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Anime and Manga
When I close off my ears, I close off my heart, too. Then, I don't have to face this world I hate.
—Shinji Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion
Comic Strips
Peter: Tell me if it's not OK for me to blow off homework tonight.
Paige: Tell me if it's not OK for me to order this sweater on your credit card.
Jason: Tell me if it's not OK for me to eat this box of ho-hos before dinner.
Roger (facepalming): Tell me you haven't been wearing headphones all afternoon.
Andrea (taking off her headphones): The kids bought me a Walkman. Isn't that sweet?
Paige: Tell me if it's not OK for me to order this sweater on your credit card.
Jason: Tell me if it's not OK for me to eat this box of ho-hos before dinner.
Roger (facepalming): Tell me you haven't been wearing headphones all afternoon.
Andrea (taking off her headphones): The kids bought me a Walkman. Isn't that sweet?
Fan Works
In the room across the hall, an old SDAT tape player sat on the desk in a beam of moonlight, gathering dust. It hadn't been touched in two months; retreat and escape from the world were no longer needed.
—Advice and Trust, prologue
He laid in bed, music in his ears from his headphones and tried to zone out, but his mind kept spiraling back to Asuka.
He was not much for the boob-tube, preferring instead the quiet solitude of his S-DAT, but it seemed wrong to walk away from the moment.
"You saw me do almost the same thing a lot, I would put on my headphones and crawl up into myself trying to block everything out. Shutting off the world. I'll admit it felt good to get away from everything like that, but when I came out of it the things that had hurt me were still there, and usually had gotten worse because instead of actually dealing with them I had ignored them."
— Shinji Ikari, Wake
Literature
Kevin stays in his room with his headphones surgically attached to his ears, so he can block things out. But I can't. I can't help but hear Mom and Dad yelling.
— Max Disaster #1: Alien Eraser to the Rescue
Music
You spend half of your life trying to fall behind.
You ease in your headphones to drown out your mind.
You ease in your headphones to drown out your mind.
—Regina Spektor, "Eet"
Videogames
It gets difficult trying to calculate the total external applied torque to a body's rotational motion through its moment of momentum vector while the distracting sounds of gunfire and death are all around you. Build a better, safer machine with the silence of the Safe'n'sound!
—Safe'n'sound description,Team Fortress 2
Web Original
"My headphones prevent me from seeing everyone running away!"
—Allison Pregler as a woman listening to music while a bull is loose on the beach, Baywatching
"Squidward, the truck is coming! Oh my God, he has AirPods in, he can't hear us!"
