History Main / BystanderSyndrome

* Discussed in ''WebVideo/BuzzfeedUnsolved'', in the episode "The Strange Killing of Ken Rex [=McElroy=]," discussing the real case, where [=McElroy=] was shot in the street of his hometown with ''sixty'' witnesses present... and every single one of them told investigators they "didn't see" who shot him. However, as Ryan points out, this isn't because they were apathetic, but because [=McElroy=] was [[AssholeVictim such a monster]] that pretty much ''everyone'' in town wanted him dead--it was ultimately just a matter of who pulled the trigger. Not only did they all collectively refuse to rat out the murderer, no one even bothered to call an ambulance until [=McElroy=] was already dead. Both Ryan and Shane agree that they're actually okay with letting this mystery remain unsolved, and completely understand why no one cared to interfere.

Compare ApatheticCitizens and CallousnessTowardsEmergency. May overlap with UnusuallyUninterestingSight. When authorities are cursed with this, see AdultsAreUseless, ThereAreNoTherapists, and PoliceAreUseless. See also AllPowerfulBystander and SocialMediaBeforeReason. Contrast SamaritanSyndrome, wherein people in authority ''aren't'' cursed with this and it drives them nuts, and WhoWillBellTheCat, where they are deeply concerned until the onus is put on them. If someone with this view is pushing it onto others, it becomes NotYourProblem as well. If they get called out for this or are punished for this, then it's AccompliceByInaction. If someone doesn't help out of spite, that's RefuseToRescueTheDisliked. If a hero who ''could'' easily solve the problem doesn't get involved for some reason, see SupermanStaysOutOfGotham.

Sometimes this is used to demonstrate {{anvilicious}}ly that HumansAreBastards. It can be TruthInTelevision, as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect shown in social psychology]]. Ironically, the famous case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese the murder of Kitty Genovese]] that's still cited as the definitive example and that [[RightForTheWrongReasons inspired research into the phenomenon]] didn't actually involve the trope; the story about dozens of people just watching her being murdered on a public street (in broad daylight, yet) is based on a newspaper article that was mostly false.[[note]]The full story can be found elsewhere, but here's the short version. The attack was committed in an apartment courtyard at 3 a.m. in the winter, so very few open windows and nearly everyone sound asleep. Kitty had a punctured lung, and thus she was ''unable'' to scream for help. Someone opened a window and yelled at the attacker who was initially scared off. Kitty limped to a hallway. Her attacker came back and stabbed and raped her in the out-of-the-way hallway, with no witnesses. Two people ''did'' call the police, and a neighbor found a dying Genovese and held her until the ambulance came. The man who said he "didn't want to get involved" asked his neighbor to make the call, and the neighbor did. There was no 911 then, you had to know your precinct's phone number and pray that the cops didn't arrest ''you'' for bothering them (major reforms in police relations with the public were put in place as a result of this incident). Also, many people in the complex were gay, including Kitty herself; in those pre-Stonewall days, homosexuality was illegal, cops loved to beat up LGBT folks, so they avoided calling any. Much of the police questioning of neighbors revealed a preoccupation with the gay lifestyle, and Kitty's girlfriend was assumed to be the killer because [[SarcasmMode lesbians sooner or later become AxCrazy killers]].[[/note]]

* [[BystanderSyndrome/LiveActionFilms Films -- Live Action]]

* [[BystanderSyndrome/LiveActionFilms Film - Live Action]]

Sometimes this is used to demonstrate {{anvilicious}}ly that HumansAreBastards. It can be TruthInTelevision, as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect shown in social psychology]]. Ironically, the famous case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese the murder of Kitty Genovese]] that's still cited as the definitive example and that [[RightForTheWrongReasons inspired research into the phenomenon]] didn't actually involve the trope; the story about dozens of people just watching her being murdered on a public street (in broad daylight, yet) is based on a newspaper article that was mostly false. [[note]]The full story can be found elsewhere, but here's the short version. Attack in an apartment courtyard at 3 a.m. in the winter, so very few open windows and nearly everyone sound asleep. Kitty had a punctured lung, therefore ''unable'' to scream for help. Someone opened a window and yelled at the attacker who was initially scared off. Kitty limped to a hallway. Attacker came back and stabbed and raped her in the out-of-the-way hallway. No witnesses. Two people ''did'' call the police, and a neighbor found a dying Genovese and held her until the ambulance came. The man who said he "didn't want to get involved" asked his neighbor to make the call, and the neighbor did. There was no 911 then, you had to know your precinct's phone number and pray that the cops didn't arrest ''you'' for bothering them (major reforms in police relations with the public were put in place as a result of this incident). Also, many people in the complex were gay, including Kitty herself; in those pre-Stonewall days, homosexuality was illegal, cops loved to beat up LGBTs, so they avoided calling any. Much of the police questioning of neighbors revealed a preoccupation with the gay lifestyle, and Kitty's girlfriend was assumed to be the killer because [[SarcasmMode lesbians sooner or later become Axe Crazy killers]].[[/note]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': In Volume 1, Teams RWBY and JNPR witness Velvet, a rabbit [[LittleBitBeastly Faunus]], being harassed by [[TheBully Cardin Winchester]]. Despite being disgusted by Cardin's behavior and sympathetic to Velvet's plight, not one of them actually do anything to help her. Volume 5 has a CallBack to this when Ilia, Blake's EvilFormerFriend, states her reasons why she believes the [[AntiHumanAlliance White Fang]]'s violent acts of terrorism against humanity are justified and [[NecessarilyEvil necessary]]; humans either actively [[FantasticRacism hate Faunus]] or stand back and ''let'' the hate happen.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

Sometimes this is used to demonstrate {{anvilicious}}ly that HumansAreBastards. It can be TruthInTelevision, as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect shown in social psychology]]. Ironically, the famous case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese the murder of Kitty Genovese]] that's still cited as the definitive example and that [[RightForTheWrongReasons inspired research into the phenomenon]] didn't actually involve the trope; the story about dozens of people just watching her being murdered on a public street (in broad daylight, yet) is based on a newspaper article that was mostly false. [[note]]The full story can be found elsewhere, but here's the short version. Attack in an apartment courtyard at 3 a.m. in the winter, so very few open windows and nearly everyone sound asleep. Kitty had a punctured lung, therefore ''unable'' to scream for help. Someone opened a window and yelled at the attacker who was initially scared off. Kitty limped to a hallway. Attacker came back and stabbed and raped her in the out-of-the-way hallway. No witnesses. Two people ''did'' call the police, and a neighbor found a dying Genovese and held her until the ambulance came. The man who said he "didn't want to get involved" asked his neighbor to make the call, and the neighbor did.[[/note]]

[[folder: Music Videos]]

%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!

%%
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1458689560099072500
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Invoked in the ''Anime/AdventuresOfTheLittleKoala'''s episode "The Koala Bear Gang". A pair of masked thieves race through the village with Roobear and Floppy in hot pursuit, while the police officers who are supposed to be on duty are nowhere to be found. However, the thieves don't seem to have actually stolen anything, and are strangely concerned for Roobear and Floppy's safety as they pursue them... because the "thieves" ''are'' the police officers, and the "theft" was an experiment to see if any villagers would remain apathetic in the event of a real crime.
* ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' had a few instances when passerby decide to ignore the heroes' home because they were used to strange happenings there and didn't want to get involved.
* ''LightNovel/ArifuretaFromCommonplaceToWorldsStrongest'': Hajime and Yue often ignore problems that they feel don't concern them. For example, Shea begs them for help as she's being attacked by a two-headed dinosaur, but they brush her off and only kill the dinosaur when it attacks them. Shea then begs them to help liberate her village, but they tell her to get lost and beat her up when she persists. It is only when they realize she has the power to see the future that they decide she would be useful and help her. Later, Hajime often ignores people in trouble and has to be persuaded by his harem members to help.
* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', the [[PraetorianGuard Royal Guard]] aka Squad Zero show up only after the Vandenreich decimated Soul Society. When asked why they didn't help even though they were aware of the situation, they flat out state that their only concern is guarding the Soul King and protecting Soul Society is the Gotei 13's responsibility, not theirs. The only reason why they are intervening now is because the Vandenreich proved themselves to be a threat significant enough to threaten the Soul King.
* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' and ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'', many people are like this. In episode 5 of ''Railgun'', Uiharu begs for help as a bank robber mercilessly beats up Kuroko, but the people just walk past her. Fortunately, Mikoto answers her plea. Silvia does not care about any matter that doesn't directly concern her, and gets irritated whenever Ollerus helps people and drags her into it. Many of the good guys, like the members of Necessarius, seem to only do good if the problem directly concerns them, and they just don't get why TheHero Touma [[ChronicHeroSyndrome helps anybody in trouble]] even if he won't get any benefit from doing so.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'': In the first episode, a truck crashes and everyone stands around taking photos and occasionally talking about how "someone" should call somebody. Lelouch (after contemptuously lampshading the way other people fall for this trope) actually runs up to the truck to see if anyone needs help. This is {{Foreshadowing}} for one of the defining aspects of his character; his absolute refusal to think it's somebody else's problem [[ChronicHeroSyndrome if there's something he can do]]. However, the rest of the series does not shy away from showing how much damage this otherwise admirable trait can cause, as Lelouch's refusal to accept a CrapsackWorld and his resistance against it gets ''lots'' of people killed.
** Furthermore, he subverts the trope in Episode 9 to show that he is not too reckless. When Kallen tries to intervene when a group of bullies pick on an Eleven, Lelouch steps in with a more subtle approach by using his Geass on them. He stopped her not because of apathy but her form of intervention would only cause problems for the victim later since he became an Honorary Britannian.
%%* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'': "I don't know, and I have no opinion."
* Enforced by the powers-that-be of ''Manga/DarwinsGame''. Whenever a game starts, they send a signal that affects every non-player in the area within several hundred meters which leaves them in a trance and unaware of anything happening. Move far away enough from the starting point though and a player can encounter unaffected people, which was how Kaname managed to get a police officer's help early on since he was in a moving train. For larger events, the range limit is increased to the entire event area and perhaps beyond and hypnotises all non-players into leaving the area.
* In ''Anime/DeathParade'', a detective turned vigilante refuses to lift a finger to help when he finds crimes in progress. As he callously explains to the brother of a woman whose rape he witnessed but didn't stop, his job is not to help people, but to punish the guilty for their crimes, and there can't be a crime without a victim. He seeks out and kills the criminals afterwards. [[spoiler:He got his KarmicDeath when sneaking into the rapist's apartment to kill him. The brother got there first and killed the rapist, then killed him, thinking he was the rapist's friend.]]
* While ''Anime/DragonBallZ'''s Vegeta isn't ''usually'' like this, he sits out the fight in ''Anime/DragonBallZWrathOfTheDragon'' until the villain crushes his house.
* In the climax of episode 22 of ''Anime/ExcelSaga'', the Pentagon is concerned about the space debris heading towards Earth, but when they're informed it's merely heading towards F City, they immediately dismiss it: "That's Japan's problem."
* In ''Manga/FairyTail'', when Jackal, one of the many villains capable of actually killing another character, comes to assassinate a former councilor, just about no one cares. He sets explosions off all over the town just to piss the heroes off, and when his target runs away in the next chapter, it can be seen that ''no one did anything''.
* In ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'', Agnes always stoically ignores Saito's plight whenever Louise angrily punishes him for his NotWhatItLooksLike moments with other girls, even if she knows for a fact he's innocent.
* ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'' opens with people in a subway watching a drunken hobo fall onto the tracks, and nobody lifting a finger to help, even though they knew the hobo could be killed by a train. One bystander, Kato, decides to jump in and help, with his friend Kurono reluctantly helping. They manage to save the hobo, but get hit by a train themselves for their trouble.
* In ''LightNovel/IsThisAZombie'', Ariel is an extremely powerful magic user, fully capable of curb-stomping nearly any BigBad. Unfortunately, if a matter doesn't concern her students, she doesn't care about it. When Ayumu tries to [[WhatTheHellHero call her out on this]], she just sets him on fire for his insolence and leaves.
* ''Manga/LifeWithAnOrdinaryGuyWhoReincarnatedIntoATotalFantasyKnockout'': Hinata and Jinguuji are walking down the road when they spot the Elf Chieftess bound and gagged in a passing carriage. They ignore it. This decision bites them in the butt, because if they stopped the carriage, they would have known that the next town kidnaps girls as human sacrifices, leading to Hinata getting kidnapped too.
%%* ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'': Umi takes this attitude at first. In the anime, her sword's first [[EvolvingWeapon evolution]] happens when she decides that it really isn't.
* ''Manga/MobileSuitZetaGundamDayAfterTomorrow'': Prior to his time in Karaba, Hayato attempted this, in part to keep his family safe and out of the belief that his war's over, despite being aware of the Federation's festering corruption.
* [[EnforcedTrope Enforced legally]] in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia''. In a world where EveryoneIsASuper, only heroes with licenses are authorized to use their abilities to help people. Anybody else who does is either a villain or an unlawful vigilante, so most people seek to stay out of trouble. Quite a few villains are ''incredibly'' bitter about this attitude, especially Tomura Shigaraki, who despite being a child destitute on the streets and clearly in need of help no one was willing...and the one that did was [[BigBad All for One]]. Because he attempted and failed to avert this trope, leading to a victim being injured, Danjuro Tobita (a struggling student who would later become the villain Gentle Criminal) suffered massive legal ramifications, was kicked out by his parents, and expelled from his hero school, losing any chance at becoming a licensed hero. [[spoiler:It gets so bad that, when Paranormal Liberation War causes various heroes to either be killed or retire, the civilians throw a fit at those who are still trying to protect everyone, going so far as to try and throw Deku out of UA High in the fear the villains will come after them. It takes Uraraka and a civilian who first met Deku to convince them to stop it.]]
* Enforced in ''Manga/MyNewDevilWife'', the guild staff, despite being very, very fond of the protagonist, Theo, can do nothing in response to seeing him abused, bullied, and exploited by his fellow mercenaries since the rules expressly forbid them from interfering, to their ire. All the receptionists can do is glare at the offenders, which the offenders ignore.
* ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold'': Mendoza spots a local being chased by soldiers right when he's about to board a ship. The captain's ship advises him against getting involved because Mendoza is a wanted man. Mendoza is willing to follow his advice until he realizes the man whom the soldiers are chasing is a friend of his, so he goes to his rescue. The captain remains unfazed, though, and orders to set sail as scheduled.
* Invoked by [[BigBad Fate]] in ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'', when he tries to convince Negi not to interfere with his plans to destroy the Magic World. His argument was "This isn't your world, it's just a fantasy, and you really shouldn't interfere in its affairs." This is before Negi discovers [[spoiler:[[TheHighQueen who his mother is]].]]
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** The Navy seems to have this action towards slavery. Despite it being illegal in the series, they do nothing to help stop it or even help protect any slaves that come to them. If it is a World Noble's slave, they are even tasked to get them back. No Navy officer has been shown to have a problem with this.
** For many years, the people of Wano Country has kept themselves isolated from the outside world, ignoring several major events such as the Paramount War.
* ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'': Ruby says he doesn't care about Team Aqua and Magma's plans that endanger the Hoenn Region, as he's from Johto and only came to Hoenn to participate in Pokemon Contests. Several characters, especially Sapphire, call him out on this, and he eventually decides to help.
* Happens on a mass scale in ''Anime/PsychoPass'' [[spoiler:when a man beats a woman to death in broad daylight with hundreds of witnesses, and not a single person does anything to intervene. This was done as part of a demonstration to show that people have become so accustomed to the [[BigBrotherIsWatching Sibyl System]] managing their lives that they no longer have any ability to do so themselves - many of the onlookers are so used to depending on Sibyl to shield them from danger and violence that they simply can't comprehend what they're watching.]]
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': Kyuubey only cares about things related to his mission, and is perfectly willing to [[spoiler:let the Earth get destroyed]].
* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'': Kenshin's master Seijuro Hiko taught Kenshin everything he knows about swordsmanship and [[StorybreakerPower is strong enough]] [[AllPowerfulBystander to curbstomp every other fighter in the manga]]. Unfortunately (or fortunately, for the antagonists) he's just too apathetic and antisocial to be bothered to get involved. He does [[HeroicNeutral give Kenshin a break once]], though. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that one of the core tenets of his school of swordsmanship is that its practitioners shouldn't get involved in wider political affairs due to the tendency of [[OneManArmy absurdly skilled warriors]] to singlehandedly influence the course of history, especially during times of political unrest.
* {{Subverted}} in ''Manga/CodenameSailorV'' (the manga of which ''Manga/SailorMoon'' was spun off from): Artemis often questions Minako's ChronicHeroSyndrome, but it's because of her declared motivations (showing up cops, that she hates) and her tendency to get distracted-and possibly forget there are far bigger problems around.
* Kanako Oora in ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' has this as her defining character trait. To her, everything else is somebody else's problem. Like, say, a huge pile of corpses in the classroom after one of Chiri's rampages. On the other hand, everybody calls her magnanimous for not judging you for your problems.
* ''Anime/VividStrike'': As is the case with most schools in real life, none of Rinne's classmates did anything to help her when she was being tormented by bullies out in the open. Some of them did give her sympathetic glances, but it was never anything more than that.
* ''Anime/WonderEggPriority'':
** [[TheHero Ai]] used to have a case of this, as she backed out of filming her friend Koito's bullies because she got scared, and as she laments, she stood by and pretended not to see what Koito was going through. Now, she's trying to [[TheAtoner make up for this by protecting others]].
** Symbolically, the Seeno Evils, the hench-creatures of the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Wonder Killers]], represent this, as they represent people who see cruelty going on but do nothing to stop it.
* If it doesn't involve his [[MoralityPet little brother Mokuba]], his company [=KaibaCorp=], his position as a duelist, defeating Yugi Muto, or owning the most powerful cards (particularly ones related to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon), this defines Seto Kaiba of the original ''Manga/YuGiOh'' to a T. But at some point after the series ends, he starts caring enough to devote a significant part of his [[Fiction500 vast fortune]] into creating Duel Academia, a school intended to deal with all the magical consequences of Duel Monsters. Thus setting the stage for ''Anime/YuGiOhGX''.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In ''ComicBook/CivilWar'', the ComicBook/XMen decide that [[SuperRegistrationAct the SHRA]] is not their problem, since they're too busy rebuilding their race. The thing is, whoever the X-Men sided with would've won then and there, and the SHRA itself is just a version of the Mutant Registration Act that keeps coming up in X-Books, so the X-Men really didn't have much of an excuse, since they've always opposed registering superpowers. Conversely, in ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'', the X-Men call out the Avengers for not being more responsive to the frequent attempts at ''genocide'' that mutants have to fight off on a regular basis. Characters/{{Emma Frost|WhiteQueen}} claims that this stance is due to superheroes on both sides [[SupermanStaysOutOfGotham not helping with the X-Men's Genosha crisis]], but Emma's [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor not always one for doing the right thing anyway]].
* ''ComicBook/{{DMZ}}'': Wilson has kept [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs his army of "grandsons"]] out of several fights and military incidents because it either isn't their fight, isn't their war, isn't something that concerns them, etc. Wilson's only concern is building up his power in China Town/among the Chinese, and working towards being the most powerful force in Manhattan.
* ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'': Batman couldn't care less for whatever happens outside Gotham City.
* ''ComicBook/TheFoxHunt'': Paul tries to [[InvokedTrope invoke this trope]] during a bank robbery he and his son Shinji get caught in as a means of attempting getting out of the Vigilante business. Due in equal parts to his son choosing to ''get into'' said business and his Paul's own [[ChronicHeroSyndrome self-dishonesty]] regarding the matter, however, [[SubvertedTrope this doesn't quite work]].
* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'': Retellings of "ComicBook/TheComingOfGalactus" often struggle to explain what ComicBook/TheAvengers and other super-heroes were all doing while the Fantastic Four stood alone saving the world.
* ''ComicBook/Jonesy2018'': While Ripley is blowing the alien out of the airlock Jones is just licking himself.
* ''ComicBook/TheMagnificentMsMarvel'': In issue #8, Kamala muses on why this bystander syndrome is so tempting in the first place: there are some problems in the world that just seem unstoppable, and it's tempting to just let them grow when chances are you'll just keep getting defeated.
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In his SuperHeroOrigin, Peter Parker let a burglar run right by him when he could have easily stopped him because he didn't think it was his problem. [[MyGreatestFailure He would regret this for the rest of his life]].
* In ''ComicBook/StarWarsRepublic'' Tusken-raised Jedi A'Sharad Hett knew [[FallenHero Anakin Skywalker]] personally, and learned of Anakin's genocide of his people but neglected to report or confront him, believing that he needed to face his inner darkness himself. Instead, with nobody holding him accountable for his actions Anakin went JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope and [[FinalSolution destroyed the Jedi Order]], which Hett blamed himself for. This triggered Hett's ''[[TheParagonAlwaysRebels own]]'' StartOfDarkness, [[spoiler: resulting in him becoming the last Sith Lord, [[ComicBook/StarWarsLegacy Darth Krayt]]]].
* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': At the beginning of the ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'' storyline, two Kryptonians witness a car crash as wandering around Metropolis. People expect them to use their powers to help out, but they just shrug their pleas off and fly away.
* Many comic books in the early 1970s had an advertisement for Aurora Plastics' "Monster Scene" figural kits, with models of ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}, a MadScientist called Dr. Deadly, Frankenstein's monster and a "girl victim" along with numerous torture devices. The ads have been described as "openly sadistic and even nihilistic", including Vampirella responding to the girl's screams with "Don't worry, this is New York, no one will help her." (MoralGuardians outrage caused the ads to be toned down and ultimately this type of figural model kit to be discontinued.)
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'': The material used to make Rorschach's mask was intended for a dress for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese Kitty Genovese]], the namesake of Genovese Syndrome, also known as the "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect bystander effect]]". Rorschach himself recounts the incident -- in the incorrect "everyone just watched" version -- and it seems to inform his view of the world and people.

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* There's one ''ComicStrip/MisterBoffo'' comic where all of the passengers one one side of an airplane are panicking. The passengers on the other side of the plane sit quietly and confident, because, as one of them brags, "We've still got ''our'' wing!"

[[folder:Fairy Tales]]
* In the original "Literature/TheWolfAndTheSevenYoungKids" tale, the wolf goes to a miller in order to paint his hands and feet white to fool the young goats. The miller is argued to be in a position to outright refuse to give service, only he gives in to the wolf's threats of eating him with the quote "Yes indeed, that's the way people are".
* The groom of the princess in "Literature/TheSixSwans"/''The Twelve Brothers'' both gives into his mother's decision to burn her at the stake and does nothing at all to intervene in the situation. Same applies to the original siblings' mother that doesn't bother to directly oppose her husband's decision to execute his 12 sons.
* The father in "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" does nothing to stand up for his daughter's abuse, nor does he seem to notice the memory of his late initial wife.
* In "Literature/{{Morozko}}", the old man does nothing to defend his daughter from his wife's cruel mistreatment, and when the old woman demands he abandons his daughter in the woods to die, he ''goes along with it'', even if reluctantly.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/AllAssortedAnimorphsAUs'': In "What if Tom's yeerk got the morphing cube from David first?", the teachers watch apathetically as Tom beats up David, and the students pay no more attention than a glance to them. The author said in the comments that it was inspired by the [[Series/{{Animorphs}} live-action TV show]], where a lot of drama went down in the school's corridors, but even non-Controllers turned a blind eye.
* ''Fanfic/AllMixedUp'': Olive and Otto ride the tubes and end up in the tank of Diesel, a [[MixAndMatchCritters dolphin-shark hybrid]] who proceeds to throw them around the tank before they even have a chance to breathe. Otto gets attacked first, and all Olive can do is watch in horror. Subverted when she snaps into action after a couple seconds and goes to help him out, only to get attacked herself.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/22257007/chapters/58941091 Breaking The Bough]]'', Felicity Renoir, the teacher who replaced Caline Bustier, believes this is the main problem for all of Bustier's class. During her interview with Adrien, she discovers that despite being aware of both Chloe and Lila's problems, he has never tried to stop them beyond trying to make them a better person by being nice to them. She even gives the whole class an assignment on the Bystander Effect to hopefully teach them to prevent bullying and other harmful scenarios.
* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'':
** Anguirus says that he only fights to protect his own kind, the {{Kaiju}}, and doesn't care about humans. When dragons attack a pony camp, he ignores it until he realizes that since he's been turned into a pony, they are his kind.
** When Ponyville is overrun by a swarm of Destroyah babies, Discord can't be bothered to help because the only character he really cares about is Fluttershy and she's not in Ponyville right now. After the situation is contained, Fluttershy shames him into repairing the town with his powers.
* In ''Fanfic/TheDarkSideOfTheMirrorVerse'', this is [[MirrorUniverse Mirror!Fluttershy's]] entire worldview. She doesn't see anything as worth doing unless she somehow benefits from it in some way, and does the bare minimum required to actually get by, so ignores bad things happening she could have stopped. [[spoiler:It's implied that this has to do with Mirror!Spitfire's treatment of anypony who stood up for Rainbow Crash.]] Deconstructed when [[spoiler:Captain Goodguy points out this can have a ''nasty'' ripple effect: if it isn't your problem now, it very well could become it if not taken care of, or the problem of somepony you care about.]] It's also implied that [[spoiler:Captain Goodguy ''used'' to have this, but [[MyGreatestFailure learned this lesson the hard way.]]]]
* From ''[[WebVideo/DeathNoteTheAbridgedSeries1KidsEntertainment 1Kids Entertainment's Death Note The Abridged Series]]'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g5C0EvT01k&feature=PlayList&p=03389DC24AABE458&index=6]]:
--> '''[[Manga/DeathNote L]]:''' ...and in this footage you can see various pedestrians who clearly don't give a $h!t that somebody near them just collapsed and died.
* From ''[[WebVideo/DeathNoteAbridgedDogface701 Death Note: The Abridged Series (Dogface701)]]'':
-->'''Raye Penber:''' I'm dying! Somebody help me!\\
'''Random Pedestrian 1:''' Shut up {{Emo}}!\\
'''Random Pedestrian 2:''' We have problems too, you know.
* Discussed in ''Fanfic/DirtySympathy'' when Apollo asks himself if he had spotted Klavier's abuse wounds at the pharmacy instead of the other way around. He admits that he probably would have ignored Klavier and left him to his [[DomesticAbuse fate.]]
* ''Fanfic/{{Dominoes}}'' is a particularly ironic example. Being a superhero AU DeconstructionFic starring the ''Manga/CaseClosed'' cast, half the characters are teenage superheroes who, despite the fact that they are being trained to be active problem-solvers in any crisis, are standing aside, permitting, and even reinforcing the psychological and emotional abuse of someone whom they once (and supposedly still do) considered their equal, friend, and family - because higher authorities responsible for this abuse have assured them it's for the best to treat them this way. For the record, the "higher authorities" in question is the teen superheroes' mentor, Kudo Yusaku, who is also the father of the victim, Shinichi, and the abuse leads to the superheroes actually impeding justice to prevent Shinichi from helping others and thus make him feel more powerless, up to and including Yusaku ''mindwiping Shinichi and controlling him like a puppet,'' having the police confiscate and then bury Shinichi's evidence of a string of 40+ child kidnappings, and then calling Shinichi's belief that these crimes occurred a "conspiracy theory." [[spoiler:[[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Unsurprisingly]], Shinichi comes to believe that the superheroes are corrupt and impeding real justice and aid to those who need it, [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal causing him to side with one of their enemies on account of this enemy somehow being more willing to help save these forty children]].]] The entire time, the teen superheroes claim to be Shinichi's friends (and one even his girlfriend, who still proclaims that she loves him), but stand aside and allow this abuse and injustice to happen. [[spoiler:Because of this, when the chance to save one of the children goes awry, there isn't enough time for another; Part 1 [[DeathOfAChild ends with a child's death]] in large part because of the delay in focus and aid caused by Yuusaku and the Irregulars setting up metaphorical roadblocks. And they only realize this at the last minute because they were so busy stranding around depriving Shinichi of aid and support that no one bothered to look deeper at what he was actually trying to accomplish until it was too late.]]
* In crossover story ''Fanfic/EchoesOfYesterday'', [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]] arrives at Winslow High to rescue [[Literature/{{Worm}} Taylor]] and finds a throng of girls gathered around the locker and standing still while listening to Taylor's cries and pleas for help.
* ''Fanfic/EnneaSeries'': The civilians present when [[spoiler:Hawks is kidnapped by [[SerialKiller Kaetsu]]]] do not attempt to help the victim. Some ignore what is happening while others wait around for someone else to call a Hero to help. The victim attempts to avert this by directly going to a couple for help but the kidnapper tricks them into thinking [[spoiler:the wingless Hawks]] is his drunk fiancee and pulls him away.
* In ''Fanfic/TheGoodHunter'', Cyril struggles with this in Chapter 2. Witnessing the commotion of a noble kicking a fallen form of a young man with his hands up, he repeatedly tells himself not to get involved. [[SubvertedTrope Until]] Cyril sees red, that is.
* In ''Fanfic/HorseshoesAndHandGrenades'', the Kamen Rider Club ''heavily'' blame themselves for not stopping Meteor from killing Fourze like in the original series. In the side story ''Tears to Shed'', the resurrected (and brainwashed) Gentaro [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech calls them out on this]] because they stood there while he got killed off and they never stepped forth to save him. Moreover, this trope is deconstructed with Yuki because all the antagonists will remind her on how she only cried "Stop!" just as Meteor gave Fourze the one-inch punch.
* In ''Fanfic/InfinityLegionHeroesUnite'', the Observants refuse to do anything about the Darkentors, stating that they're too powerful to handle and should just be left to their own devices.
* In ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone'', the G'heddi'onians and their guards appear to feel that the marauding hordes of the Black Tower and the impending death of the Pyar gods are Somebody Else's Problem—that is, these problems are there for the outworlders to fix. The four really resent being asked to do things that logically the city guards should have done (e.g., rescue a kidnapped baby), and eventually get to the point where they themselves feel that these things are Somebody Else's Problem.
%%* In ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'', any public act of violence seems to be accompanied by this trope.
* ''Legend Of The Rising Star'': Averted, for the most part. One prominent example - Shining Advent was founded by Lelus and Attemi for the very reason of protecting Crypton Province from all the crime and misery because they felt like they could make a difference.
* In ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'', [[AntiHero Kyril's]] main reason for fighting against [[HiredGuns the]] [[ArmyOfThievesAndWhores Black]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil Dogs]] is to [[DefiedTrope defy this trope]], reasoning that he bears the shame of doing nothing if he stood by allowing them to cause harm to a nation that has done nothing to deserve its fate.
* ''Fanfic/PartingWords'':
** This mentality is part of why bullying has become such an issue: most who witness the CMC getting bullied assume their families are already aware of the issue, so they don't get involved. Making matters worse is that Apple Bloom has come to believe her big sister flat-out doesn't ''CARE'', as her attempts to tell her have gotten constantly blown off. Fixing the damage this has done to their relationship becomes part of the focus in the sequel, ''Fanfic/TheGreatAlicornHunt''.
** On a funnier note, when going incognito Celestia and Luna wear absurd outfits (the one we see makes Celestia look like a member of a barbershop quartet, but they both have a closet ''full'' of things set apart to assemble strange outfits) and then apply the Not My Problem Spell, that makes people unwilling to think too hard about it and thus recognize the "unusually tall fellow" as a Princess. Still, they have to take care and not be ''too'' enthusiastic about it, lest they become effectively invisible and get run over by a carriage (nearly happened).
* ''Fanfic/PictopiaII'': In the backstory, Nocturno was visiting Red Bumsteer, a friend's wife who had fallen on hard times, when Judge Doome and the Regulator came to arrest Red for prostitution. Nocturno was so frightened of those brutal vigilantes that he did absolutely nothing when they shoved him aside and took Mrs. Bumsteer away from her children, and he never forgave himself for it.
* In ''Fanfic/ThePrincessAndTheDragon'', Seto Kaiba once again embodies this trope. He lives in the vicinity of Hermos, has two fully-grown white dragons who obey him implicitly, and could have intervened far sooner than he does, but until Jou makes him an offer he cannot refuse, he is determined not to get involved. He's not a citizen of Chronas, so the affairs of the local royalty aren't his problem, at least in his eyes.
* In [[Creator/DetsniyOffSkiword Profesor Layton Vs Jack The Raper]], at one point, [[Manga/DeathNote Watari]] enters UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground, and pulls a sniper rifle on the receptionist, even firing a warning shot. Nobody else responds to this situation.
* The fic ''Fanfic/ShowaAndVampire'' has a very strange '''unintentional''' example. The multiple protagonists are all extremely powerful superheroes, for example possessing multiple powers that would, individually, be the hero's main gimmick in an action show. All of them have some kind of heroic lineage too, either from being the son of a powerful hero from a canon series or being [[TheChosenOne the chosen inheritor]] of the legacy of a series of superheroes. They know an organization of supervillains and cyborgs are out to take over the world. But the thing is, the fic spends so much time on these characters' personal baggage, their love lives and their high school hijinks, it never gets around to having the heroes actually do anything about this evil organization. They only fight it when its members show up at their school, to personally attack '''them'''.
* In ''Fanfic/SonicOriginsRi2'', this was what made the culling go on without any objections until Shade stepped up and killed her own superior. Every single recruit was waiting for another one to oppose this plan, that and years of boot camp have made them too conditioned to disobey orders. Shadow explains just why it is so horrifying.
* In ''Fanfic/SuperMarioWorldMaxLandis'', Queen Bean refuses to get involved in the war, seeing it as a Mushroom Kingdom problem.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' fic ''Fanfic/UnwantedFreeUglyTroll'' has this as the reaction to an abandoned young troll in a box on the street, even from the main character Dave. It's only when Dave is heading back through hours later, in the pouring rain and with no one else around, that he makes it his problem and rescues the little thing. The rest of the story concerns him adjusting to a life of abandoned trolls being his problem, and his attempts to make others care as well.
* In ''Fanfic/VoyagesOfTheWildSeaHorse'', the village of Shay-Lot is being terrorized by a murderer and has stopped all ship construction as a result. Marine Captain Malibu refuses to investigate the case as Shay-Lot is not directly affiliated with the World Government, and as such it's outside his jurisdiction. He instead spends more than a week complaining about how the giants are refusing to build his ship. When the Nerimans arrive and catch the murderer in less than a day, Malibu complains about how the giants prioritize giving their saviors a new ship over his crew.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'': Marlin and Dory find the ocean has as many helpful neighbors as it does folks who don't care about their quest and want nothing to do with it. The pelicans in the page quote are quite happy to gossip about others but only Nigel bothers to help their choking peer.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'' when Homer and Family escapes Springfield via Sandbox, Wiggum says that they are [[DiggingToChina China's]] problem now.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/{{Airplane}}'', fully a third of the gags are set up by contrasting the terrible things happening and the passengers' [[SelectiveObliviousness complete indifference]] to them. Examples include the unconscious bodies of the pilots being dragged through the aisle, a [[LittlestCancerPatient little girl]] nearly dying after her IV gets knocked out, and the OffscreenCrash near the end.
** The passengers in ''Film/AirplaneIITheSequel'' react with utter stoicism to being told that the lunar shuttle they're on is off course and being hit by asteroids. Being told they are [[MustHaveCaffeine out of coffee]] induces a full scale riot.
* At the climax of ''Film/AllTheMoneyInTheWorld'', Paul asks several strangers in a small Italian town for help, only to be refused every time. One baker tells him they “can’t get involved.”
* In ''Film/TheBoondockSaints'', a priest's sermon denouncing this attitude (with reference to the infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese Kitty Genovese murder]]), combined with them witnessing [[TheMafiya the Russian mob]] shake down the owner of their preferred watering hole, motivates Connor and Murphy [=MacManus=] to become {{vigilante|Man}}s.
* ''Film/BigJake'': "I haven't interfered in anyone else's business since I was eighteen years old... and it damn near got me killed!" He changes his mind when he witnesses a KickTheDog moment on the part of one of the goons.
* ''Film/BlindChance'' plays it for laughs, but comes also with a subtle political undertone. The protagonist, Witek, ends up betrayed by a high-ranking Party official, Adam. In a fit of rage, he storms the office of the big-wig and starts to beat the man, right in a middle of a conversation with other Party members. Everyone present is just staring in confusion, because who would even ''dare'' to do such a thing. Eventually Adam, also confused by their stupor, [[PrecisionFStrike shouts]] for help.
* Seems to be a prominent theme in ''Film/{{Brazil}}'', notably at the beginning; when the wrong man is arrested and dies under torture, all any of the departments care about is that the problem doesn't trace back to them.
* Rick Blaine in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'' appears this way for a while ("I stick my neck out for nobody"), especially when he seems willing to turn over a resistance leader to the Nazis because he is married to Rick's former lover. Eventually, however, we see that Rick isn't nearly as selfish as he lets on.
* Several times in the German film ''Film/DerLetzteZug'', which depicts the six-day journey of the last Berlin Jews to Auschwitz, the eponymous train stops at stations and the imprisoned passengers beg passersby on platforms and other trains for water and food, but are ignored. It comes as a welcome surprise when trope is eventually [[AvertedTrope averted]] by a group of Wehrmacht soldiers.
* ''Film/TheEmperorAndTheAssassin''. The entire royal court stands by while Jing Ke tries to kill Ying Zheng (someone shouts uselessly, "Draw your sword!" but only one court official actually helps him do so). After the assassin fails, the Emperor is understandably pissed and roars at everyone to GetOut.
* ''Film/GhostsOfWar'': As it turns out, this is why the chateau [[spoiler:in the computer simulation]] is being haunted by the Helwig family. [[spoiler:The soldiers were supposed to be protecting the Helwigs from [=ISIS=] in the real world, but simply hid in the wall when they showed up at their house. They also ultimately did nothing when the Helwigs were tortured to death by [=ISIS=] for helping the Americans. The soldiers were then cursed by a dying survivor (who tried to kill them in a suicide bombing) to be haunted by what they didn't, or rather, what they didn't do in that moment by the angry ghosts of the Helwig family]].
* ''Film/TheGodfather'': {{Exploited|Trope}} when Michael shoots two rivals in the middle of a restaurant, drops the gun, and leaves without the customers or staff doing anything to stop him. When being instructed on how to commit the murder, he's told to drop the gun out of sight so everyone will think he's still armed and therefore be reluctant to take him on.
* In ''Film/GodToldMeTo'', a man walks past a door behind which a murder is being committed. He hears the victim gasp, looks over his shoulder for a moment, then continues walking.
* ''Film/TheGreatWaldoPepper'': After Ezra crashes, the spectators all rush out to look at the wreckage, but none of them move to help as Waldo tries to pull him from the wreck, even when it catches fire.
* In ''Film/HardcoreHenry'', Jimmy and Henry are walking over to Jimmy's laboratory when they spot three corrupt cops attempting to rape a woman. Jimmy says to move along because they have more important things to do. Henry can't bring himself to ignore it and marches over to kick their asses. Extremely annoyed, Jimmy shoots the beaten up cops and orders Henry to stop wasting time.
* A man on the street frantically screaming "They're here!" only to be ignored / [[CassandraTruth assumed mad]] in most if not all versions of ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers''.
* ''Film/{{Irreversible}}'' has a woman brutally raped in an underpass. While the camera focus is on the action, the background shows someone enter the underpass, take a look at what's happening, turn around and walk away without even calling the cops.
* ''Film/KennyAndCompany'':
** Kenny and Doug leave a dummy lying in the road to prank drivers. A car screeches to a halt in front of the dummy, and a male voice says, "Holy Christ, Martha, it's a dummy!" A female voice says, "George, don't run over his head!" The car then maneuvers around the dummy and goes on its way, with neither person making any effort to get help.
** Later, Kenny and Sherman witness a car crash in which a man is badly injured and possibly killed. Instead of calling for help or waiting for the police, they flee in terror.
* ''Film/TheKingOfMarvinGardens'' opens with David telling a (completely made up) story about his grandfather, who used to choke on fish bones during dinner. His mother would send him or his brother Jason into the kitchen for a heel of bread, which would help their grandfather swallow the bone and breathe again. One day, the brothers were eating alone with their grandfather when he started to choke. Without anyone to give them orders, David and Jason sat in silence while he turned red. Eventually David went into the kitchen for a heel of pumpernickel, but instead of giving it to their grandfather, he and Jason passed it back and forth until their grandfather died.
* ''Film/KissOfTheTarantula'': A VW Beetle full of teens in full screaming panic mode -- one of whom smashes her head through the (non-safety glass) window and another ends up strangled by the door frame -- in the middle of a drive-in movie, and no-one notices until the night watchman comes to shoo them off?
-->'''[[Podcast/{{Rifftrax}} Bill Corbett]]:''' So everyone at the drive-in movie just ignored the car full of dead teens?\\
'''Kevin Murphy:''' Yep!\\
'''Bill:''' Cool town!
* Similarly, ''Film/LastActionHero'' has the villain, after he's transported to the real world, shoot a man in an alley to test a theory.
-->'''Benedict:''' ''[shouting in the street]'' Hello! I have just shot a man and I did it on purpose! ''[[[ChirpingCrickets silence]]]'' I ''said'', I have just murdered a man, and I wish to confess!\\
'''Citizen:''' Hey, shut up down there!
* ''Film/LeoTheLast'': While Leo is out walking, he sees Salambo's father have a heart attack in the street while his son screams for help. Leo watches, frozen, until some neighbours run over to help him inside. Leo's guilt over the incident is part of what motivates him to start actively helping other people.
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'':
** ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'': N'Jobu and Killmonger accuse Wakanda of being this due to the country's isolationism. According to Killmonger, by refusing to aid its neighbors for the sake of preserving its secrecy, Wakanda has allowed its fellow Africans to suffer from colonialism, slavery, poverty, and racial segregation. This sentiment was similarly evoked by his father N'Jobu [[spoiler:who tried to arm African Americans with vibranium weapons]].
** ''Film/ThorRagnarok'':
*** Loki, despite knowing that Hela has been unleashed on Asgard, adopts this attitude as he begins to forge a new life for himself on Sakaar. When Thor arrives later, Loki attempts to convince his brother to take a similar stance. However, Thor, as the hero, completely rejects this option.
*** Valkyrie (aka Scrapper-142) only survived Hela's massacre of her fellow women warriors because a loved one sacrificed herself to save her. This tragedy left Valkyrie embracing this attitude and retiring to Sakaar to drink herself to death. Similar to Loki, she tells Thor to forget about the Asgardians, but he refuses to do so.
** ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'': When he's initially recruited to help stop the Elementals, Spidey asks if Thor or Doctor Strange or Captain Marvel can deal with it instead. Nick Fury dismisses each of those options. [[spoiler:"Nick Fury" is actually Talos, who doesn't actually have any way of contacting those heroes.]]
* ''Film/MothraVsGodzilla'': Originally, when the protagonists go to Infant Island to beg Mothra and the fairies to intervene, the natives aren't willing to help. After all, they point out, the people of Japan just refused to aid them in their hour of need. However, Junko's speech at the top of the page shames them into giving aid, and ultimately both sides get what they want: a restrained Godzilla, and a saved egg whose children are back where they belong.
* In ''Film/{{The Mummy|1999}}'', O'Connell tries to convince Evy that ''the end of the world'' is somebody else's problem, with little success.
* ''Film/PearlHarbor'': President Roosevelt expresses the view to his staff that this is America's attitude to the fighting in Europe and Asia.
-->'''President Roosevelt''': I'm afraid I'm in a bad mood. [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Churchill]] and [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] are asking me what I'm asking you: how long is America going to pretend the world is not at war?
-->'''Chief of Staff''': We've increased food and oil supply shipments to them, Mr. President-
-->'''President Roosevelt''': What they really need are tanks, planes, bullets, bombs and men to fight. But our people think [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]] and [[ThoseWackyNazis his Nazi thugs]] are Europe's problem.
* ''Film/ThePurge'': A man is running through the suburbs begging for help because a gang is after him. Mary Sandin isn't bothered by it, while James Sandin looks like he wishes he could help but he can't. The minute one of their kids lets him in is the minute it becomes the Sandin's problem.
* In ''Film/{{Se7en}}'', Somerset tells Mills, "The first thing they teach women in rape prevention is never cry for help. Always yell 'Fire!' Nobody answers to 'Help!' You holler 'Fire!', they come running." After all, "In any major city, minding your own business is a science." Presumably fire is less subject to this syndrome than rape because it can quickly become ''everyone's'' problem.[[note]]They DidTheResearch on this one. Gene Accas' 1965 classic ''How to Protect Yourself In the Streets and In Your Home'' is among several books of its type for young single women which give this or similar advice.[[/note]] This is portrayed directly in the scene where [[spoiler:John Doe turns himself in. The guy is literally covered in blood with bandages all over his hands, and he has to yell for the detectives three times before anyone actually notices him.]]
* ''Film/{{Silverado}}'': Paden agrees to stay out of it when Cobb tells him he's going after Emmett. When the guys Cobb works for kidnap Emmett's nephew, Paden can't sit by.
* In ''Franchise/StarWars'' Han Solo refuses to help rescue Princess Leia until lured into it by the promise of a reward. And later he refuses to help the rebels in their attack on the Death Star, but [[ChangedMyMindKid has a change of heart at the last minute]].
-->'''Leia:''' Your friend is quite the mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything. Or anybody.
* ''Film/TrappedTheAlexCooperStory'': Alex tries telling multiple people about being held against her will and abused. However, none does anything, or possibly even believes her.
* ''Film/TheWorldOfKanako'': Two characters are bullied throughout the film (Ogata and the narrator) and none of the other students come to help them. Neither do any teachers or officials.
* ''Film/TheWoman'': Brian's first scene has him witness some bullies beating up a little girl. After staring for a few seconds, he walks away to practice shooting a basketball into a hoop.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'', [[spoiler:Amy is nearly raped in public during the Season. When she screams for a couple of people nearby to help, one of them just smiles and tells her to calm down and stop struggling, or she'll get hurt. Given that everyone present but Amy is under the effect of ''very'' potent mood-altering drugs, it at least is justified.]]
* In K.A. Applegate's ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', initially, the kids see the Yeerk war as strictly between the Andalites and the Yeerks, which is why Marco is so against getting involved. However, when Jake learns Tom is a Controller, the kids realize that the stakes are much closer to home than previously thought. By the end of the series, the kids have lost their faith in the erstwhile Andalite reinforcements, and have concluded that the Andalites think it's AllUpToYou.
* In ''Literature/ADanceWithDragons'', the fifth book of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', the senior members of the Night's Watch are indifferent to the plight of wildling refugees at the ruined settlement at Hardhome, largely because of long-standing hatred towards the wildlings, the fact most of the refugees are women and children who can't fight, and mounting a rescue effort will cost the Watch more of its already meagre resources. Jon Snow, however, points out why doing nothing isn't an option...namely because when the wildling at Hardhome have died from either starvation or the cold, the [[EldritchAbomination Others]] will [[AnimateDead use their necromancy]] to reanimate the dead refugees, giving them thousands more undead soldiers to throw at the Watch.
-->'''Jon Snow''': Are you so blind, or is it that you do not wish to see? What do you think will happen when all these enemies are dead? Let me tell you what will happen. The dead will rise again, in their hundreds and their thousands. They will rise as wights, with black hands and pale blue eyes, and they will come for us.
* The Creator/StephenKing and Creator/PeterStraub collab ''Literature/BlackHouse'' takes this to an extreme. When word gets out that [[spoiler:Irma Freneau's]] corpse has been found in an abandoned restaurant, the cops have to block off the road to deter literally dozens of people who want to come up to the crime scene and stomp all over it to have a look for themselves. One such couple demands to be allowed up so they can ''take home a keepsake'', while another violently informs the officer that he is a hellbound sinner for daring to deny her access.
* A massive amount of fairy tales rendered by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm has a notable number of examples, usually with at least one character in each fairy tale being someone who could've easily opposed the main villain but in the end, lets them do as they please before the plot/protagonist fixes the mess themselves.
* The premise of Jack Ketchum's ''Literature/TheGirlNextDoor'', and TheFilmOfTheBook, in which a woman tortures her foster daughter to death, and everyone who sees either ignores it or participates. The true story it's based on is even worse.
* In the ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' series, 90% of the Perdido Beach kids have this attitude. An apartment is burning down with a kid inside? Sam can deal with it. We're running out of food? Sam can find more. The Human Crew is running around trying to kill the mutants? That's the Sam's problem, not ours. Caine and Drake have gotten into the Power Plant and are going to feed uranium to a monster? It's Sam's job to stop them!
* In the short story "Grotto of the Dancing Deer", the main character befriends a 20,000 year old man who says he has survived by always staying on the fringes and never volunteering for anything.
* ''Literature/HushHush'':
** In the first book, a particularly creepy instance happens when Patch and Nora have to take shelter in a motel, while it's raining. Patch sets up for them to get a room which the man behind the desk complies with, all while Nora continuously insists that ''no'' she does ''not'' want to share a room with him. [[spoiler:Patch then ends up ''attacking'' Nora in the room and threatens her life. When she says she'll scream if he doesn't let her go, he invokes this trope by saying no one will care if a woman screams in a motel as seedy as this]].
** In ''Crescendo'', [[spoiler:Scott is able to almost flat-out abduct Nora in the middle of a crowded amusement park simply by telling everyone that she's his girlfriend and they enjoy playing a game in public where he pretends to grab her and she pretends to resist. [[IdiotBall Everyone buys this]] and one guy ''laughs'']].
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{It}}'', the heroes notice the shockingly high level of this in [[TownWithADarkSecret Derry]]. It's never explained if it's due to MindRape via EldritchAbomination or just [[HumansAreBastards human nature]], but Derry frequently ignores several massacres and a ×6 murder rate. It's implied that those who [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere haven't left town]] are at least on some level aware of all the horrible things that happened and have decided to that they can live with it. This also overlaps with AdultsAreUseless so that the kids in town have to deal with the psychotically violent bullies (to say nothing of the monster) on their own. An {{exaggerated}} and clearly supernaturally affected version happens in a historical anecdote of "what may have been the queerest mass murder in the entire history of America," where everyone else in a bar inexplicably (even to themselves) just ignores a man chopping up everyone in one table with an axe.
* Discussed in ''Literature/LesMiserables''. A runaway cart, loaded with pottery, runs down the street and pins down a random pedestrian. Nobody moves to help-- they stare, sure, but they're convinced there's nothing they can do. Then, when the Mayor [[SuperStrength manages to lift the cart a fraction]], everyone rushes to help him, because they've realized saving the man's life ''is'' possible.
* The former TropeNamer is ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything''. We're introduced to the concept of the Somebody Else's Problem Field, a sort of stealth system that automatically triggers the WeirdnessCensor of anyone who looks directly at it. When it first crops up in the book, Ford tries looking at it from odd angles to get through. Meanwhile, Arthur just calmly remarks that he can see through it (which, obviously, means that it's his problem).
* In ''Literature/TheLorax'', the Once-ler says "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." It's particularly effective because this is spoken to a child, implying that kids must care about the future if they want to keep the world from being devastated.
* In Terry Pratchett's ''Literature/MakingMoney'' Moist von Lipwig notes that people pay more attention to small noises than big ones, because while small noises are immediate and threatening, loud noises are 'everyone's problem, and therefore, not mine'.
* In ''Literature/{{Matilda}}'', the rest of the title character's family are so wrapped up in their own lives that they see Matilda as a nuisance and a fool, when in fact she is very intelligent and a genius, which they never commend her for. When, after her first day of school, her teacher, Miss Honey, comes to her parents' home to tell them how smart she really is, her father naturally assumes (falsely) that the reason her teacher is there is because she got in trouble at school already and flatly tells her that they want nothing more to do with Matilda, that she is Miss Honey's problem from now on.
* ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'':
** Richard Mayhew's refusal to yield to this trope, when he found Door bleeding on the sidewalk, led him into London Below. His fiancee declared it someone else's problem, and so remained in London Above.
** Residents of London Below tend not to be noticed by the Above folks in the first place. Later in the book, his fiance recognizes him for a brief moment, then is unable to even -see- him.
* Adam Appich from ''Literature/TheOverstory'' is a cognitive psychologist who devotes his career to studying this, not that this stops him from having his own moments like when [[spoiler:his professor has a heart attack and he assumes it's AllPartOfTheShow.]]
* {{Discussed|Trope}} and {{Defied|Trope}} in "Singleton" by Creator/GregEgan. The formative experience in the protagonist's life is when he happens upon a crowd of thirty people who are watching two men methodically beat someone to death, none of them willing to do more than call the police, and realizes that he too could get away with doing absolutely nothing to help. Instead, he rushes in, spurring the bystanders to... not help, but at least get close enough to scare the assailants off.
* Noted in the famous poem "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, which is famous for its opening lines: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone". Effectively, the poem's message is this trope; people will willingly share joy and happiness, but will seldom listen to your troubles.
* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''Literature/TimeOutOfTime'' on Electra. She can only witness events as they happen, but must never interfere. If she does, she has to return to her constellation and stay there. [[spoiler:She untimately [=DOES=] interfere at the end of "The Telling Stone" by tripping Mr. [=McMorn=] to save Timothy.]]
* The vampires at the center of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. On its own this wouldn't be so bad since it's clearly established that there's another group in place whose job it is to police the vampire population. But on the other hand we have [[WordOfGod the author saying]] that the Cullens are a lot like superheroes and the narrative telling us they're "committed to protecting human life," while again and again we only see them reacting to danger when they themselves or someone they have a personal interest in is imperiled.
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' 11.5 Taylor meets a girl who saw her being shoved into a locker full of rotting garbage by her bullies but didn't do anything to help. She promptly gives the other a big chewing-out.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Jack Bauer of ''Series/TwentyFour'', Season 2 premiere. He's still haunted by his wife's murder, his daughter wants nothing to do with him, and he's on the verge of suicide. The reason he leaves is to warn Kim to get out of LA. Later, when seeing a mother with her child, Jack decides to do something about it:
-->'''Mason:''' There's a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. We believe it's going to go off today.\\
'''Jack:''' How good's your intel?\\
'''Mason:''' ''Very.''\\
''[Jack walks out]''
* ''Series/BlackMirror'': "[[Recap/BlackMirrorWhiteBear White Bear]]" follows an amnesiac woman who is being chased by a man with a shotgun, and, with 90% of people having been brainwashed, most everyone is too busy filming the chaos on their phones to actually help. [[spoiler:Subverted, however, when we find out [[TrumanShowPlot they're not brainwashed at all and that this is all part of some voyeuristic theme park]].]]
* This is how most citizens of Sunnydale react to the rampant supernatural activity in their town on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''.
* This ''must'' be the reason ''Series/BurnNotice'''s Michael Westen gets away with so ''very many'' illegal acts in the middle of downtown Miami. Unless he wants the police to show up, people will safely ignore him when he sets off explosives, gets involved in car chases, and generally makes a mess of the local real estate. [[spoiler: At least, until we find out that he's being specifically protected by various organizations, purposefully making it so the police don't link him to his activities.]]
* In Series 23 of ''Series/{{Casualty}}'', Tess Bateman is [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaled on a metal pole]] after an accident at a building site. A teenager nearby who witnesses the accident proceeds to ''take a photo of her as she struggles for consciousness'', then just walks away. She does eventually get rescued, and gets better.
* Typically averted on ''Series/CriminalMinds''. Most of the times an abduction or assault has happened in a public area, someone has at least attempted to intervene. Where it shows up tends to be more indirect. For instance, a serial killer is targeting one specific college and, while the staff and police are taking it seriously, the students seem more bothered by the curfew than concerned about being alert.
--> '''JJ:''' Three girls are missing, and someone doesn't notice an abandoned car.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones Smith and Jones]]", after the [[LawfulStupid Judoon]] execute the plasmavore, they claim their jurisdiction is over and leave without doing anything about an MRI rigged to overload as a deadly weapon, to Martha's considerable ire.
* ''Series/FamilyMatters'': The first-season episode "In a Jam," where a bully – appropriately, named Bull – is about to make good on a threat to punch Urkel out after he refuses to hand over his lunch money. A group of students, all classmates of Urkel's (including Laura, who was part of that show's main family, the Winslows), all stand by and don't make so much as a move to stop Bull as he grabs Urkel by the collar and cocks his fist, this even though they know Bull is easily capable of crushing the skull of, if not killing the much smaller Urkel if he lands even a single punch. [[spoiler: Eddie, whom Urkel considers a "best bud," walks in JustInTime to stop Bull and eventually send him running off.]]
* A man in ''Series/{{Fargo}}'' is dragged out of his office by a kidnapper, in front of a cubical row's worth of coworkers who stick their heads out to watch and offer their rueful condolences when his body is found the next day.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Robert brushes off Ned pleading for him to spare his daughter's direwolf because his wife would be a pain to him if he intervened.
* In ''Series/{{Highlander}}'', Methos has survived for millennia mostly by not getting mixed up in other people's problems.
-->'''Duncan:''' Don't you want to see Robert and Gina live happily ever after?\\
'''Methos:''' Yeah, but I want to see ''me'' live happily ever after even more.
* PlayedForLaughs in the episode "Lucky Penny" from ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''. Barney has run the New York City Marathon without training and enjoys his free ride on the subway, showing off his medal. However, his legs stop working and he can't get off. Barney gets insulted for not giving up his seat for other people (an old woman, a pregnant woman and a boy with crutches). He calls Ted to come to pick him up, but Ted doesn't manage it on time so Barney is trapped there and is riding from end to end over and over. In TheTag, he's seen still riding on the empty subway. ''Nobody'' would help him.
* ''Series/LawAndOrder'' - The season 6 episode "Remand" and the ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'' season 17 episode "41 Witnesses" are both based on Genovese's murder. ''Law and Order'''s Season 1 episode "The Violence of Summer" has Logan complaining he can't get witnesses to a rape, "It's the post-Kitty Genovese era, nobody wants to look, they think they'll get involved."
* Discussed in one episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' dealing with a kidnapping of a young boy. One of the people that was at the scene at the time even gives the normal explanation of "I thought someone else would do something."
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': In "Greatest Hits", we see a flashback to Charlie playing his guitar on the streets for money. When the show's over, he hears a woman (Nadia) screaming for help as a man tried to rob her purse. He chases him away by repeatedly hitting him with his guitar case. When she thanks him, Charlie says he did what anyone else would've done, to which Nadia replies that at least three people passes by before him and none of them even tried to help her.
* ''Series/MimpiMetropolitan'': In episode 45, two men see Alan and Bobby are chasing a pickpocket. They decide to record Alan and Bobby for social media instead of helping them. Alan proceeds to give a speech to those men and [[BreakingTheFourthWall the audience]] about this trope before the victim reminds him to hurry up and chase the pickpocket.
* In the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode featuring ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S11E04Avalanche Avalanche]]'' Jonah and the Bots jeer a camera crew busy filming a rescue crew trying to rescue survivors of the titular disaster and not aiding them.
* Played for laughs in the first episode of ''Series/NewTricks'', wherein the climactic arrest takes place at a dinner held in honour of the main villain, an ex-gangster recently released from prison, as the main characters arrive to inform him that he's been officially exonerated of the murder he was imprisoned for all those years ago... and is now about to be arrested for a murder they can now prove he actually ''did'' do all those years ago instead. And that his wife actually killed the woman he was originally imprisoned for murdering. This, not entirely surprisingly, causes a fight between the villain, the villain's assembled friends, and the police... except for Brian, Jack and Gerry, the retired officers who caused the fight in the first place, who decide that discretion's the better part of valour and decide to stand back and offer a commentary on the fight instead. And it turns out they're not alone; as all the villain's friends and family are being dragged out yelling and screaming, it's revealed that one guy, who presumably wasn't ''that'' fond of the villain, just decided to sit and finish his meal with the chaos going on all around him.
* A number of television series took this to heart at the time and created episodes based on Kitty Genovese's story and the "get involved" quote. The ''Franchise/PerryMason'' episode "The Case of the Silent Six" (November 21, 1965), portrays the brutal beating of a young woman whose screams for help are ignored by the six residents of her small apartment building, who later say -- yep -- they didn't want to get involved (although only Paul Drake uses those exact words).
* The four main characters of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' are incarcerated in the finale for the many, many times they do this (as well as just being horrible), the breaking point being the four watching a man get mugged and laughing about it. Ironically, the final example of this would have been the one time it was somewhat of a good thing, as they had taped it and thus had video evidence of the crime, meaning they did something that can help the mugger be caught. Of course, that's not how the show had it turn out.
* In the infamous episode "That's My Dog" from ''Series/SixFeetUnder'', [[spoiler:David]] gets carjacked. He suffers terribly and actually doesn't have many opportunities to ask for help because that might get him killed. However, [[spoiler:when the psycho lets him go,]] he's seen going along a road, badly beaten and looking awful. He tries to stop somebody, but all cars just ignore him and keep going. Luckily, a police car appears at the end.
* The Prime Directive in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation can be considered something like this.]]
** Explicitly interpreted this way in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Hunted". Picard's complaints about the way a candidate new member of the Federation had treated the supersoldiers it created after the war ended is brushed off by the planet's government asserting that the Prime Directive meant Picard had no standing to interfere. When said supersoldiers then occupy the capital building and have the government at gunpoint to demand they be treated fairly, [[IronicEcho Picard responds for the demand for help by the same government officials by citing the Prime Directive as not allowing him to interfere and it's not his problem]], and then beams the hell out of Dodge.
* {{Invoked|Trope}} in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' where Sisko and Bashir are transported back in time to [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 2024]]. In one scene, Bashir tries to tell a Sanctuary District employee that the situation isn't her fault. She replies, "Everybody tells themselves that. And nothing ever changes."
* Malcolm Tucker in ''Series/TheThickOfIt'' calls this trope [=NoMFuP=]: "Not My Fucking Problem".
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': "A Little Peace and Quiet" is the story of Penny, who finds an amulet that can stop and start time. Penny embodies the trope as she uses the amulet to avoid situations she doesn't care about and continually ignores news reports about dramatically rising tensions between the United States and Soviet Union and even uses the amulet to bypass having to deal with protesters. In the final moments of the story, the [=USSR=] unleashes a nuclear missile strike on the U.S. which forces her to stop time and, presumably, live out the rest of her life in that frozen moment before impact.
* The whole premise of the ABC's ''Series/WhatWouldYouDo'' is take a current hot-button issue, have actors play it out in public, and see if anyone steps in to help. Some topics covered in the show for example include racial or religious discrimination and seeing whether or not any bystanders step in and help speak out against such injustice. A few bystanders play this trope straight, others outright defy it.
* In one episode of ''Series/TheYoungOnes'', the characters have stumbled across a time warp and now have a horde of medieval peasants out to kill them. They are terrified, and wonder aloud how they are going to get out of this predicament, when Vyvyan says "Who cares?", and the housemates instantly lose interest in ''their own'' mortal peril. End of episode. Considering they [[TheyKilledKenny die on a near-daily basis...]]

[[folder:Music]]
* In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LjbMVXj0F8 Iron Man]]" by Music/BlackSabbath this is implied to be the protagonist's StartOfDarkness:
-->''We'll just pass him there / Why should we even care?''
* The Music/BlueOysterCult song ''Screams In The Night'' was written by keyboards player Allen Lanier. On perhaps his third night in New York, a woman was stabbed to death in the street beneath his apartment window. Lanier was struck by how many people just watched and did nothing - or seemed to. This may well have been the notorious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese Genovese murder]] which helped to define "bystander syndrome".[[note]]If he actually saw people "just watching" a woman being stabbed, then it likely wasn't Kitty, but a similar incident.[[/note]]
* Music/TheClash's "Somebody Got Murdered" from ''Music/{{Sandinista}}'' is also about a murder nobody pays attention to.
* Music/DanielAmos:
** "My Room", from ''Music/{{Alarma}}''. The narrator knows that the outside world is on the path to destruction, so he deals with it by [[{{Hikikomori}} locking himself in his room]]. On the rare occasion that he feels ''really'' bad for everyone outside, he slips a note underneath his door.
** "Live and Let Live", from ''Music/VoxHumana'', also touches on this:
-->Oh no, I’ve got a broken heart\\
(“We’re so sorry but we gotta run”)\\
Oh no, I’m falling apart\\
While you keep on floating\\
Up, and up, and up, and up, and up
* Music/FiveIronFrenzy describes this in the song "Someone Else's Problem":
-->You want to close your eyes\\
you want to make believe\\
this tangled web you weave\\
is nowhere near the place you sleep\\
while other people’s lives are cheap\\
and all of this is someone else’s problem.
* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mGFs3dq-tU All's Quiet on West 23rd]]" by the Jet Stream, a rather obscure '60s tune inspired by the Kitty Genovese case.
* The Music/OingoBoingo song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQy5vKAaTuA "Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me"]] is all about the singer describing terrible things and expressing how he fails to see why he should be concerned if none of these mishaps or disasters affect him.
-->''A man broke into my neighborhood\\
He threatened the family with a loaded gun\\
He tied them all up and beat 'em real good\\
He took everything and he got away clean\\
And I can't believe that anyone would\\
Wanna do such a terrible thing\\
But why should I care?''
* Music/PhilOchs's song "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" deals with the political ramifications of this trope.
* Music/TheProtomen's first album is a deconstruction of HoldingOutForAHero, with this as an accompanying theme. In the first song, Protoman is built to liberate an oppressed city from Dr. Wily and his robot army, but after a protracted battle through the streets, he's killed by Wily's robots while a crowd of citizens look on, none of them willing to risk themselves to save "their hero."
* "Molchi" by the Russian band Kis-Kis is about apathy towards domestic violence and other terrible things.
--> Молчи, когда бухой сосед на свою тёлку кричит[[labelnote:*]]''Be quiet when the drunk neighbor shouts at his chick''[[/labelnote]]\\
Когда в подъезде снова кто-то мрачно торчит[[labelnote:*]]''When someone grimly tweaks out in the entrance again''[[/labelnote]]\\
Когда в квартиру напротив приезжают врачи[[labelnote:*]]''When the doctors come to the opposite flat''[[/labelnote]]\\
Эта песня звучит, моя песня звучит[[labelnote:*]]''This song plays, my song plays''[[/labelnote]]

[[folder: Music Videos]]
* At the end of the music video for Music/BubbleButt, the GiantWoman who started the dance party uses one of the tubes she can produce from her mouth to grab one of the dancers (portrayed by Krystal Ellsworth), yank her off the dance floor, and [[EatenAlive swallow her alive.]] This happens in plain view of the other women, but despite the her clear struggling and obvious distress, all the other women just continue dancing as if nothing is wrong.
** Earlier in the video, a woman dancing from aerial silks explodes butt-first into confetti that rains down on the dancers. None of them seem to be at all unnerved about her demise and are more than happy to dance in her glittery remains.

[[folder:Poetry]]
* Maurice Ogden's "Literature/TheHangman" is a poem about a hangman who comes to town to hang the one who "serves him the most faithfully", and proceeds to execute the town's citizens one by one, with everyone too afraid to object out of fear that they will be next. It doesn't end until the town is empty and there is no one left except the Hangman and the narrator, who is called out for his cowardice and his willingness to let others die to save himself, thus 'serving' the Hangman best of all. The narrator is then hanged himself, and by then there is no one left who will defend him.

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* On ''Series/SesameStreet'', this happens during the song "Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco". After Cookie Monster sings about his lost cookie and starts looking for it, he desperately cries out for help to find it, but everyone in the room just ignores him and keeps dancing.

[[folder:Roleplay]]
* ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAgeOldportBlues'':
** Simon struggles with this mentality, being an anti-social person who'd rather leave others to deal with their own problems. When he realises that his teacher is a government agent charged with detaining superpowered people, he initially tries to distance himself from the problem, then berates himself for doing nothing whilst the other kids could be put in the danger. Ultimately he subverts the trope by warning the others of Travers' presence.
** Jessica, the resident {{Jerkass}}, can't be trusted to help out in a situation even when she's expected to. When Zia gets involved with a fight and looks to Jessica for help, she ignores Zia and scurries away.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* [[ExploitedTrope Weaponized]] in ''TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent'', with the "Bystander Effect" Embed, which specifically prevents others from interfering.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'':
** The design philosophy of high level Stealth charms. Won't it be easier if people (supernaturally) ignore you doing your business of killing someone?
** The "Shards of the Exalted Dream" supplement adds the Sidereal Firearms charm "Wearing Red to a Wedding". When in use, this power prevents observers from noticing anything wrong with the user being covered in blood, injured, or otherwise showing signs of having just been involved in violence. They can see these things just fine, but it never crosses their mind that they're something to be concerned about.
* A major problem in ''TabletopGame/LegendOfTheFiveRings''. The general reaction of most of Rokugan to the Shadowlands is to stick their heads in the ground and pretend that they'll go away. Outside the Crab Clan (the people whose job it is to keep them out of Rokugan), it's considered dishonorable to even ''mention'' them when it's not absolutely necessary.
* A spell in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' called Aura of the Unremarkable can invoke an extra-strength version of this. Creatures affected by the spell have their minds manipulated to regard anything they witness as entirely innocuous. As a specific example, it describes someone ''aiming a crossbow at the queen from a balcony'' as a thing that affected onlookers would regard as "normal and unworthy of concern".

[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* In Ride/UniversalStudios' ''[[Theatre/UniversalsHorrorMakeUpShow Horror Make-Up Show]]'', during the OverlyLongGag of one of the hosts' "death", they lament how no one in the audience seems to care about them dying a horrible death.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* At the end of the ''VideoGame/BackToTheFutureTheGame'' Telltale games, [[spoiler:three alternate future Martys appear, begging for Marty and Doc's help in saving the future]]. Marty and Doc decide to just ignore them and go for a drive. In their defense, they had just finished a lengthy adventure across time and space, and it's [[SequelHook strongly implied]] they'll get around to dealing with this eventually. Remember, they have a time machine and can deal with this sort of thing whenever they want.
* In the ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' games, the lazy, lazy [=NPC=]s may well claim to be amazing warriors, but they'll still stand around waiting for you to reach them before they go to rescue their friend/kill rats/buy a book/retrieve something that was stolen.
* In ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'', Shrimp is so focused on enjoying his vacation and not getting involved with Catie’s latest quest that he actually ''refuses'' to help her several times when she might need it. He steps back when Arianna attacks the ship in the prologue, and doesn’t help with the search for shipwreck survivors in Chapter 1. He eventually changes his tune, but it takes the literal end of the world to finally prod him into action.
* In ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'' no-one does anything about the Queen of the Night until Aurora comes along; Oengus in particular pulls a HeelFaceTurn minutes after meeting Aurora despite being a powerful combatant himself. Admittedly it's implied that Aurora, being [[spoiler:the Queen of Light's daughter]], is TheOnlyOne with the power to stop her, but [[GameplayAndStorySegregation gameplay wise]] soon after the first map it's entirely viable to not use Aurora for a single fight.
* In ''VideoGame/DeadRising3'', BasementDweller Theodore "Teddy" Lagerfeld Jr. is incredibly rich, with a powerful security system and the keys to the police armory, since he's the mayor's son. When [[TheHero Nick Ramos]] asks for the keys so the survivors can be armed against the ZombieApocalypse, Teddy decides that's too much work and tells him to get lost. When Nick persists, citing that many people could die without weapons, Teddy sets his mansion's security system against him. Fittingly, Teddy is meant to embody Sloth of the SevenDeadlySins.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', being a WideOpenSandbox, allows you, the player, to ignore an '''impending demonic invasion.''' Sadly, [[TakeYourTime it doesn't affect the gameplay much]], so you won't see any consequences of your negligence.
** Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' with the three heroes who sent Alduin thousands of years forward in time, knowing full well that he will come back and someone else will have to fight him again. When you pursue Alduin in [[WarriorHeaven Sovngarde]], they're more than happy to join the fray and help take him down.
*** In the ''Dragonborn'' DLC, it's revealed that those three actually ''didn't'' fit this trope... but their Dragonborn, Miraak, ''did''. They were forced to send Alduin forward in time because only Dragonborn can permanently kill dragons, and Miraak ''just couldn't be arsed'' to deal with Alduin. Without Miraak's help, their only recourse was to banish Alduin to the future and hope that era's Dragonborn would be less of an asshole.
* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'':
** Galahad helped the heroes out at first by granting Mash Kyrielight his powers, but after Goetia is defeated, he suddenly washes his hands of the heroes and revokes Mash's powers, just as they have to save the world again.
** The Mages of the Wandering Sea refuse to do anything about the Foreign God wiping out humanity because they are safe from it. The most they do is allow Sion and the heroes to take shelter in their base, but they refuse to help them and say not to bother them.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' lampshades this with a merchant [[NoHeroDiscount charging the party]] when a giant monster is rampaging outside. Even though the party points out that he'll die if they fail, he simply calmly says that he has confidence in the party and takes your money.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has the nation of Sharlayan as an extremely LawfulStupid version this. They refuse to get involved with the Seventh Umbral Calamity, outright ''abandon one of their own cities'' when the Garleans invade instead of resisting them despite having [[HumongousMecha Alexander]] at the ready, and in ''Endwalker'' are shown refusing to do anything when the literal end of the world is happening. Sharlayan is ''so'' dedicated to not getting involved in anything that when one of their most revered scholars decided that it ''was'' their problem, they branded him a pariah and exiled him and later said's scholar's son ''disowns his own children'' for continuing on. Note that not getting involved also includes things like not teaching outsiders anything, as the Astrologian quests show. Do that and you're likely to have an [[DisproportionateRetribution assassin sent your way]].
* [[BadassBookworm Soren]] from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' especially. His first response to finding Princess Elincia is to suggest leaving her behind, and then handing her over to the invading armies because "It's none of our concern." By the next game, [[DefrostingIceQueen He Gets Better]].
* In ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games, the world's gonna be destroyed if the princess isn't rescued, whether she's been kidnapped, turned to stone, or vanished off the face of Hyrule. Since you, [[TheChosenOne Link]], are already dealing with it, nobody's worried. It's YOUR problem now. They even charge you for equipment vital to your quest. Averted on a few occasions, like ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]''.
* In ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'', a grand total of one person (besides [[TheHero Max]]) is shown attempting to do anything to stop [[spoiler: Kate Marsh from committing suicide]] and it's the school security chief (i.e. the guy whose job it is to handle such emergencies). Every other student is just standing around watching and a couple are [[SocialMediaBeforeReason actively taking video of it]].
* ''VideoGame/LostJudgment'' discusses the psychology of the Bystander Effect in one scene, especially in regards to highschool bullying, which takes up a significant subplot in the game. Yagami cites three excuses people subconsciously have in an incident[[note]]"If no one else acts, it must not be urgent", "If no one else acts, I don't have to take action either", and "If I take action alone, I will embarrass myself"[[/note]], comparing it to penguins who crowd at the edge of the water until the first one jumps in. In the case of the bullies, their victim, and the bystander students, Yagami uses hidden speakers and cameras in the room to taunt the bullies until the rest of the formerly inactive students unite against them.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' and ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' have this trope as their ''entire premise''. A rogue Spectre is rampaging around space with an army of MechaMooks that haven't been seen for nearly 300 years, looking for a mysterious device linked to myths of a machine race that exterminated all life? Eh, we'll send a rookie Spectre and his/her RagtagBunchOfMisfits after him. A mysterious group of aliens abduct ''hundreds of thousands'' of human colonists for unknown purposes? The only people who care are Shepard, the ''second'' RagtagBunchOfMisfits he/she assembles, and the [[FantasticRacism human-supremacist]] ''terrorist'' organization that funds him/her. The [[spoiler:attack on the Citadel]] was led by a member of a species of AbusivePrecursors and was attempting to ensure their return? It's clearly a geth creation, and Shepard is clearly delusional. ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' is essentially the biggest "I told you so" in history.
* The CentralTheme of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' is examining, deconstructing, and defying this trope. The reason that the villains can get away with what they're doing is because a majority of Japanese society [[ItCantBeHelped accepts the tragedy and injustice as a fact of life]]; they're too afraid, unwilling, or apathetic to do anything but keep their head down and hope that they're not next. Some are actively contributing to the injustice because it's [[BeingGoodSucks easier than]] [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished being good]]. One of the main goals of the Phantom Thieves is to inspire everyone to shake out of this apathy. [[spoiler:The people of Japan briefly falling into this almost completely at the end is what causes the final boss to judge them (and humanity as a whole) as unworthy of existence and sparks the last confrontation of the game.]]
* One of the lyrics of ''VideoGame/Portal2'''s ending song, ''Want you Gone'', is "You're someone else's problem/Now I only want you gone".
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'': The Abbey of Innominat exploit this trope ruthlessly. The Abbey, particularly Shepherd Artorias, preach [[TheNeedsOfTheMany "The many outweigh the individual"]] as their absolute philosophy. The masses lap it up, (wilfully mis-)interpreting this to mean they may have to tolerate some minor inconveniences to ensure others are looked after as well, since the Shepherd cares for them all. As [[ByronicHero Velvet]] is happy to point out, espousing this philosophy is actually an explicit admission that Artorias doesn't give a single solitary shit about anyone. He'll kill, disfigure, and imprison his own family, let people die in droves, allow horribly inhumane experiments, and cut off whole communities to starve or become daemon food (and does all of this in the first few hours of the game) without even feeling bad about it if it serves his vision for "the many". Of course, the many who are kept comfortable by this system reject her claims - after all, he takes good care of them - and the Abbey is consciously encouraging this viewpoint to operate freely while Artorias becomes a VillainWithGoodPublicity.
* Senel Coolidge from ''VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia'' has this mindset at first. He acts as if the world revolve around Shirley, and if something unrelated to her is presented to him, he ignores them or at least tell him not to bugger him with it, pissing off many people, especially [[{{Tsundere}} Chloe]], though eventually he stopped obsessing about her completely. This one is so bad that in the ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheWorld'', he gets a WhatTheHellHero yell that he'd rather let the world be destroyed than just halting his search for Shirley, then he takes the hint (after all, if the world is destroyed, he can't even reunite with Shirley at all).
* This trope is why nobody helps Aeka with the horrible bullying she deals with in ''Yume Miru Kusuri''. People realize she is suffering, but don't help her for fear that they will become targets. If the player picks her route, Kohei and her get so fed up with this that they [[spoiler:leave school entirely.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* This is Izuru Kamukura's problem in ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}''. He can do almost anything... but the process that made him a MasterOfAll made him an EmptyShell who didn't ''care'' about doing anything. So he ''could'' easily foil the BigBad and prevent all the subsequent tragedies, but he chooses not to go through with it (and in fact ''stops'' Nagito Komaeda from doing anything about it) because his only motivation is seeing if the despair caused by the villain would be of interest to him (though he doesn't actually ''help'' because he also wants to see if hope would be even more interesting).
* ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'': Some characters tell a GhostStory about a little girl who was being abused. She knocked on her apartment neighbor's door begging for help, but the neighbor ignored her even though she knew the girl was being abused. Eventually, the little girl got killed, and haunts the neighbor as a ghost out for revenge. The people listening to the story freak out before the ending can be told. In ''Literature/FateStrangeFake'', it turns out this story actually happened, as one of the protagonists, Ayaka Sajyou, was the neighbor. She regrets not doing anything to help the girl and wishes to atone, and lives in constant fear of the ghost, though it is ambiguous if the ghost really exists or is a figment of her imagination.
* This is ''VisualNovel/{{Nicole}}'''s attitude to the cases of disappearances and kidnapping going on at her college. Yes, some girls are disappearing for a few days before popping up again, but she just doesn't care about it. Until the kidnapper tells her that ''she's next''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/{{Dreamscape}}'': Vampire Lord's flashback in "Confrnoting the Dark" reveals his empire felt this way about a FogOfDoom affacting the Underworld...until it started affecting the vampires directly, but it was too late to do anything about it by that point.
* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': In Volume 1, Teams RWBY and JNPR witness Velvet, a rabbit [[LittleBitBeastly Faunus]], being harassed by [[TheBully Cardin Winchester]]. Despite being disgusted by Cardin's behavior and sympathetic to Velvet's plight, not one of them actually do anything to help her. Volume 5 has a CallBack to this when Ilia, Blake's EvilFormerFriend, states her reasons why she believes the [[AntiHumanAlliance White Fang]]'s violent acts of terrorism against humanity are justified and [[NecessarilyEvil necessary]]; humans either actively [[FantasticRacism hate Faunus]] or stand back and ''let'' the hate happen.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Happens a few times over the course of ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' to various characters. One notable example is when Thief was being brutally mauled by Berserker just out of panel while the Light Warriors did nothing to help him because they were too busy watching the ordeal, listening to his cries for help and debating the merits of helping him. These are the good guys.[[note]] "But you've got to figure a hobo as violent as this one won't stop at Theif"[[/note]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Clockwork}}'' protagonist Cog Kleinschmidt is very attached to this mentality. Despite increasingly tense circumstances between his country and the other main world power (up to and including repeated terrorist attacks in his home city), Cog does his best to ignore the problems in the world outside his door, unwilling to consider anything that might threaten his peaceful life. Instead, he convinces himself that those issues are way over his head and "nothing to do with me".
* ''Webcomic/DomainTnemrot'': Morris assaults an eight-year-old girl in the middle of a crowded ballroom. No one notices. [[spoiler: Then Angel slams his head into a table hard enough to break his nose. Nobody notices ''that'', either.]]
* In ''Webcomic/DrowTales'', a Sullisin'rune spy is stabbed by a Nidraa'chal agent and left to die in the street. There are plenty of bystanders, but not one of them comes to her aid. Eventually, two thieves attempt to loot her corpse. WordOfGod says that in the past, Chelians would have given her aid expecting a reward since she is clearly wealthy, but the already cutthroat city has been traumatized by a MassHypnosis event.
* ''Webcomic/ErikaAndThePrincesInDistress'' : This is common among the citizens of the Kingdom of Brutes, who firmly believe that everyone must strive for themselves without outside assistance.
** Early in the comic, Queen Lagertha refuses to help out a woman who keeps getting her goods stolen, and berates her for not having the dignity to properly defend herself.
** Upon witnessing a young server getting assaulted by a buff, muscular woman, Pita asks Erika to help, but Erika declines on the grounds that it is not her problem and that he needs to get out of it by himself. She only gets involved after Pita stubbornly decides to help out anyway and gets severely beaten up as a result.
* Downplayed with Rose and Jake from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', who do this when [[spoiler:Terezi]] is receiving an absolutely merciless and brutal beating from [[spoiler:Gamzee]]. Rose initially does not interfere because, since the trolls in question were in a [[SlapSlapKiss blackrom relationship]], she's not sure if this is just some kind of highly-violent-but-normal kismesis courting ritual and is worried about interrupting it if that's the case, though she seems skeptical of this and eventually intervenes when it goes too far. Jake is the worse offender here, since he wakes up to see this beating happening right in front of him and watches without saying anything, apparently assuming that, because [[spoiler:Terezi is wearing a scarf over her eyes]], she's some kind of "masked bandit" who wronged [[spoiler:Gamzee]], and eventually only meekly asks [[spoiler:Gamzee]] to stop without making any kind of move to actually help.
* This happens pretty often in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', since the main characters are generally only interested in 1: survival and 2: getting paid. [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/nmc-nmm-coin-intro Which has now been codified]] with a ChallengeCoin available to fans of the comic, with a Polish idiom: "nie moj cyrk, nie moje małpy"[[note]] "Not my circus, Not my monkey."[[/note]]
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', Kent doesn't believe in vampires, so this leads him to believe his VampireHunter uncle Arminius is just killing people. (As a matter of fact, the way Arminius acts, he could well do that accidentally; he's only competent and well-adjusted as long as he's actually facing vampires.) Having minimal intelligence and little regard for anyone besides himself, he's not bothered about this as long as he doesn't have to be involved.
* A prevalent theme throughout ''Webcomic/WeakHero'' is the reluctance of bystanders to get involved in any of the conflicts, too scared of being hurt themselves. This is a particularly sore point for Gray, whose best friend was hospitalised due to extensive bullying that their schoolmates turned a blind eye to. Eugene, who suffered at the hands of bullies before, gradually gains the courage to intervene even when he has no hopes of winning, which is one of the main reasons Gray accepts him as a friend.
* ''Webcomic/ZebraGirl'': This is how Sam goes drinking in bars and nobody even notices he has white fur and rabbit ears.
--> '''Kent''' (cheerfully, as Arminius chases after two women who are actually just {{Goth}}s): "Goodbye crazy mass-murdering uncle."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The attitude of the general population towards demons in ''[[Website/BecomingABetterWriter Demonic Symphony]]'', and oh boy does it backfire.
* ''Literature/FineStructure'' weaponizes this with a weapon that causes a person to be ignored by anyone around them. You can scream and wave and punch people and people will care so little that they won't notice any of it. Or you. Ever again.
* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':
** There's an knife that lets people get away with murder by doing this, implied to be the murder weapon that killed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese Kitty Genovese]]. What's really bad is that knife's "bystander effects" extend to ''the person who is being attacked''. That is, the person being attacked will be too listless and apathetic to even attempt to defend themselves or escape.
** There's a hat that functions as an SEP field -- the effects of which are permanent if you wear it too much.
* ''WebSite/SFDebris'' has repeatedly slammed various ''Franchise/StarTrek'' episodes from TNG onward for using the [[AlienNonInterferenceClause Prime Directive]] as an excuse to pull this when ''entire civilizations were about to be wiped out''.
* In [[https://notalwaysright.com/youre-all-just-sacks-of-meat-to-her/151161/ this story]] from ''WebSite/NotAlwaysRight'', a grocery store meat-slicer collapses from a heart attack. It's five minutes before the manager finds him, calls emergency services, and starts trying to resuscitate... but in those five minutes, ''three people'' walked right past him, and a fourth ''complained'' about the fat guy dying on the floor [[SkewedPriorities not getting her the ham she wanted]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* In ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'', in order to avoid the AIIsACrapShoot trope, Linkara installed a subroutine on Nimue which acknowledges that in the event HumansAreBastards is taken too far, while she does name what [[OhCrap she could do.]] She implies that the work in this Cyber Revolution would result in many unnecessary deaths and wear her down. Or in Linkara's words "Screw them it's not my problem."
* Discussed in ''WebVideo/BuzzfeedUnsolved'', in the episode "The Strange Killing of Ken Rex [=McElroy=]," discussing the real case, where [=McElroy=] was shot in the street of his hometown with ''sixty'' witnesses present... and every single one of them told investigators they "didn't see" who shot him. However, as Ryan points out, this isn't because they were apathetic, but because [=McElroy=] was [[AssholeVictim such a monster]] that pretty much ''everyone'' in town wanted him dead--it was ultimately just a matter of who pulled the trigger. Not only did they all collectively refuse to rat out the murderer, no one even bothered to call an ambulance until [=McElroy=] was already dead. Both Ryan and Shane agree that they're actually okay with letting this mystery remain unsolved, and completely understand why no one cared to interfere.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has Princess Bubblegum (in stark contrast to Finn and his SamaritanSyndrome), who just doesn't care about anything that doesn't affect the Candy Kingdom and its people. This is most apparent in her treatment of her AmbiguousDisorder-afflicted creation Lemongrab, as she is perfectly fine with sticking him in an empty castle far away from her, and it's not until he starts sneaking into her castle and ''watching the candy people sleeping'' that she decides to help him.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'', Master Shake has a different (and often bizarrely random) reason every episode for not caring about what's going on -- even in "Revenge of the Trees," where the MonsterOfTheWeek was looking for revenge on Shake.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', Dana and Howard don't care much when Terry hears somebody scream in "Speak No Evil". It's to be expected when you live in a city as crime-ridden as Gotham.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' when Huey is narrating about African-American stigma against [[TheStoolPigeon snitching]]. He tells a story about a young man getting shot and killed during a basketball tournament with 300 witnesses and ''[[BystanderSyndrome not a single person]]'' called the cops or even tried to help, instead just going home and ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice leaving a note with his fresh corpse]]'' telling the police they saw nothing.
* ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'': Udrogoth could be the world capital for this.
-->'''Candy:''' Happy? They're going to destroy half a continent!\\
'''Fang:''' Yeah, but not the part we ''live'' on.
* In ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'', Alucard attempts to persuade his father not to commit genocide against mankind when it was just a single priest who burned his wife at the stake. Dracula argues back that there are no innocents left, because any one of the hundreds of people gathered to watch the execution could have stood up and attempted to stop it, yet no one did. Notably, even Trevor Belmont agrees with this, and unintentionally quotes Dracula on it later, showing that the VillainHasAPoint.
* Most characters in ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' (considering the prevalent {{Jerkass}}-ness) have done this at one point or another, but Captain Hero, a superhero whose CatchPhrase is "SAVE YOURSELVES!", is probably the worst offender. His response to WesternAnimation/{{Bambi}} wailing to him about his dead mother (that he shot no less) is:
-->'''Captain Hero:''' Sucks to be you!
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'':
** In "That Old Black Magic", every [[AlwaysChaoticEvil anti-fairy]] escapes from prison, and Jorgen [[LockAndLoadMontage prepares to round them up]]. [[PunchClockVillain Then his]] [[PunchClockHero shift ends]], to which he responds "Your problem."
** The world gets taken over and heavily modified in every movie (twice in one of them) and the people act accordingly. Timmy usually makes an extravagant wish and somehow either everyone doesn't notice or is too stupid to understand what is happening, or their memories have been rewritten to think that the changed world was always that way.
* Every character in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has decided, at least once, that the current crisis is somebody else's problem.
** Scruffy the Janitor may be the most blatant offender here: when asked why he didn't fix the boiler, his reply was "schedule conflict" and another flip of his porn magazine. When said boiler was getting ready to go critical ''ten feet away''.
--->'''Scruffy:''' Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived. (''licks finger, turns page'')
** It was also sort of used when the characters decide they don't care that Earth will be threatened by a giant garbage ball in about a thousand years. Mostly because launching said garbage ball was their method of averting the very same crisis during the present day.
* In one US Acres/Orson's Farm segment of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' a new rooster replaces Roy and is tasked with rescuing the chickens from a weasel. When he prefers to [[DirtyCoward take cover and hide]], Orson actually spends the rest of the episode trying to drag him out and make him take on the weasel, never coming to the (likely much quicker and easier) realization to do it himself.
* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'':
** A fair bit of the humour comes from the fact that nobody ever notices all the alien spaceships and HumongousMecha that routinely appear. Granted, this is more of a HumansAreMorons thing.
** While Gaz is the only human other than Dib to be fully aware that Zim's an alien, but unlike him, she couldn't care less. As she points out on a few occasions, Zim's own incompetence and huge ego means that no matter how terrifyingly close he may get to actually conquering the world, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption he'll inevitably screw himself over anyway]]. Why waste her time getting involved when she can keep playing video games and eating pizza instead? She does help on rare occasions, though it's usually because she was somehow directly dragged into the center of the mess regardless.
--->'''Dib:''' Don't you care that Zim is trying to destroy all mankind? Huh?\\
'''Gaz:''' But he's so ''bad'' at it.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In "Fury", a woman who parked her car on the side of the road gets in and tries to drive off, but a parked truck is blocking her way. She asks the driver, who is reading a newspaper, to please move because she has a doctor's appointment, but the man says he is on his break and goes back to reading. Wonder Woman then steps in and lifts the truck into the air, allowing the woman to leave.
* ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'': Coop is the king of this trope. In one instance, he makes a horde of rampaging monsters someone else's problem by chucking them into Philadelphia. In another, he blows up part of the moon, causing worldwide climatic change, and his only concern is buying bubblegum ice cream. He's destroyed several planets with (usually) no remorse, and is arguably more of a danger to the universe than the race trying to conquer it. [[spoiler:A race that he ''created''.]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse2013'' short "[[Recap/MickeyMouseS2E19BroncoBusted Bronco Busted]]", Donald Duck abandons Mickey and Goofy after a millionaire mistaking him for a real horse offers to give Mickey and Goofy the money they need to repair their car in exchange for treating Donald like a king. Once Donald leaves, Goofy asks Mickey if they should tell Daisy about this, and Mickey replies that they shouldn't.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** [[PhysicalGod Princess Celestia]] seems to suffer from this often enough for the fans to take notice and poke fun at her for it. A grand total of five {{Big Bad}}s have popped up so far, and she's only tried to help directly ''once''. When the villain was right in front of her. And she got [[CurbStompBattle stomped to the curb]] for her effort. WordOfGod is that [[MadGod Nightmare Moon]] incapacitated Celestia off-screen. As for Discord's attack, it's implied she couldn't help if she wanted to (she did). She has no excuse for ignoring Sombra's attack, however. Somewhat in her defense, she couldn't have won even if she did try. She needed Luna's help and/or the Elements of Harmony to defeat three of them in the past and only managed to seal them away rather than completely defeat them.
** The Mane Six suffer a bout of this during "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E4DaringDont Daring Don't]]" when they just stand back and watch as [[spoiler:Daring Do and a bunch of thugs]] fight over a giant gold ring. Fluttershy even lampshades it.
--->'''Fluttershy:''' Um, should we go in and help her maybe?
** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E9SliceOfLife Slice of Life]]" parodies this. Not only does the populace not seem all that interested in fighting ''or'' running from the [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Bugbear]] that is currently being engaged by the Mane Six, but they act as if monsters tearing their city apart is a [[MundaneFantastic totally normal and common occurrence]] (it happens about 30% of the time, while the other 70% is calm and peaceful, so it's not overly common). During their otherwise [[ShippingFuel ship-tastic scene]], Bon Bon/Sweetie Drops and Lyra have this to say:
-->'''Bon Bon:''' (''after hearing the monster growl'') What was that?\\
'''Lyra:''' (''with complete disinterest'') There's some monster attacking Ponyville or something.\\
'''Bon Bon:''' (''rolls eyes'') What is it ''this'' time? Some creature from the [[EldritchLocation Everfree Forest]] or something?
* ''WesternAnimation/Sealab2021'' does this a lot. In the pilot episode, "I, Robot," Quinn is trying to save Sealab from exploding -- but everyone else is too busy with a SeinfeldianConversation to help. In "Green Fever," zombies attack the station, but Debbie is too busy preparing her birthday party, Stormy and Sparks are busy chatting about steel pipes, etc. Exactly who is uncaring varies; in "No Waterworld," Quinn is too busy with his monster truck to help Debbie find out why all the water around the station has disappeared.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** When Lenny and Carl walk past a tank containing radioactive gas that's bursting at the seams, Carl remarks nonchalantly about the tank's imminent failure, to which Lenny quips "Who cares? It's Homer's problem."
** Once Homer's job as Sanitation Commissioner predictably starts falling apart, he decides the best way to get funding is for other cities to pay him to bury their garbage. When questioned he almost responds with this trope. Later on this backfires horribly, to the point Springfield ends up becoming a huge dump and the city's buildings have to be relocated five miles away.
** One episode has Santa's Little Helper become a star, then during one of his promos, Homer fakes drowning in the beach (in an effort to get him back). When Santa's Little Helper chickens out of swimming, the crowd furiously shame a dog for not saving the man, ''none'' of them even trying to go in themselves.
** When Marge exposes Snake's Three-Card Monte con in front of a crowd, Snake runs away and Marge yells for somebody to stop him. Everyone just stands there, so Marge goes after him herself.
** The Frank Grimes episode. Grimes snaps and starts acting like Homer, pointing out all his worst traits. Homer, Mr. Burns, Smithers and several employees see that he's about to touch high-voltage wires without safety gloves. Nobody bothers to stop him from grabbing the wires, and Grimes is fatally electrocuted.
** Anytime Homer throttles Bart, expect Marge and Lisa doing nothing to stop it (with Lisa joining in sometimes)
* In ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'', Zorak and Moltar frequently get bored with Space Ghost's show, and decide their jobs on it are for someone else to do. Sometimes Space Ghost gets bored with his own show, and does the same thing.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "Wet Painters", [=SpongeBob=] is in danger of having his butt removed by his boss, and is abandoned in a moment of crisis by ''his own reflection''.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': In the first season Episode "Hostage Crisis" a senator is held at gun point by a bounty hunter. An armed senate guard passes by and does... nothing! He does not even ask where he is going. More surprisingly he is a member of the Senate Commandos, which are considered as the best of the Senate Guard, an elite security force of the Galactic Republic. But why help a Senator if there are Jedi who can deal with it?
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': In "Greatest Hits", we see a flashback to Charlie playing his guitar on the streets for money. When the show's over, he hears a woman (Nadia) screaming for help as a man tried to rob her purse. He chases him away by repeatedly hitting him with his guitar case. When she thanks him, Charlie says he did what anyone else would've done, to which Nadia replies that at least three people passes by before him and none of them even tried to help her.\

* A spell in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' called Aura of the Unremarkable can invoke an [[UpToEleven extra-strength]] version of this. Creatures affected by the spell have their minds manipulated to regard anything they witness as entirely innocuous. As a specific example, it describes someone ''aiming a crossbow at the queen from a balcony'' as a thing that affected onlookers would regard as "normal and unworthy of concern".

* ''Fanfic/LegendOfTheRisingStar'': Averted, for the most part. One prominent example - Shining Advent was founded by Lelus and Attemi for the very reason of protecting Crypton Province from all the crime and misery because they felt like they could make a difference.
* In ''Fanfic/SuperMarioWorldMaxLandis'', Queen Bean refuses to get involved in the war, seeing it as a Mushroom Kingdom problem.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In his SuperHeroOrigin, Peter Parker let a burglar run right by him when he could have easily stopped him because he didn't think it was his problem. [[DeathByOriginStory He would regret this for the rest of his life]].

Since the turn of the 21st Century, increased scrutiny has been given to the Bystander Effect by psychologists and it's increasingly viewed with scepticism. While the small-scale lab experiments conducted in the 20th Century did show a hesitency for people to intervene when they were in groups, this was something that only happened when the subjects ''knew'' they were in a test and therefore that the "emergency" wasn't real. In actual emergency situations, people showed far less hesitency to act when in groups. And when they did hesitate it tended to be for reasons like fear of getting hurt (as if someone's already in danger then it would also logically also be dangerous for a random person who lacks proper training or equipment to get involved). However, that research has yet to percolate into fiction so it's likely to be a long time before Bystander Syndrome becomes a DeadHorseTrope.

* In ''Fanfic/SonicOrigins'', this was what made the culling go on without any objections until Shade stepped up and killed her own superior. Every single recruit was waiting for another one to oppose this plan, that and years of boot camp have made them too conditioned to disobey orders. Shadow explains just why it is so horrifying.

* The father in "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" does nothing to stand up for her daughter's abuse, nor does he seem to notice the memory of his late initial wife.

* ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014'': In issue #8 of ''The Magnificent Ms. Marvel'', Kamala muses on why this bystander syndrome is so tempting in the first place: there are some problems in the world that just seem unstoppable, and it's tempting to just let them grow when chances are you'll just keep getting defeated.

* In ''ComicBook/CivilWar'' the ComicBook/XMen decide that the SHRA is not their problem, since they're too busy rebuilding their race. The thing is, whoever the X-Men sided with would've won then and there, and the SHRA itself is just a version of the Mutant Registration Act that keeps coming up in X-Books, so the X-Men really didn't have much of an excuse, since they've always opposed registering superpowers. Conversely, in ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'' the X-Men call out the Avengers for not being more responsive to the frequent attempts at ''genocide'' mutants have to fight off on a regular basis. ComicBook/EmmaFrost claims this stance is due to superheroes on both sides [[SupermanStaysOutOfGotham not helping with the X-Men's Genosha crisis]], but Emma's [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor not always one for doing the right thing anyway]].

* ''ComicBook/TheFoxHunt'': Paul tries to [[InvokedTrope Invoke this Trope]] during a bank robbery he and his son Shinji get caught in as a means of attempting getting out of the Vigilante business. Due in equal parts to his son choosing to ''get into'' said business and his Paul's own [[ChronicHeroSyndrome self-dishonesty]] regarding the matter, however, [[SubvertedTrope this doesn't quite work]].
* ''ComicBook/{{Galactus}}'': Retellings of the original trilogy often struggle to explain what ComicBook/TheAvengers and other super-heroes were all doing while the ComicBook/FantasticFour stood alone saving the world.

* ''ComicBook/TheMagnificentMsMarvel'': In issue #8, Kamala muses on why this bystander syndrome is so tempting in the first place: there are some problems in the world that just seem unstoppable, and it's tempting to just let them grow when chances are you'll just keep getting defeated.
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': In his SuperHeroOrigin, Peter Parker let a burglar run right by him when he could have easily stopped him because he didn't think it was his problem. [[DeathByOriginStory He would regret this for the rest of his life.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': At the beginning of the ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'' storyline, two Kryptonians witness a car crash as wandering around Metropolis. People expect them to use their powers to help out, but they just shrug their pleas off and fly away.

* In ''ComicBook/{{DMZ}}'', Wilson has kept [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs his army of "grandsons"]] out of several fights and military incidents because it either isn't their fight, isn't their war, isn't something that concerns them, etc. Wilson's only concern is building up his power in China Town/among the Chinese, and working towards being the most powerful force in Manhattan.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'', Batman couldn't care less for whatever happens outside Gotham City.
* In ''ComicBook/TheFoxHunt'', Paul tries to [[InvokedTrope Invoke this Trope]] during a bank robbery he and his son Shinji get caught in as a means of attempting getting out of the Vigilante business. Due in equal parts to his son choosing to ''get into'' said business and his Paul's own [[ChronicHeroSyndrome self-dishonesty]] regarding the matter, however, [[SubvertedTrope this doesn't quite work]].

* ''ComicBook/MagnificentMsMarvel'': In issue #8, Kamala muses on why this bystander syndrome is so tempting in the first place: there are some problems in the world that just seem unstoppable, and it's tempting to just let them grow when chances are you'll just keep getting defeated.

* At the beginning of ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' storyline ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'', two Kryptonians witness a car crash as wandering around Metropolis. People expect them to use their powers to help out, but they just shrug their pleas off and fly away.