Basic Trope: A character with headphones on pays the world no mind.
- Straight: Alice is always seen with headphones, and is a quiet loner who dislikes interacting with people.
- Exaggerated: Alice, with her headphones on, pays no mind to an oncoming car and takes 5 minutes to realize she's dead.
- Downplayed: Alice's attention can still be obtained through her headphones, it's just kind of hard for everyone.
- Justified:
- Alice is a DJ who is very focused on her work.
- Alice has super hearing, so she wears the headphones to drown out all the ambient sound.
- Alice sees that wearing headphones is a useful in avoiding social interaction.
- Earmuffs or isolating headphones are mandatory when working near the table saws.
- Inverted:
- When Alice has her headphones on, she's more attentive.
- Alice wears headphones, but is the most extroverted and fun-loving person in the cast.
- Subverted:
- Someone tried to snag Alice's attention, but she says she can hear them fine.
- Alice is wearing headphones, and looks like she's not paying anyone any attention, but she was actually just listening to music and is perfectly friendly and sociable.
- The 'headphones' are actually unusual hearing aids. Without them on she is stone deaf.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Except she's lying and has no clue what they're talking about.
- ...Something happens to make her clam up again.
- However she does become more social when she exchanges them for ones which don't look like headphones or surgical fixes like cochlear implants.
- Parodied: Being an audiophile is considered something you need a support group for.
- Zig Zagged: Alice is sometimes withdrawn and distant while wearing headphones, other times she isn't.
- Averted: Alice doesn't have headphones. Or they don't work.
- Enforced: "We need to show that Alice is incredibly distant. What headphones do kids use these days?"
- Lampshaded: "Wow, when Alice has those headphones on, you can slap her and she won't bat an eye."
- Invoked: Alice puts on a pair of bulky headphones and doesn't pay anyone any attention. People ignore her as a result.
- Exploited: Robbers notice that Alice is wearing headphones, so they enter her house and steal some valuables. She doesn't notice.
- Defied:
- Alice doesn't want to be seen as a distant person while wearing headphones. She wears earphones instead so people will still approach her.
- Others make Alice to take off the headphones.
- Discussed: "Take off those headphones, Alice, they make you look like a loner."
- Conversed: "Why is that character wearing headphones?" "Oh, you know, to make her look isolated from everyone else."
- Deconstructed:
- Alice develops a hearing problem.
- Alice is so busy wearing her headphones that this alienates others who wanted to socialize with her. Worse, she gets antagonized and mocked by others for being a weird loner who wears headphones.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice learns to moderate using her headphones. Though she's still asocial as they come without them.
- Alice makes amends with others and explains she doesn't wear headphones because she hates people, it's because it gives her peace of mind. While she still wears her headphones, she's not as distant as she was as she tries to socialize with others.
Back to Headphones Equal Isolation
