After surviving the first season, when Oli and Eva receive invitations from Joey again (albeit Brainwashed and Crazy this time), they respectively tear up and burn the invitations and defy Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome as a result.
In Season 3 Episode 8, when the group finds the Wicker Man artifact, MatPat tells them not to touch it because of what happened in The Blair Witch Project.
Matt: I've seen enough Blair Witch Project to know you don't go touching creepy stickman in the middle of nowhere, heck no!
In Season 4, Justine is the only one to try and escape her horrible fate, first she tries running, and later she grabs a knife and begins to stab the monster attacking her. Justified as this takes place in an All-Stars season, where she had partaken in a previous season.
In Kane Pixels' The Backrooms, this is Zig-Zagged considerably concerning the ASYNC Foundation. After they open a portal to The Backrooms, they send researchers through to investigate, while following a long list of common-sense safety protocols: researchers must wear Hazmat Suits, travel in groups of no less than three, and carry tethers along with other safety equipment. And, when one researcher encounters the Bacteria entity, they block off the corridor until they can issue weaponry to their employees. At the same time, however, ASYNC is determined to push onwards with its grand plans of using the infinite space of the Backrooms for real estate development, despite mounting evidence that they're meddling with cosmic forces they can't possibly understand.
Let's Player NicoB is known for his Ultimate Bullshit/Plot Guesser powers, which generally boil down to being so genre savvy he repeatedly predicts plot twists before they happen.
Every single character in T.O.T., regardless of their age, is fully aware that they're in a horror novel and do the exact opposite of what a protagonist in a horror story shouldn't do. Unfortunately, Maximus Slade is also genre savvy and makes it hard for the protagonists to survive regardless.
Most of the protagonists in the Whateley Universe grew up reading Marvel Comics and DC Comics, and watching lots of anime, so they're pretty well suited to be growing up as mutants in a superhero universe.
During the Great Microwave Heist, Chad James reveals he's familiar with the Fakeout Escape trope when he and Barbara return from a snack run to find an empty equipment cage. Barbara simply thinks someone let Sam out of the cage.