History Main / TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou

* In one of the YouTube ads featured Dat Damned Smith watching a horror video shouting "DON'T GO IN THERE!" However, after a few seconds, a no wifi single pops up behind him. After a short while it causes Damned Smith to ear-bleedingly scream at the camera!
{{note|And not just any scream; it was a banshee-like screech that sounded like someone in front of you screaming.}}

In one of the YouTube ads featured Dat Damned Smith watching a horror video shouting "DON'T GO IN THERE!" However, after a few seconds, a no wifi single pops up behind him. After a short while it causes Damned Smith to ear-bleedingly scream at the camera!
And not just any scream; it was a [[Hell Is That Noise banshee-like screech that sounded like someone in front of you screaming.]]

And not just any scream; it was a [[Hell Is That Noise|banshee-like screech that sounded like someone in front of you screaming.]]

And not just any scream; it was a banshee-like screech that sounded like someone in front of you screaming.

* S. William Hinzman, the Cemetery Zombie from ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'', often joked that if he was buried instead of cremated, he'd just "come back to life to seek human victims".
* The fictional Franchise/{{Superman}} once fought the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan. The ''[[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome real]]'' Ku Klux Klan. The [[Radio/TheAdventuresOfSuperman the radio program]] contained advice on how to help catch them in a 1946 serial titled "Clan of the Fiery Cross," provided by an informant named [[http://mentalfloss.com/article/23157/how-superman-defeated-ku-klux-klan Stetson Kennedy]] who infiltrated the Klan and leaked this information to the writers of the radio show. And Superman ''won''. Exposing the Klan and its rather silly rituals on the radio program is credited as one of the reasons it didn't experience a renaissance and become as publicly acceptable as it was in the early 20th century, even at the height of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement and the ensuing segregationist backlash: fewer people wanted to be associated with such a bunch of clowns.
* Some actors have admitted to [[TrollingCreator deliberately scaring people]] while in character:
** Creator/AnthonyHopkins, best known as Franchise/HannibalLecter, once quietly entered a theater showing ''{{Film/Hannibal}}'' and, during one intense scene, tapped somebody in the row before him on the shoulder and asked "Are you enjoying the movie?"
** Years after playing the [[MonsterLord Grand High Witch]] in ''Literature/TheWitches'', Creator/AnjelicaHuston played a prank while filming ''Film/IronJawedAngels'', as related [[https://smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/theres-nothing-better-than-making-children-scream-20131125-2y4n6.html here]]:
--->Someone on cast had a friend whose daughter was dressing up with her little friends as witches for Halloween, and they were going to watch ''The Witches''. In the middle of the viewing I arrived at the house and went downstairs, where they all were, with their hats on and everything, watching the movie, and I opened the door and said [putting on her sinister, vaguely European, Grand High Witch voice], "Thank you for inviting me!" I did the hair, a little purple make-up. I got them all screaming. It was good. There's nothing better than making children scream, I have to say.
** Played for laughs in 2013 with Creator/TomHiddleston's surprise appearance as Loki at the [[https://youtu.be/3R9g_VABesA San Diego Comic Con.]]
--->'''Loki''': It seems that I have an army.
* The infamous "Electric Soldier Porygon" episode of ''Series/{{Pokemon}}'' used EpilepticFlashingLights to illustrate a Pokemon attack... [[BrownNote which led to hundreds of Japanese children literally being attacked by epileptic seizures]], even if it was partly mass hysteria.

* InUniverse in ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2''. The Screenslaver plans to hypnotize people through many screens.

See also SecondPersonAttack, RageAgainstTheAuthor, ScarilySpecificStory, and TheMostDangerousVideoGame. May involve SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou or a TomeOfEldritchLore, or may implement FissionMailed. TheComputerIsALyingBastard is a game specific version of this, though it usually involves trickery instead of threats. If an action from the video game affects something beyond the game or its display or usual sound device, such as something in the real world, then it may be a case of ReachingThroughTheFourthWall. AbusiveAdvertising is a related trope where advertisements threaten to cause harm to the audience if they don't buy what's being advertised. In-universe examples may fall under DeadlineNews or SpectatorCasualty. Can be subverted in a combination of FourthWallPsych and ShockAndSwitchEnding.

** Years after playing the [[MonsterLord Grand High Witch]] in ''Literature/TheWitches'', Creator/AnjelicaHuston played a prank while filming ''Film/IronJawedAngels'', as related [https://smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/theres-nothing-better-than-making-children-scream-20131125-2y4n6.html here]:

* The infamous "Electric Soldier Porygon" episode of ''Series/{{Pokemon}}'' used EpilepticFlashingLights to illustrate a Pokemon attack... [[BrownNote which led to hundreds of Japanese children literally being attacked by ''epileptic seizures.'']]

** Years after playing the [[MonsterLord Grand High Witch]] in ''Literature/TheWitches'', Creator/AnjelicaHuston played a prank while filming ''Film/IronJawedAngels'':

Real life does not have a fourth wall, so no real life examples, please.

* [[https://lizengland.itch.io/everyday-misanthrope Everyday Misanthrope]], as the name implies, stars a MisanthropeSupreme and scores your performance by how many lives you ruined that day. [[spoiler:At the very end of the day, if your resources have gone into the negative (to absolutely no effect), the game will ask very pointedly if this bothers you, and then increment the "lives ruined" counter by one.]]

* In Abaddon Princess of the Decay, after completing the truly "True" route and saving the game, the main screen can seemingly glitch out with a message popping up in Kanji before crashing to the desktop. On reopening the game, you will find all your files are corrupt with the phrase "Endless Sleep" on top of the picture of your team--who all have their faces melted off in a gory mess. Exiting and reopening the screen following this will bring your files back to normal and revert the main screen to how it was before beating the truly "True" route...as if it never happened. Fitting with the MindScrew nature of the game.

[[folder:Films — Live Action]]
* in ''Film/{{TheMatrixReloaded}}'', during the Burly Brawl, A Smith clone [[TheVirus infects Agent Thompson]]. After his transformation into a Smith clone is complete, both Smith clones stare at the fourth wall for a moment, almost as if [[ParanoiaFuel they're preparing to turn the viewer into a Smith clone]]. And there's a rather infamous DeviantArt story about that happening to an unfortunate woman who bought a cursed copy of said movie.

* At the end of ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine,'' Music/TheBeatles appear in live-action photography. John Lennon looks through a spyglass pointed outward toward the audience and announces, "Newer and [[CardCarryingVillain bluer Meanies]] have been sighted within the vicinity of this theatre." (Fortunately, there's a way to defeat them: by SINGING!)

* In Disney's animated ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'', [[InteractiveNarrator Alan-a-Dale the narrator]] is seen in prison. Like the rest of Nottingham's residents, he's been arrested for being unable to pay his taxes. "Yep, I'm in here too."

* In Abaddon Princess of the Decay, after completing the truly "True" route and saving the game, the main screen can seemingly glitch out with a message popping up in Kanji before crashing to the desktop. On reopening the game, you will find all your files are corrupt with the phrase "Endless Sleep" on top of the picture of your team--who all have their faces melted off in a gory mess. Exiting and reopening the screen following this will bring your files back to normal and revert the main screen to how it was before beating the truly "True" route...as if it never happened. Gaslighting indeed

* In Abaddon Princess of the Decay, after completing the truly "True" route and saving the game, the main screen can seemingly glitch out with a message popping up in Kanji before crashing to the desktop. On reopening the game, you will find all your files are corrupt with the phrase "Endless Sleep" on top of the picture of your team--who all have their faces melted off in a gory mess. Exiting and reopening the screen following this will bring your files back to normal and revert the main screen to how it was before beating the truly "True" route...as if it never happened. MindScrew

* In Abaddon Princess of the Decay, after completing the truly "True" route and saving the game, the main screen can seemingly glitch out with a message popping up in Kanji before crashing to the desktop. On reopening the game, you will find all your files are corrupt with the phrase "Endless Sleep" on top of the picture of your team--who all have their faces melted off in a gory mess. Exiting and reopening the screen following this will bring your files back to normal and revert the main screen to how it was before beating the truly "True" route...as if it never happened. Mindscrew

-->-- '''ComicBook/TheJoker's''' Ladder Ending, ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11''

* On the ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' website:
** There is a WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail where Strong Bad gets [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html a computer virus]] that quickly takes over and messes up the entire website.
** At one point, a bunch of popup windows with Homestar's face in it appear, including one actual popup window! Although, it only works if Pop-Up Blocker is disabled.

[[folder: Other]]