History Main / YouHaveToBelieveMe

* Averted in ''Series/StrangerThings''. When Nancy and Jonathan reveal the details of the conspiracy to Murray he says nobody will ever believe it, so they water it down by taking the most damming evidence and leaving out the paranormal parts.
** Joyce falls victim to this trope a bit, seeing as she has both naturally rather prone to anxiety and nervous tension and has been the victim of a campaign of discrediting/gaslighting by an abusive spouse even before her son went missing and gave her very good reason for hysterics, meaning that very few people are inclined to believe her when she insists that her missing son is somehow both alive despite all evidence [[spoiler: including a body]] and yet invisibly haunting the electrics of her home. She is self-aware enough to know both that she lacks credibility and her story is fantastic, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating for her to deal with.

** Lampshaded in the first film, when Winston asks if they are ''seriously'' going to tell a judge that an ancient god to going to destroy the city.

* Generally averted in ''Film/TheMidnightMeatTrain'', where the protagonist (played by Bradley Cooper) is quite reasonable and diplomatic with the police detective, accepting that the evidence he has is not enough to convict Vinnie Jones of being a SerialKiller. Unfortunately, [[spoiler: his paranoiac dedication to finding out the truth drives him crazy]].

* Happens often in ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books--in fact, one of the short stories in the collection ''More Tales to Give You Goosebumps'' is actually titled "You Gotta Believe Me!". Highly justified, as these stories almost always have protagonists whom are 11-12 years old, in which they typically are prone to immaturity and desperation to make someone believe him or her.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': {{Invoked|Trope}} by the antagonists in "[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS6E4Orders Orders]]". [[spoiler:Fives, who has found out that all the clone troopers have mysterious chips in their brains, is drugged with a compound that increases his aggression and paranoia, so when he tries to tell others, like Anakin and Rex, about the chips, he's incapable of expressing himself coherently. It's revealed in the SequelSeries, however, that Rex ''did'' listen, and that he and a few others had their chips removed as a result.]]

* The main character in the famous ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode ''Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'' spends most of the episode gradually slipping into a major anxiety attack after seeing a gremlin on the wing of the plane he's riding on, which vanishes whenever anyone else looks at it, and trying to convince everyone that he isn't going insane. Their concern is admittedly justified, because until recently he'd been a patient in an asylum after suffering a nervous breakdown on a plane, and because he's played by [[Creator/WilliamShatner William Shatner's]] ''completely'' [[LargeHam hamming it up]].

** Used humorously in the ShowWithinAShow, ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone The Scary Door]]'':

* Averted in ''{{Lifeforce}}''. After being recovered from an EscapePod, Captain Carlson starts to tell his interrogator that his story will seem hard to believe. He's interrupted with the news that the extraterrestrial woman that was found on his abandoned space shuttle has escaped, draining the LifeEnergy of several people in the process, so they'll believe a lot more than he thinks.

* In ''Series/SquidGame'', the players vote to discontinue after the first game. Gi-hun immediately goes to the police station to report the games, and it's only after the disbelieving officer repeats his claims back to him that he seems to realize how crazy he sounds.

* [[WesternAnimation TheDeputyDawgShow Deputy Dawg]] is on his way to a "whopper telling" contest (telling tall tales) when he's held up by a flood caused by a giant catfish. He makes it to the contest and explains his tardiness, but Muskie, Vince and the Sheriff all think it's the biggest whopper yet, in spite of Deputy Dawg's insistence it's true.

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the Council is generally considered TooDumbToLive for ignoring your warnings about the Reapers. But then again, Commander Shepard probably could've come up with some much better arguments. [[spoiler: Subverted in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' DLC ''The Citadel'', where Shepard can find a recording tht indicates that the Council arguably knew about the Reapers before Shepard did, but played dumb to prevent panic and because they honestly didn't have a clue about how to address a threat of that magnitude.]]

* In the sixth ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince Harry Potter]]'' book, Harry is suspicious about Draco but unable to keep his calm about the matter, and even his best friends suspect that he's not being entirely sane about the whole thing.

*** He spends most of the fifth trying to convince the world Voldemort was back. Though it didn't help that the Ministry For Magic was deliberately working to discredit him. It also didn't help that Harry and Dumbledore offered no proof at all of their assertions.
*** And in the sixth nobody, including his personal friends, believe him when he says Malfoy is a Death-Eater. This does have an instance of CryingWolf and people do take him seriously at times (like when Mr. Weasley is attacked), but by the end of the sixth book, when Professor [=McGonagall=] is point-blank asking him for his input on something, he keeps it a secret, having apparently decided AdultsAreUseless.

And then they wonder why no-one believes them.

* ''{{ComicBook/Sabretooth}}'' has this with ''{{ComicBook/Deadpool}}'' in his 2016 solo series. Deadpool's memory is not good -to say the least. He doesn't remember killing his parents and mistakenly believes Creed did it. Creed decides to carry the burden -he felt guilty that he watched Wade kill his parents, but didn't stop him. Even when he thinks Wade is about to kill him, he only says that Wade has to trust him & that it's not what--, but Wade cuts him off to reveal he learned the truth.
* ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'': The Ultimates have been told that Thor is just a madman using a technological belt and hammer that gives him powers. In his defense, he says that "Loki" (someone that nobody ever saw) is deceiving them all. He was RealAfterAll, but he ''does'' sounds like a crazy nut when he was saying that.

* In ''VideoGame/KathyRain'', the titular PlayerCharacter is caught red-handed by the local Sheriff after she has broken into [[spoiler:Father Isaac]]'s office and is rooting through his private stuff. The player can choose to have Kathy rattle off a frantic explanation about how she is actually trying to prove that [[spoiler:Isaac]] is behind [[spoiler:the kidnapping of Kathy's friend, Eileen]]. Alternatively, the player can outright {{Subvert|ed Trope}} the trope by choosing a smarter response:

* This seems to be somewhat of a RunningGag for Woody in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'', often to the point he tends to quote this trope almost verbatim:

* Happens often in ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' books--in fact, one of the short stories in the collection ''More Tales to Give You Goosebumps'' is actually titled "You Gotta Believe Me!".

* ''Webcomic/BronzeSkinInc'':Poor Joe gets blamed for the mischief caused by the Saci in Chapter 7. Vanessa thinks he's just making things up, but Dante believes him and tries to help him find the Saci.

-->''Mary:'' I'm sure I could have handled that better.

* ''{{Film/Gone}}'': {{Downplayed}}: Jill acts more reasonably than most characters in this situation, trying to get the police involved in the beginning when her sister disappeared. As she's got no proof of a crime, plus she had already destroyed her credibility with them, they don't believe her. Then her (understandably) desperate, extreme means for searching herself mean they're soon on her tail (for making a witness tell her what he knows by threatening him with a gun, which she isn't allowed to have anyway).

* ''WesternAnimation/MerrieMelodies'': The "Horror Vacation" trilogy (''WesternAnimation/ScaredyCat'', ''WesternAnimation/ClawsForAlarm'', and ''WesternAnimation/JumpinJupiter'') starring ''WesternAnimation/PorkyPig'' and Sylvester the Cat is built around this trope, with Sylvester constantly being terrorized by either malevolent mice or aliens and repeatedly trying to convince his owner Porky that the threats are real, with Porky constantly and snarkily denying it all. Porky even accuses Sylvester of being mentally unbalanced at several instances.

** A good example of this is "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E2RealmOfFear}} Realm of Fear]]", in which minor character Barclay, who has a well-deserved reputation as a twitchy, paranoid hypochondriac, spontaneously develops a fear of the transporters, insisting that he's been bitten by something living '''inside''' the beam. Picard gives him a long, hard look... then tells Data and Geordi to tear the transporter apart looking for the problem, because he knows that Barclay is fully aware of his reputation, and wouldn't risk the humiliation of reporting to him directly unless he were ''absolutely positive''.

* On ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', UsefulNotes/AlGore uses the variant "I'm super-duper cereal [serious]!" during his ongoing [[WindmillCrusader crusade]] to defeat the seemingly imaginary monster [=ManBearPig=]. In keeping with the show's dismissive attitude toward environmentalism at the time that [=ManBearPig=] was first introduced, the monster started out as an obvious WindmillPolitical designed to mock Gore's real campaign against ClimateChange. Then in a much later season, [=ManBearPig=] turned out to be NoMereWindmill, likely reflecting how public opinion has changed about the unavoidable reality of climate change.

# They will never consider sticking to the provable parts of the story for the time being.