of a national hero, the Nazis just assumed he'd turn himself in and never followed up on it. This happened in ''1940'', Jurgen died of natural causes in 1994.

* The attack of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal in ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' video game can be stalled, if not actually defeated, by the same means listed above under Literature. Though this bit of information is relevant, but not enough in and of itself; [[spoiler:to get the Beast to stop chasing you, you need to first say your name when he asks, then, with the towel over your head, carve your name into the list of his previous victims. He'll conclude that he ate you in a fit of absent-mindedness (as his mind is very frequently absent), and go to sleep. If you don't do all this, the Beast will eventually realize his mistake and eat you.]]

* This applies to anything you don't want people seeing. Trying to stop people from seeing it will likely just attract attention to it. See StreisandEffect, NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity, and RevealingCoverup. Compare, for example, Creator/{{Disney}} ignoring ''Film/EscapeFromTomorrow'' rather than filing legal action, resulting in it barely making a splash, to North Korea's response to ''Film/TheInterview'', which got it a lot of attention.

This is the approach that the developers of New World Online have taken to Maple in ''LightNovel/BofuriIDontWantToGetHurtSoIllMaxOutMyDefense'', due to her breaking the game so much and so often that they have even yelled at someone on the team pointing out she did it again.

* The movie ''15 Minutes'' is about a pair of foreign terrorists who seek to videotape their murders, give the footage to the news, and become infamous that way. The ad campaign used the line "the only way to stop them... is not to watch."

** This gets more complicated when the child (or adult) is having a genuine meltdown (commonly seen in people on the autism spectrum and having sensory processing issues) out of overwhelm rather than throwing a tantrum because of attention. Some meltdowns/anxiety attacks are indeed best dealt with if they're ignored by others - talking to the person as if they're not having a meltdown may even help the panicking person focus on the talker and calm down. However, some meltdowns just get worse if they're ignored (and forced to stay in the same surrounding that's causing them distress). For example, an autistic child crying because their system is overloaded by loud sounds, bright lights, the presence of strangers, etc. at a supermarket while their mother is doing the shopping. The mother should ideally be able to swiftly take the child outside and go through their personal methods to calm the child. Autistic adults leaving a space that's stressing them (a loud party, perhaps) follows the same principle.

** ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'': Teatime's plan to assassinate the eponymous Santa Claus pastiche is to control the children's thoughts so that they no longer believe in him.
** Additionally, it's well-known on the Disc that putting a blanket over your head repels the bogeyman. This is all fine and good, but as seen in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'' and ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'', if you put the blanket over the ''bogeyman's'' head he'll be briefly overcome with doubt as to ''his own'' existence.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* WebComic/MierukoChan: It is heavily implied that the spirits can harm anyone who can see them. Miko’s only defence is to ignore them so that they don’t realize she can see them.
[[/folder]]

* Or maybe the protagonist's state of mind has some connection to the situation, and cooler heads prevail.

->'''Murdock''': Lieutenant... How would you handle this?\\
'''Lieutenant''': We could try ignoring it, sir.\\
'''Murdock''': I see... Pretend nothing has happened and hope everything's all right in the morning?\\
'''Lieutenant''': Just a thought, sir.\\
'''Murdock''': I've considered that. There's got to be a better angle.

!!Examples

* In a ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'' storyline, [[GenreSavvy expert video gamer Jason]] spends a long time struggling to defeat the "Red Orb Guardian," but when he finally puts the controller down his eternally clueless sister Paige gets past it in moments -- she just walked right by, and the monster didn't attack because she didn't attack it. When she explains what she did, Jason is flabbergasted at the thought of an [[BonusBoss incredibly powerful enemy]] you're ''not'' supposed to fight.
** It gets a lampshade when Jason calls this counter-intuitive, and Paige points out that he still harasses her despite the fact that her response is always to pound the snot out of him.

* In the essay-fic ''FanFic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', the LemonyNarrator takes this approach when citing sources that clearly contradict her [[InsaneTrollLogic own theories]]. At her worst, she demeans the opposing author's intelligence, and crosses out the offending text with a strikethrough.

* In ''FanFic/TheVinylScratchTapes'' season 2 part 1, the mane characters at one point react to [[JerkAss Prince Blueblood's]] phone call threatening to bring down their radio station by discussing where they want to have lunch, paying no attention whatsoever to Blueblood's rant. Of course, this was after hanging up on him repeatedly, then threatening to punch out his remaining teeth.

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* ''Film/FreddyVsJason'' had a local GovernmentConspiracy involving a massive cover up of everything Freddy Krueger had done, down to interring all the surviving kids in an asylum and medicating them so they can't have dreams, because Freddy gets his power from kids being afraid of him. Freddy averts this trope by setting lose ''another'' [[Franchise/FridayThe13th serial killer]], causing the kids to hear about Freddy when the RevealingCoverup begins to unravel due to the adults wondering if Freddy is back.

* ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'': [[ArcWords You have no power over me!]]

** Indeed, in [[VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy the text adventure]], this bit of information is relevant, but not enough in and of itself; [[spoiler:to get the Beast to stop chasing you, you need to first say your name when he asks, then, with the towel over your head, carve your name into the list of his previous victims. He'll conclude that he ate you in a fit of absent-mindedness (as his mind is very frequently absent), and go to sleep. If you don't do all this, the Beast will eventually realize his mistake and eat you.]]

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Hundreds of years before ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: Spore'', the ActualPacifist Ithorians managed to [[SealedEvilInACan seal Spore up]] and bury it in an asteroid behind a DoorOfDoom with some warnings. In the present day foreign AsteroidMiners are poking around those asteroids looking for minerals with the Ithorians' permission, and they don't do a thing to prevent the miners from [[DugTooDeep digging too far into that one]]. They have ''one'' Ithorian watching, who does nothing to stop them even though she and most other Ithorians know about and dread the thought of Spore's escape. She only acts ''after'' it gets out.
** In part we see that keeping quiet would have been a good idea, since that Ithorian had told someone from TheEmpire, which promptly sends someone who's clueless about how EvilIsNotAToy, and the Imperials wouldn't be the only ones who'd want to break it out to use it. But ''not'' telling the miners meant they thought there [[SchmuckBait might be treasure in there]]. This all could have been avoided if they'd picked a more remote asteroid.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Inverted in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]]: the monsters for that episode are "quantum locked" meaning that they only exist when not being observed. If you look at them (or if they look at each other) they turn to stone. But if you look away (or blink), you're dead.
-->'''The Doctor''': Don't blink. Blink and you're ''dead''. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And ''don't blink''. Good luck.
* ''Series/Merlin1998'': [[spoiler:Queen Mab is defeated using this method. When people stop believing in her and refuse to acknowledge that she is important anymore, she fades away.]]
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': J.D. found out that the best thing he could do for the patient who was turfed to every department in the hospital is to do nothing and let things heal themselves, since the patient was not actually suffering from any disease at all, but rather had a high fever that resulted from the rapidly increasing medications he was being given as he was moved from department to department, each department unable to find a problem and giving him generic medication in the hopes of fixing whatever was wrong with him. Since there was no disease, nobody could find a disease, and kept transferring him to a new department in the hopes that they could fix him, and he eventually ended up with JD, who actually ''forgot'' about the patient entirely, and was told after the fact that his "treatment" was brilliant since the fever broke when he stopped being stuffed with drugs. Apparently this happens in real life.

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', one of the best ways to handle something extremely durable but either not very devastating or that has a very small [[InstantDeathRadius threat range]] is to do just this. In fact, the most powerful units in the game aren't those with the best statlines or stuff (these tend to be CoolButInefficient), but those with either the [[FlyingBrick mobility to get their alright statlines to where they are most effective]], or [[ConfusionFu some]] [[ScrappyMechanic other]] [[GameBreaker unusual]] [[MookMaker ability]], or some evident lack of a WeaksauceWeakness in the current metagame.

* The attack of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal in ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' video game can be stalled, if not actually defeated, by the same means listed above under Literature.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

'''Lord Elf:''' ((No one is roleplaying with the Lord of Dorkness. ''[...]'' All he wants to do is make himself the center of attention by killing everyone and eating their soul. Just ''pretend he's not there''.))

* ''WebComic/MierukoChan'': Miko's policy for dealing with [[ISeeDeadPeople the bizarre and terrifying ghosts and spirits she sees]] is to ignore them and hope she doesn't draw their attention. This isn't easy when her best friend Hana seems to be [[WeirdnessMagnet a magnet for the supernatural]] and her self-proclaimed rival Julia keeps trying to goad her into revealing the truth.

--> David was really excited about his birthday party, and about moving up so he was ‘only one year younger than Shrimpy’.\\
“David!” Mother didn’t allow that sort of language in public, much less at the dinner table. “Apologize to your brother at once!”\\
“Mother, it’s all right. I am a shrimp,” I calmly admitted. It wasn’t that I was trying to protect David. No, I was going to be quite happy to see him get in trouble in a few seconds. For several weeks, I had been trying a new strategy: if none of his insults appeared to bother me, he might eventually give up.

* ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'': When DM's car turns schizoid and malevolent (episode "What A Three-Point Turn-Up For The Book"), he pretends to ignore it in hopes it will become complacent, then he can jump into the driver's seat. It doesn't work.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "Hawk and Dove," the more passive of the brothers stops Ares's war machine in the end by refusing to fight it. To clarify, the machine was powered by aggression.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheKingAndI'' (the animated film), the heroes' tactic against a giant sea monster that is about to eat the ship is to Whistle a Happy Tune. It works - the monster is just an illusion produced by the bad guy.

-->'''Lisa:''' ''(to the one holdout being distracted by a donut ad)'' Don't make us poke your eyes out, Dad!

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': A halloween episode included the story "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores," about [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever giant advertising mascots]] that come to life and destroy Springfield. As discovered by Lisa and Paul Anka (!), the key to survival is "just don't look." Because any ad that doesn't get attention, quickly vanishes.