This Troper plans to test people's Weirdness Censor after his second annual Charity Zombie Walk by just going into [=McDonald's=] and getting food.

This troper saw her grandmother trying to attach an empty coke can to a tree limb. No one looked or commented. It was bizarre even for me.

This Troper was in Reno, Nevada, a couple of years ago with her family when they walked past a drag queen in downtown Reno.

This troper once saw a pile of [=PCs=] outside a room in his school, supposedly heading for the skip. All I had to do was pick it up and carry it around ''all day'' whilst still attending lessons. Not a single teacher or person asked me what I was doing with it, they simply assumed that I must have had a good and valid reason for having it. I even heard a few days after that some teacher had said "Nobody would be that retardedly obvious in trying to steal a PC would they?"

Happens a LOT, This troper knows two such stories. In one a tech walked out with a computer and no one stopped him because everyone assumed he was supposed to take it. In another, a thief was able to successfully rob all the vending machines in a Police Station! The police just assumed that anyone working on a vending machine had to be a repairman. You can get away with some frightening things if you can trigger people to "assume you belong there"

Acting as if you belong somewhere will get you pretty far. It's harder than it looks, however, especially if you're completely new to a place.

Due to having some classes at the high school(I'm in middle school) I have a media assistant period every day just before lunch. I wake up very early, so I'm always very hungry by lunch, and the lines are horrible. So I simply leave the media center about a minute early every day. The lunch ladies and police officer are used to me, so I only have to watch out for the assistant principals.

Another Real Life Example: While volunteering at a hospital as a teenager, this troper found out that as long as you walked confidently and looked busy, nobody noticed the candy-striper checking out the surgical areas, which were normally off-limits. This has proven to be true in numerous other circumstances as well.

This troper works with CCTV and door access systems and as such spends a lot of time in "secure" areas. If you walk around looking like you belong there and maybe carry something important looking nobody will ever stop and question you.

This really should be placed in TroperTales: Bavarian Fire Drill.

This troper has been a semi-pro photographer for three years. In what may be the highlight of his life, he was able to - by knowing the layout of the building where the event was taking place (he works there all the time), striding determinedly, and carrying a camera - sneak in a back door past SECRET SERVICE to get this picture. He's done the same thing quite a few times at smaller events and concerts.

This troper knows a parkour enthusiast who likes to sit on top of tall walls and watch the world go by. He is rarely noticed except by children. When sitting on his favorite wall one day a little girl asked ''Do you ever come down from there?''. Firemen are the adults most likely to look up as they are sensitive to signs of people trapped in buildings.

That's because most people never look up. Or over, for that matter. This troper liked to climb trees in high school, and there was this one very tall tree right outside the library. No amount of waving arms, shouting, or throwing things at the windows could attract her studious friends' attention. Though, admittedly, the library was on the third floor.

Agreed. This applies in real life (though less so any more, apparently. Check the statistics for military recruitment about spacial awareness). This troper has managed to get away with things that never should have occurred simply by seeming to belong. Or by being somewhere no-one expects, and thus never looks.

More boring example- high school. You can go anywhere in the halls during class without actually having a pass as long as you walk quickly(but not too quickly!) and look straight ahead.

Subverted. Got out of trouble in high school for being where I should not be by being friends with the janitors and secretaries and other support staff.

This troper was amazed to discover that no one considered taking a laptop that was just laying on the ground near the computer lab at the college where she goes to for her college prep program; in fact, she even saw someone walk ''right past it'' on their way to class. She took it. [[BlessedWithSuck Unfortunately, the resident mentors found her with it later and decided that she should hand it over to the police.]]

Another incident involved this troper's acquaintance, who said that he could get away with buying beer underage if he ''just looked serious enough''.

This Troper has done that before, having a beard while in high school helps, and he'd tagged along with his brother buying beer often enough that he didn't look out of place in the slightest.

This young-looking Troper, despite being of legal age, would get ID'd going into clubs, but never in pubs, as a result of drinking the most unfashionable drink of all time among my age-group (Real Ale BTW).

This troper loves to hangout in the gardens of a fancy Victorian manor turned local museum after closing time, she just loves hiding among the white statues of Greek gods, pretending she is in the past, and sitting in the rocking chairs on the porch to watch the modern world go by, yet no one notices her, not even the Mexican guys on their break from running a restaurant behind the museum.

This troper, as a child, once got up really early to go watch cartoons (as was his habit on Saturdays) watched a few hours of them then, when he heard his parents waking up, went up to their bedroom to wish his mother, Happy Birthday. '''Father:''' "What do you think of Mum's birthday present?" '''Troper:''' "What birthday present?" '''Father:''' "The colour T.V?" '''Troper:''' "What colour T.V?" '''Father:''' "The one you've just been watching ..." So much for children not having a WeirdnessCensor.

Radioactive Zombie - I give your "weird" car (this is all we get in San Jose) once glance and look away. It's probably some conscious effort to deny the driver any satisfaction of being stared at, not to mention I've seen things that make an acid trip look like a bland office cubicle. Your car ain't nothin' fancy, dawg. Nice color, though.

THIS IS A LONG ONE! In high school me and some friends went on a tour of the college. When we got back we realized that we still had to go to last period. Since we really didn't want to go to class (2 of us really hated our last class) we all decided to just skip and go hang out in town. On the way out we decided to walk as if we had a reason to be in the parking lot and kept the act going as we got in my car and drove out of the parking lot (our plan B was to explain that we were just going to Jessica's house to get her English book, which was originally the plan before we just decided to ditch). When we got to the store we went in and attempted to look like we weren't skipping class. We were all 17, so it wouldn't be hard to mistake us for a group of adults, our problem was that our parents could enter the store and catch us. We bought some energy drinks and sat in my car blasting the radio, then drove back to the school to get our stuff from our locker. Through this all we could've gotten in deep trouble with the school, our parents, and the police, but because we looked like we weren't doing anything wrong we got away with it (the teachers didn't even notice we were gone).

This troper's high school is like that. This troper ran around spinning a leek playing Ievan's polkka out of some not very loud speakers during her school's fun fair. Nobody noticed.

For a high school supposedly very strict about uniform, a surprising number of teachers are willing to ignore this troper, who regularly goes to school wearing Doc Martens instead of school shoes, goggles around her neck, blue thread plaited into her hair and a skull ring. I've even worn vampire fangs once. Nobody noticed until I accidentally spat them out.

People in Israel are so used to death, explosions and violence, that when a man got ran over by a car in a crowded highway, nobody even bothered to leave their cars and help him until 2-3 minutes later. This editor was chatting with an Israeli during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, when the Israeli signed off with "brb, rockets over my house".

As a soldier who fought in said war (on the Israeli side), I can promise that the previous paragraph was over-dramatized. On the other hand, I did have more rocket-attack drills than either fire drills or earthquake drills in the last five years...

Similarly, this troper was once drinking with an American friend in Westminster (the centre of government in London) when a policeman came to the pub door to order the patrons out due to a bomb scare. The American girl was somewhat surprised that everybody present calmly finished their drinks before walking out.

Subverted in just plain stupidity? This troper has read scads of real-life stories where authorities say 'There is a danger' and people just dilly-dally, even if the danger is visible.

This is London, bombs don't mean a thing. Snow, on the other hand, will bring the city to a halt.

You miss the point: this is ''England'', where finishing your beer is infinitely more important than death or serious injury.

Also, this is ''England'', where a mix of very little terrorism paranoia and a genuine faith in mundanity means that they probably assumed it was just a scare anyway. Having no real equivalent to the fear-mongering American right has left us in a state of mind where we're aware that we're too insignificant for a terrorist attack to involve us.

Sounds like what ''this'' troper's seen during tornado warnings in the U.S. Midwest. People born in non-tornado regions freak out, while those native to Tornado Alley just glance outside to see if the sky looks bad enough to ''maybe'' whip up a snack they can take down to the cellar if the walls start vibrating.

Californians behave similarly when faced with earth quakes, with the generally accepted response to a mild tremor being glance around the room to verify that nothing has fallen off of any shelves, and then go back to whatever they were doing before.

As opposed to what? A mild earthquake lasts a few seconds. By the time you've connected "Oh hey, that's not a truck going by" the quake is over.

Bigger earthquakes, on the other hand, happen much less frequently and last longer, so they will attract notice.

There's a particular reaction to hurricanes in this troper's hometown in the Golden Isles of Georgia. People in Savannah nail down everything, while Florida cities like Jacksonville and St. Augustine turn into ghost towns. Brunswick residents sit on the porch to enjoy the breeze, move inside when it starts to rain, and rake the lawn the next day.

Must be a regional peculiarity in Florida. In this Florida native's experience, the only time people react to imminent hurricanes is if they're Category 4 or 5. On days when school has been canceled due to hurricanes, this troper's seen kids spending their day off school by playing in the local park.

This resident of Tornado Alley agrees - at the start of spring the past two years, the local newscasts are all about how 'bad' and 'horrible' this or that storm system will be while I'm like 'YAWN. Put my shows back on and get back to me when 18-wheelers are flying through the air.'

This troper grew up about 300m from the border separating West and East Germany during the cold war, where it consisted only of a small river maybe 10m across, without any fences or such things. There was even a small pub where the kids could get ice cream. The only rule was not to swim to the other side, because of the mine field. People can get used to about everything.

This resident of Fort Worth, Texas agrees with the original statement. When there are severe thunderstorms in the area, many people (including myself) react quite calmly; I'm actually the kind to run ''outside'' with a camera when a tornado warning is issued. On the other hand, this whole region grinds to a halt whenever there is ''any'' kind of wintry weather.

This Grapevine, Texas troper knows that pain. Hail the size of baseballs, tornadoes, freak thunderstorms... it's perfectly normal. We have a drill for when the power goes out from a storm: grab the flashlights, candles, and play a game of Twister after running around outside for awhile.

This troper hails from Seattle, and once came across a man wandering down the street, singing loudly and drunkenly, with a feather boa round his neck and a ''real'' boa constrictor covering up his unmentionables, in broad daylight and no pride parade in sight. Meanwhile, directly across the street, two policemen were harassing this troper for truancy ''on a school holiday.''

In many college towns, if one sees, say, a guy walking around in a gorilla suit accompanied by a walking banana, it's just assumed that it's part of some fraternity prank. God help us if we really ''were'' to be invaded by gorillas and giant bananas.

Who -would- want to pay attention to gorillas and giant bananas? Just don't make eye-contact and hope the weirdos go away.

This troper lived on campus for 6 months before realizing every day before a big game, a man ran around in a gorilla costume for about two hours. I had to be told by my parents to notice anything was up since I had stopped noticing weird things after a week there.

This troper, while walking through his campus, was passed by a Ninja. Nobody else batted an eye. Likewise, nobody at a [=McDonald=]'s glanced twice when two separate groups of people dressed in togas came in to get burgers.

Especially true on Halloween, but the Halloween of 2008, right after the DarkKnight came out saw such an abundant amount of students dressed up as Jokers, Two-Faces, and (for the ladies) Harley Quinns that no one seemed cared after about the third death threat. This Troper put on a button down shirt and left enough buttons undone to leave the top half of a red and yellow S symbol on a blue shirt.. No one noticed. Kenting}} so that's how he does it!

Since Halloween landed on a Sunday this year (note: 2010), we were allowed to wear our costumes to work on the Friday before. I decided to be a vampire this year because it was the cheapest and easiest thing I could come up with. (I just needed the fangs, some nice shoes, and a button-up shirt; I already had the rest covered.) Just one customer commented on the fangs without being prompted. Afterward, a friend and I paraded around town while I was still donning full undead regalia. Not a single person so much as batted an eyelash unless they were prompted. It's a fair bet that the city would be doomed should vampires start invading in broad daylight.

When this troper went to university in the late 80s, one Halloween he was with a friend who was dressed in a trench coat carrying a real Uzi.(He was supposed to be the Terminator.) We greeted the campus police in my dorm, who complimented the friend on his costume. The campus police then went up to "have a chat" with the two stoners in our dorm who were running around shooting people with brightly colored water pistols.

One October, this troper's university had an odd-looking guy walking around campus dressed in all black with a George W. Bush mask. No one paid any attention to him; it turned out we should have when we found out he'd brought a loaded gun to campus

The day before Halloween '09, this troper saw a Soul Reaper at a Yoga class. A few years ago even when it wasn't Halloween, she saw people wearing ''Naruto'' Headbands to class.

Both the Japanese and New Yorkers - hell, any Urban dweller of a major city - are used to odd crazies. Especially the Japanese and Germans.

True. While living in Stockholm this tropers has seen A) Four Italian men dressed as Superman B) Darth Vader in a bondage outfit. Neither of which caused comment or even a glance.

This troper knows a related saying that "If you parked a tank/airplane/giant robot in the middle of Times Square, nobody would notice it after a week".

This Troper's mother has encountered so many celebrities in NYC (she literally ran into one once) but she treats each encounter as if nothing special happened. In particular, Mom felt no need to tell This Troper and her family that we were walking right next to Brooke Shields until we had stopped into a nearby store to get some shopping done.

The 2004 Republican Convention in New York produced a lot of weird protests in response, including a "Naked Protest" next to Madison Square Garden. Mayor Bloomberg laughed it off: "This is New York. Of course we had seven naked people on Eighth Ave. What's the question?"

While visiting San Francisco, this troper saw (1) a man wearing all gold with gold paint all over his skin, (2) a man wearing all silver and again with silver paint all over his skin, and (3) a man painted silver with a funnel on his head a la Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. All three were performing on sidewalks to sell [=CDs=]. All three were mainly ignored.

This isn't really uncommon enough to be weird. Statue People are a dime a dozen in major cities. They also tend to be quite annoying.

If you want to talk a great example of a guy exploiting the weirdness censor look up the bush man on Fisherman's Wharf. He is a guy who hides behind a bush and stands next to the sidewalk and jumps out at people to startle them. He manages to pull this off very frequently in spite of that there are no shrubberies or planters anywhere near the sidewalk on the Wharf.

A Real Life example of an active Weirdness Censor would be when you dream. Fantastical, illogical and downright wrong events, places and people play out ignoring causality and the laws of nature yet while dreaming you'll rarely realize just how bizarre things are and deduce you're dreaming.

And if you figure out that you're dreaming, you can control the dream... making it even weirder, such as when monkeys jump out of their own eyeballs in an attempt to drive your (dreamed) enemies insane.

Example of levels of weirdness: a submarine surfacing in the Serpentine (a landlocked ornamental lake in the middle of a London park)would be very strange, but might not seem impossible (even though it is). A submarine's periscope poking up through the grass nearby, then moving off, creating a trench in the ground; another level of impossible. A rubber submarine constructed of tires on a concrete walkway fifty feet off the ground as an art installation? It gets burnt because no-one can accept it.

Really? This troper can catch whenever he is dreaming. If everything is at least close to normal, he can't tell the difference. But the moment something weird happens, "Oh, this is a dream." That's when the fun begins, like mentioned above.

This troper has set up art installations in urban environments, and can attest that it's true. Also, people never look up.

This really should be placed in TroperTales: Bavarian Fire Drill

Actually in the general public's defense, most of the time such artwork won't be recognizable until it's (nearly) finished - so there's no obvious sign for most of the time that it's not authorized work.

One geocacher often wears a hard hat, safety orange vest with reflective stripes, and carries a clipboard while searching for hidden containers. Highly visible, yet what he's doing escapes notice.

This troper remembers hearing about an article that actually spoke of an experiment of the Weirdness Censor in NYC. Two guys locked a bike up, and then proceeded to try to steal it in various ways. Nobody noticed or did anything about it, even when they took a CUTTING TORCH to the lock, which involved OPENING A NEARBY STREET LAMP to power it.

This is likely due to the audience inhibition effect

This troper once lost the keys to his bike lock at night. Being GenreSavvy, he waited until the next day to buy a bolt cutter and retrieve it by force, knowing that when the street was full of shoppers and the police were present, he was most likely to go unnoticed. He did.

This troper, who attends a school where the non-geeks are the minority, knows this trope first hand, though for slightly different reasons than things being too weird - at her school, it's that weirdness is normal. There's one girl who comes to school in cosplay outfits nearly every day. You can walk down the halls in a cape for no other reason than wanting to, and nobody will notice or care unless they make a passing comment about how cool it looks and go on with their routine.

It's a cloak, actually.

Where is this school, and how do I get in?

Not sure if this counts, but this troper sat right next to his social studies teacher, and would always fall asleep during movies. She never noticed, but the guy 3 rows ahead complained about my snoring.

In the town where this troper used to live, there were two very unusual cars that could occasionally be seen parked around town. This troper suspects they belonged to the same person. One of them had an elaborate and very beautiful mural painted all over it, and the other one had about 200 plastic toys glued onto the roof and hood. Tourists always freaked out upon seeing them, residents were appreciative of the awesome but never reacted to seeing them.

At the 2010 Canadian National Debating Championships at the University of Alberta, This Troper was a judge (and also placed 2nd in public speaking, but that's another story). At the beginning of each round, I would place a stuffed penguin named Thomas Paineguin, which I had bought at the Calgary airport on a stopover, next to me while I judged the round, largely to test this theory. Absolutely no one ever commented on the penguin, with the exception of the last round, and only because I had mentioned it first.

This troper's brother had a weirdness censor moment. The troper had just barely gotten his Microsoft Office disk, after spending a week without even a trial to use. His brother walked in and asked "What'cha typing?" Ten minutes later this troper was telling him what he was going to be typing up tomorrow (today), and his brother asked, "You have Office already?"

I'm from Belfast, Northern Ireland and I was in Paris recently with my dad and sister. We started talking to a couple from Arizona and we mentioned Northern Ireland being on CNN for some rioting in an annoyed but not surprised tone, but the Arizonans were horrified. Though, to be fair, I was really shocked, seeing a (relatively) small amount of rioting on CNN, because I was thinking "Jesus I didn't even think they'd put that on the national news, never mind the world news!"

One of the kids at this troper's middle school is the son of Michael Rispoli, who played Jackie Aprile Sr. on TheSopranos, and Big Joe in {{Kick-Ass}}. Nobody brought it up until shortly after Kick-Ass had come out.

I had an armload of books and was trying to get out the college library door, when a knight held it open for me. An honest to god knight, chain mail and all. The fact that he actually held the door for me was more shocking than his costume (I guess chivalry isn't dead, it's just a few centuries outdated). I didn't even realize how odd it was until I was about halfway home. Even then, I just shrugged it off.

I dyed my hair green once. Normally, I go unnoticed by everyone for the most part, but with the green hair I was downright invisible. People didn't just not notice the green hair, but my entire existence by extension. The most odd example was when the green started to fade out one guy suddenly noticed I had blond hair, up until then he never even noticed my hair was anything out of the ordinary.

They really should only have one fire drill a year. This past year in ninth grade, my class was taking the English EOC when the fire alarm went off. Everyone looked up, then calmly continued the EOC. A minute or so later, the loudspeaker came on, telling everyone there was a fire and everyone should evacuate...but only after the teachers collected the testing materials. All the kids cared about was "I hope this doesn't cause a misadministration."

Last summer, This troper was once walking home on a Saturday morning when he saw a woman hit a small deer with her car. She took a brief moment to wonder in disbelief, but ultimately just kept driving. A few seconds later, the deer stood up and galloped away. This happened in the middle of the CITY! He just decided to chalk it up hallucinations being caused by his hangover.

You don't see it has a phallus for a head and hovers, do you?

Who cares?