History Main / WeirdnessCensor

** Kuyou Suou / Suou Kuyou is a HumanoidAbomination who is just so...''off'' that normal people don't even react to her presence. When some people (like Kyon) are forced to acknowledge her, they're creeped out by just how obviously yet subtly ''[[UncannyValley wrong]]'' everything about her is.

-->...he was well within the [[UncannyValley seventy-five percent accuracy]] limit the Slorin set for themselves. It was a universal fact that the untrained sentience saw what it ''thought'' it saw. The mind tended to supply the missing elements.

Sometimes invoked for seriousness, such as an explanation in which exploits go on ignored by most people... but often, this is just ''one'' part of the RuleOfFunny. Magic battles, alien invasions, and all other sorts of supernatural happenings often happen ''right'' in front of people's faces... and yet they merely glance out the window, and go back to their morning coffee, sometimes either not noticing it or just saying some excuse.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': The main characters are demons who go around assassinating humans. It seems that most humans are too stupid to recognize demons when they see them. Undisguised demons spotted in the living world have been mistaen for people in constumes, and in one case for a possum. In season 2 episode 2, Blitzo dons a [[PaperThinDisguise poor disguise]] to pass as a human, gets mistaken for a comedian obviously based on his real-life voice actor just because his wig looks like his hair, and continues to play the role of that character even after losing the part of his disguise hiding his huge horns, in a studio in front of loads of people [[FailedASpotCheck none of whom notices anything]]. Well, maybe his voice is right.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': The main characters are demons who go around assassinating humans. It seems that most humans are too stupid to recognize demons when they see them. In season 1 episode 3 they go on a killing spree on a beach and not only does nobody recognize that they are demons (Moxie even gets mistaken for a possum), but nobody even seems to notice the murders they are doing. The humans don't panic until another group of demons accidentally creates a giant fish monster. Other times, demons have been mistaken for humans in costumes. In season 2 episode 2, Blitzo dons a [[PaperThinDisguise poor disguise]] to pass as a human, gets mistaken for a comedian obviously based on his real-life voice actor just because his wig looks like his hair, and continues to play the role of that character even after losing the part of his disguise hiding his huge horns, in a studio in front of loads of people none of whom notices anything. Well, maybe his voice is right.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': The main characters are demons who go around assassinating humans. It seems that most humans are too stupid to recognize demons when they see them. In season 1 episode 3 they go on a killing spree on a beach and not only does nobody recognize that they are demons (Moxie even gets mistaken for a possum), but nobody even seems to notice the murders they are doing. The humans don't panic until another group of demons accidentally creates a giant fish monster. Other times, demons have been mistaken for humans in costumes. In season 2 episode 2, Blitzo dons a [[PaperThinDisguise poor disguise]] to pass as a human, gets mistaken for a comedian obviously based on his real-life voice actor because his wig looks like his hair, and continues to play the role of that character even after losing the part of his disguise hiding his huge horns in a studio in front of loads of people none of whom notices anything. Well, maybe his voice is right.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': The main characters are demons who go around assassinating humans. It seems that most humans are too stupid to recognize demons when they see them. In season 1 episode 3 they go on a killing spree on a beach and not only does nobody recognize that they are demons (Moxie even gets mistaken for a possum), but nobody even seems to notice the murders they are doing. The humans don't panic until another group of demons accidentally creates a giant fish monster.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': There are several anomalies that prevent people from properly perceiving them or erase memories about themselves, but most anomalies do not and so when civilians encounter them they have to be subjected to LaserGuidedAmnesia to uphold the masquerade. However, a small but significant proportion of the population is affected by what is called Filbuson Syndrome. People with this condition will refuse to believe in the existence of anything "unscientific" no matter what they see, and if they are forced to acknowledge anomalies they may come up with scientific or pseudoscientific rationalizations for them. People with severe cases of this condition will try to force their denial of the supernatural on to other people, turning them into militant atheists. Surprisingly, it also is possible for people who do believe in the supernatural to suffer from it, resulting in people who believe in magic as part of their religion but are unable to believe it if they witnessed real magic.

* Adults not in the know cannot figure out that the title character of ''Webcomic/{{Selkie}}'' isn't human. The official story is that she's a human with a rare genetic condition. Sure, she has [[InsistentTerminology periwinkle]] skin, a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, and webbed fingers and toes. She's also an obligate carnivore, is cold-blooded, and her nose is blatantly non-human. However, her gills are typically covered by her clothing, and she wears her hair down to hide the fact that her ears are entirely internal. Notably, every child who has spent meaningful time around her knows the truth. Amanda says it best:

* The ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' cartoons:
** In one early (possibly the earliest) incarnation, a few episodes after the Decepticons became active on Earth it seems the entire planet is put on a war footing, factories pumping out weapons intended to be used in the war against them, complete with old-fashioned propaganda posters.
** The [[WesternAnimation/TheTransformers 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 (where a TimeSkip has happened), there was no Masquerade anymore.
** In ''Anime/TransformersSuperGodMasterforce'', [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Expose_the_Decepticons%27_Dark_Trap%21 This]] was a ridiculous case when the humans completely forgotten about what Autobots AND Decepticons are despite the series (in Japan) had already established the existence of both, not in the IdiotBall level, mind you, but it's as if they forgotten. The early episodes clearly shown that there is a few people who know about it. Maybe it's because the Transformers had been off the Earth a long time, no one would remember them by then.

* In Steven Gould's novel "Jumper" and the sequel "Reflex", the protagonist discovers he has the ability to teleport at will. At first he's afraid of revealing his secret if he ever "lands" somewhere within sight of anyone, but when this occurs a few times by accident, he discovers it's not a problem. Even when he instantly appears right in front of someone, the startled person just brushes it off with "oh excuse me, I didn't see you there" and dismisses it as a failure of their own attention rather than spending even a moment considering the ridiculous notion that he had just popped in.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

** ''Film/GhostbustersII'' picks up five years after the end of [[Film/Ghostbusters1984 the original]], and excuses the public perception caused by a litany of ghosts[=/=]50-foot tall marshmallow man rampaging across New York City for one day by having the populace write the titular heroes off as having created a series of projections. By the time the sequel's plot begins, [[SequelReset the characters have been sued by the city, lost most of the income they generated through the business]], and have been forced to seek other employment, with only Stantz and Zeddemore still doing birthday parties in-costume (and [[Creator/JasonReitman one kid]] dismissing them as heroes). It takes another public incident (the reveal of the Scoleri Brothers after the Ghostbusters have had their gear impounded and a trial launched to find them guilty of illegally accessing city property) for the public to start trusting them again.

* In ''Film/{{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.
* ''Film/TheSixthSense'' is a weird case--the ghosts themselves "see what they want to see," protecting themselves from the TomatoInTheMirror.

* ''WesternAnimation/ExchangeStudentZero'': From how the people [[DullSuprise simply just stood there in shock or pure confusion]] to anything bizzare and strange, probably none of them would be scarred for life.

* ''WesternAnimation/ExchangeStudentZero'': From how the people [[DullSuprise simply just stood there in shock or pure confusion]], probably none of them would be scarred for life.

* Played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''; Hank Hill's unique form of eccentricity makes him literally ''incapable of understanding'' things that strongly contradict his [[GoodOldWays strongly conservative]] GoodOlBoy values. Most notably, in one episode when he meets his wife Peggy's friend, "Caroline", a DragQueen, Hank genuinely believes that "she's" a woman because [[IRejectYourReality he refuses to believe that men would dress as women even after being told the truth]].

* Up until the "Gang War" storyline several years ago, the writers of DC {{retcon}}ned Franchise/{{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 [[EpicHail 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 Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica. And apparently, a guy like Franchise/{{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."

** For a while, ComicBook/ProfessorX would use his telepathic powers to erase the memories of local citizenry. Yes, he has done this to save lives, which is fine, but he used to do this just to simply act as a Weirdness Censor and keep the X-Men secretive. [[MemeticMutation Professor Xavier is a jerk]].

* One appearance of The Abomination had him walking through a crowded street in the rain without being noticed. The Abomination is an eight-foot-tall musclebound reptilian monster. [[NoPeripheralVision Everyone else was staring at their feet]] for fear of making eye-contact with a stranger. Even worse, there was a six-month period of time with him as a teacher of dramatic writing or something, and no one of his students or anyone else for that matter has anything to say of the 8-foot gravely voiced covered from head to feet guy except that "he looks sad" or something. Seriously, if ComicBook/IncredibleHulk used a semi-decent suit he wouldn't attract any attention at all.

* In the first arc of the ''ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}'' solo series, detective Dale Colton explains to Zatanna that people have a lot of trouble accepting the truth about magic, even though Zatanna herself is a world-famous StageMagician with [[MagiciansAreWizards actual magical powers]] who is a member of the Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica. No matter how often there is verifiable documentation of legitimate supernatural affairs people prefer to look the other way and hum really loudly, which explains why magic is still a "secret" in Franchise/TheDCU. This is particularly frustrating, even to Zatanna herself, because here there is no {{Masquerade}}, the supernatural world ''wants'' to be recognized, but the people are not listening. The alternate argument would be that in a world populated by aliens who can fly and shoot lasers out their eyes and gets invaded once a month, most people probably don't really see much difference between natural and supernatural as one could easily be used to mimic the other.

* The ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'' play fast and loose with this trope. The world knows {{mutants}} exist to the point where governments are trying to pass laws against them, there are entire studies done on them, the issue is being discussed in the media, and people are actively protesting for/against them. Despite this, people are usually shocked when they see mutants displaying their powers with only a few exceptions. This even includes ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} who finds the concept of the X-Men bizarre despite the fact that he is a mutant himself.

* In ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'' 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 UpToEleven 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 RealLife if some mishap is going on, they are going to handwave it towards the kobolds as fairy tale, [[AllMythsAreTrue but maybe more true as they want it to be]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' episode "Romeo And Smurfette", when the Smurfs capture Papa Smurf posing as Gargamel after a FreakyFridayFlip and stake him down, they refuse to believe that he is actually Papa Smurf despite the fact that he is clearly speaking to them in Papa Smurf's voice. Since this scene was actually adapted from [[ComicBook/TheSmurfs the comic book]] story "Smurf Vs. Smurf", it's obvious that the attempt to translate this mistake in knowing who's actually in the appearance of Gargamel did not work as well as it did in the comic book, where even Hefty without his tattoo mark in the comic book version of "King Smurf" had trouble convincing his fellow Smurfs who he actually is.

* When you dream your frontal lobe is suppressed. Among other things, the frontal lobe serves as the "fact checker" part of the brain. This is why you don't think anything is weird when (for example) your dog can talk in a dream.

* In prose, at least in early incarnations, the police denied that Radio/TheShadow existed, claiming he just represented a contemporary rumor. In the 1994 Alec Baldwin [[Film/TheShadow 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.)

* In the manga ''Manga/NagasareteAirantou'' [[spoiler: Ikuto has a spell placed on him to cause him to disregard any supernatural events he witnesses and if forced to witness an event to handwave it with a scientific explanation even if his explanation makes no sense. (And double down if he's called out) This was done to prevent him from noticing that his sister is a Youkai because she was worried he'd be scared of her if he knew she wasn't human]].

* The [=iOS=] game ''Plague Inc.'' (similar in many respects to ''VideoGame/{{Pandemic}}'') has several types of plagues that can be unleashed. The "parasite" type has additional abilities that can be [[EvolutionaryLevels evolved]] that hide it from notice by people. In game terms, this decreases the "severity" stat to ''below zero''. What this means is that the symptoms can include nausea, coughing + vomiting (which enables projectile vomiting) and still not think anything is wrong. You can have the entire ''world'' have these symptoms with no one the wiser. It's not until you "evolve" deadly symptoms and people start dying by the millions that anybody starts to consider that something strange is going on. The same can be done with the special Neurax Worm plague type, but that is implied to be a semi-sentient PuppeteerParasite.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': When investigating the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town during the prologue, Pence comes up with "sensible" conclusions that totally ignore some of the seemingly impossible events that Roxas witnesses. Justified since he's a simulation created by DiZ, who's trying to cover up the fact that Roxas is in a computer.

*** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' keeps Paradox, but in this case, it's coded into the very laws of the universe. Human observation will cause magic to decay (due to the Lie), but the very act of performing something explicitly magical runs the risk of the universe (or... something worse) pantsing you. Related to this is Quiescence, the tendency of humans to rationalize and forget anything obviously magical that they witnessed.

** Successfully making your Will saving throw against the [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils demon queen]] Pale Night means that you've managed to activate a Weirdness Censor as a defensive mechanism, since YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm of such a primordial horror. It's implied that her standard appearance, that of a hovering feminine figure wrapped in a billowing white sheet, is some sort of cosmic censor.

* The Marvel crossover storyline ''ComicBook/{{Inferno}}'' had Manhattan Island being overrun by [[TheLegionsOfHell demonic forces]] for what seems like a period of several weeks. Once things return to normal, a very weak {{Masquerade}} blaming hallucinations is accepted by the public. How hallucinations can explain the sheer amount of infrastructure damage or the many deaths during the event or the amount of time lost during those "hallucinated" days, is one question. Why a public that's already accepted the reality of superbeings, aliens and gods would have any trouble believing that New York was attacked by demons is another.