Line #29 UnusuallyUninterestingSight/RealLife


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4	[[quoteright:333:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monster_in_the_subway.jpg]]
5	[[caption-width-right:333:Just a demon commuting on the UsefulNotes/ChicagoL. [[https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-subway-people/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic Nothing to see here]]...]]
6	* Things that happen in Russia are "ok" for them. No wonder people on the internet mock the country and nicknamed it "The Country of Madness".
7	** Pointed out in ''Series/TheDailyShowWithJonStewart'' [[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/lstf5e/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-how-i-meteored-your-motherland coverage of the Russian meteor explosion]].
8	* Studies on attention that the human brain is capable of remarkable focus when given a task, to the exclusion of all else. For example, when asked to count the number of passing trucks in a video clip, many viewers will fail to notice the random guy dancing around in a gorilla suit (other variants involve a video camera focused on a couple of guys passing a basketball, with you being told to count how many passes they make). And despite spending significant time looking at such sights, participants in a driving study [[EasyAmnesia could not remember]] details of a scene or signage passed by.
9	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGQHASYusNI Example here]].
10	** In a more recent study, [[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/what-clown-on-a-unicycle-studying-cell-phone-distraction/ a clown on a unicycle]].
11	*** Also recently, a researcher placed a matchbook-sized image of a gorilla in an x-ray that may or may not have barely detectable signs of a cancer. A surprisingly small percentage of radiologists noted the gorilla.
12	** Channel 4 apparently messed this one up when they televised one of Derren Brown's live shows--he had a man in a gorilla suit come on stage and take a banana from a podium that the audience had already been told to watch out for, but at the time it happened they'd been told to concentrate on a woman's reactions shown on screen. Unfortunately for anyone watching on TV, the camera was also focused on the woman, meaning we really couldn't see the gorilla and don't much appreciate being mocked for missing it.
13	** This is especially true for people with ADHD.
14	* People also tend to notice but not react to physical violence between strangers because they don't want to get involved or interrupt whatever errand they are on unless there is a threat imminently endangering themselves or others. The exception would be the numerous people nowadays who whip out their phone to capture the incident on video, which can be extremely useful in a variety of ways, e.g. used as evidence in a murder trial.
15	* A book about the making of ''Series/DoctorWho'' tells about how, before the first Cyberman serial aired, the makers had someone walking around in the middle of London in a Cyberman costume for some reason, and it seemed the costume had a perception filter on it. No one freaked out, no one asked what was going on, and almost ''no one'' reacted in any noticeable way. Best comment was from a fruits and veggies seller who said to his wife: "Must be an advert for one of them new kitchen cleaners."
16	** The same thing happened prior to the filming of ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome''. Paramount had people walking around San Francisco in full Starfleet uniform, or dressed as Vulcans, prior to location shooting. No one noticed. (Even accounting for the fact that a) in a large city people are more likely to assume it's publicity (see Truth in Television below), b) ''Star Trek'' is so much a part of the national culture that it's like clouds or furniture, it's a bit odd that ''no one'' noticed.)
17	* [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/74542573@N00/sets/72157619004094598/ This]] series of images with [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Bowser]] doing political protests.
18	* [[https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-subway-people/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic This series on various people in strange outfits on public transportation]].
19	* "Open carry" is the law in most US states, meaning that unconcealed firearms are legal in public. Notably averted by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYKQJ4-N7LI media coverage]] of protesters outside a Presidential event. A [[http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-17/politics/obama.protest.rifle_1_protesters-weapons-assault-rifle?_s=PM:POLITICS Secret Service]] spokesman noted that the individuals would never have gotten in close proximity to the President, regardless of any state laws on openly carrying weapons. A venue is considered a federal site when the Secret Service is protecting the President and weapons are not allowed on a federal site, he added.
20	** Note, however, that many people do take notice if you walk around with a rifle on your back, and you will most likely be talked to by the police about it, unless you do it regularly. Or have other hunting gear equipped. In many cases, the police are going to ask you to keep the rifle in its sheath and carefully ''closed'', even if guns are supposed to be carried ''openly''.
21	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iViD-iepDxg This guy]] walked into a JC Penney's at a shopping mall with a civilian semi-automatic rifle slung on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip. Both perfectly legal, of course. There was less running and screaming than you might expect, particularly after [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BnA71s0QDI these events.]]
22	* TruthInTelevision: In big cities, you get a lot of strange people to the point where it becomes regular, and many people simply ignore odd behavior to avoid drama, and to not cause a fuss or offend someone for being different. It isn't so much that they don't notice things like strangely-dressed people as that they think it's [[BystanderSyndrome not for them to deal with]].
23	** Also, weird is relative, the natives of major con sites tend to not really notice cosplayers after they get used to seeing them. To them it's no different than a man dressed as Santa in the mall at Christmas. Of course, around con times, the amount of weirdness tolerated rises far beyond normal levels, to the point where one can walk around in full combat gear without being questioned.
24	** Inverted in a common symptom in people affected by ADHD: Even things that are actually uninteresting are constantly getting a second look, making it difficult to stay focused on one object.
25	** This all means that in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, there's probably a lot of outrageous stuff you can do without anyone so much as batting an eye at you. In fact, [[Series/TheDailyShowWithTrevorNoah Trevor Noah]] noted that [[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/tar989/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-new-yorkers-react-to-the-manhattan-bombing when a bomb went off]] in the Chelsea neighborhood, most of the locals's reactions were more of inconvenienced annoyance than of shock and fear. He even noted that another bomb failed to detonate because thieves inadvertently dismantled it while stealing the suitcase it was encased in.
26	** Some cities in Southern California, especially Hollywood's Sunset Strip, has people doing a ''ton'' of strange things, but no one ''really'' notices because that's the capital of the U.S. entertainment industry so people either assume it's publicity or actors taking a break. (Or tourists trying to "fit in.")[[note]]Most of Southern California is actually ''not'' like this. A high percentage of whites ''and'' Hispanics are {{Eagleland}} conservatives to the point of being gun-totin' Evangelical Christians.[[/note]] In other California cities (as in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco) weirdly dressed people may be seen as "just doing their own thing". In the Castro, San Francisco's famous gay district, there are people who walk around completely naked as a way to make a statement about nudity laws, but they've been at it so long no one takes a second look.
27	** Cities that host Comic-Cons (and the equivalent in others countries) doesn't even blink when they see people disguised as comic and videogames' characters.
28	* College towns. There's nothing at all unusual about seeing a bunch of people outside up past midnight in the middle of January wearing who knows what.
29	** Colleges themselves are full of this.
30	* Every once in a while you'll see postal workers in some kind of unusual attire or accessory. The U.S. Postal Service is still, to some extent, lenient on what you wear as long as you get the job done, which is why in the 1960s they were the biggest employer of hippies.
31	* With the way science and technology has progressed over the last 300 years, this trope has repeated itself time and again as people are at first amazed when they see new sights like cars, radios, motion pictures, TV sets, mobile phones... but then come to accept them as normal.
32	* There are (or were) some pictures on Facebook of somebody dressed as [[Series/DoctorWho a Silent]] in a shopping centre, that no one noticed. [[note]]At least judging from the lack of tally marks.[[/note]]
33	* Shuler Hensley, who played Frankenstein's Monster in ''Film/VanHelsing'', said he practiced using the stilts of his costume in [[BigApplesauce Central Park]] and nobody even looked at him.
34	* Just another day in [[http://zombietime.com/ Berkeley]].
35	* Halloween. People dressed in strange costumes that would look suspicious any other time of the year. Some people look like they are covered in blood, but everyone can tell it's fake. The same happens during the Mardi Gras (especially in New Orleans) and the Carnaval season.
36	* Pretty much any time anything unusual happens on [[UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground the Tube.]] Comedian Chris Ramsey (who's from Newcastle) once said that someone could literally burst into flames on the Tube and the most recognition they'd get would be some guy looking up from his Kindle and savagely muttering, "What a prick."
37	** Creator/EmmaWatson, who never stopped looking like [[Franchise/HarryPotter Hermione Granger]], has said that she can take the Tube without being bothered.
38	** When Creator/ImprovEverywhere staged their "No Pants" event, the videos usually showed a lot of confused people staring at the pantless passengers. When the video from the Tube came, at least 90% of the people maybe looked up for a second before minding their own business again.
39	* [[http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.ca/2012/07/heavily-armed-and-bikini-clad-female.html This photograph]]. A bikini-clad Israeli soldier is at the beach with an assault rifle slung across her back and no one else at the beach seems to be paying attention to her. Soldiers carrying assault rifles in public are noteworthy in many countries, but the sight is is ''so'' common in Israel that most people ignore it. It's been said that Israel is the only country in the world where people will walk into a bank with machine guns and get in line.
40	* In UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco and other earthquake-prone cities, a mild quake (III or less on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale the Mercalli scale]]) often gets no notice at all apart from the local news. Slightly stronger ones (IV-V) might garner a glance at the ceiling and some speculation as to the likely magnitude or epicenter, but soon afterwards, it's business as usual.
41	* Meanwhile, in UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} and UsefulNotes/{{Chile}}, Earthquakes are so common that for the most part, people in the big cities with skyscrapers built to withstand them completely ignore the earthquake and go on about their business.
42	** When the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake struck, television viewers across the nation saw the J-Alert system activate on NHK in the midst of a televised meeting of the parliament at Tokyo’s Diet Building. Rather than be scared as the strong tremors rattled the building, everyone [[https://youtu.be/fCVl-DGE3_M merely looked rather annoyed that their meeting had been interrupted]].
43	** A story told by a British tourist involved him being pulled into a lobby of an office building by a police officer, right as a howling typhoon started hurling anything that wasn't bolted to the floor down the road. He reported that the other people simply looked impatient and were waiting for the storm to die down.
44	** Some tourist guides have the added note under weather conditions that you should always orient yourself on the natives. As long as they are calm, chances are that the earthquake, typhoon or tsunami will not harm you.
45	** A blog entry of a German exchange student once mentioned how he stayed on the fifth floor of a hostel in Tokyo when a earthquake happened simultaneously with a typhoon. The owner apparently calmly secured the windows with a wooden plank behind them, turned off the electricity and then everyone waited it out despite the building violently shaking.
46	** A Chilean journalist didn’t even leave his chair during a [[https://youtu.be/-Q7vN5z8GtU?si=iZgYG8jg022paC2y 8.4 Mw earthquake]].
47	** You can tell who is a foreigner and who is a local in this [[https://youtu.be/4Mv9mn6dbGw?si=j6ghOnMTjgFtwBMa airport]] while a 6.6 Mw earthquake shakes Santiago.
48	* [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/farmer-been-naked-40-years-6338871 There's a village in Northern India whose people are used to the sight of a man who can't wear clothes due to a rare skin condition.]]
49	* Anyone who has worked any kind of job in retail or customer service (cashier, server, manager, customer service rep, etc) can confirm that some people can/will do the craziest things in stores. This includes (but is not limited to): throwing loud tantrums (regardless of age), getting into fights with other customers, trying to start fights with employees, destroying displays, stealing, entering the store completely high, entering the store dressed in an outlandish or inappropriate way, entering the store with an animal, etc. You can tell if someone's been in the retail game a while if they can deal with one or more of the above in one shift without showing the smallest amount of interest.
50	* There's a long standing UrbanLegend that numerous Muslims in New York City were seen cheering when the towers fell on 9/11. The problems with this ''should'' be obvious: for one, are we supposed to believe something this outrageous happened yet not a ''single'' person who witnessed it bothered to take a picture or film it?[[note]]A possible source of this misconception may be [[FakeMemories misremembering]] an event (which was widely shown on the news) of Palestinians celebrating in the streets around 9/11. While this did really happen, the celebration was actually due to an unrelated local event. By the time the correction was made, most people were no longer paying attention and went with their initial, wrong impression.[[/note]]
51	* In real life dreams, most people completely ignore or accept even the most ridiculous of things occurring. A major part of this is likely because the frontal lobe (which, among other things, acts as a sort of "fact checker" part of your brain) is less active when you are asleep, essential giving you a self-imposed WeirdnessCensor.
52	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJeaUPXbZhs A Red Line train in Boston derails entering a station]]. People on the platform who were waiting for said train look up at the noise being made, for all of a few seconds, then return to staring at their phones.
53	* In early 2020, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles posted a [[https://twitter.com/Simone_Biles/status/1224457583647309824 video]] on Twitter of herself trying an absurdly difficult double back vault into a foam pit. As one fan [[https://twitter.com/EmilyGiam/status/1224564804578422784 noted]], perhaps the most remarkable piece of the video is that Biles is throwing a move that no woman has ever attempted in competition -- and doing so exceptionally well -- and the people in the background ''don't even look up''. Apparently this kind of thing is business as usual at Biles' gym.
54	* With downtown Pittsburgh home to one of the world's largest [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furry conventions]], locals have long gotten used to seeing people with tails walking around every summer.
55	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEHiTjViicE This viral video]]. Never mind the coup d’état going on behind her, this woman's got a workout to be doing!
56	* A famous example from history: in the 1860s, the legendary explorer and missionary David Livingstone set out to discover the source of Africa's Nile River. He was completely cut off from any European communication, and no one had any idea where he was. The ''New York Herald'' newspaper sent the journalist Henry Morton Stanley out to find him in 1869, a quest that took almost two years. Finally, in 1871--six years after anyone had heard a single word from Livingstone--Stanley walked into the town of Ujiji, in Tanzania, and discovered him. It had been a long, grueling search; Livingstone was the only white person for hundreds of miles, and pretty much the entire world expected that he was long dead. And yet for all that, Stanley simply took off his hat and remarked "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." The phrase--and more specifically, just how unremarkable it was given the incredible circumstances in which it was said--quickly became a cultural touchstone. (It's also possible that Stanley [[ILied made the whole thing up]].)
57	* Creator/MarilynMonroe combined this trope with a kind of ClarkKenting. She was out on a walk in broad daylight in the middle of New York City, talking to Amy Greene, the wife of her personal photographer. Greene expressed surprise that, despite Monroe being one of the biggest movie stars and beauty queens in the world, no one was giving her a second look. Monroe then turned to Greene and asked "Do you want to see ''her?''" When a confused Greene nodded, Monroe changed her posture, walking style, and gestures to better reflect her movie persona--and suddenly, everyone in the city realized that Marilyn Monroe was standing right there and reacted accordingly, slowing down their cars and rushing over to see her.
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Context UnusuallyUninterestingSight / RealLife