Possibly in real life he would not be deemed anything extraordinary, but by contrast with the average of stage men and women, any one who is not a born fool naturally appears somewhat Machiavellian.
— Stage-Land, on the Detective
Sometimes, a work requires someone to hold an Idiot Ball for a bit. However, when multiple characters are portrayed as being of low intelligence, incurious about the world around them, insensitive towards others, or stating things that even a child would know is untrue, the story might be set in a World of Dumbass, a setting that is designed to be packed with unintelligent characters, with our protagonists often being among the sole exceptions.
This setting can serve a few purposes:
- The work is trying to play it for laughs, with a handful of Straight Man characters either reacting to, or suffering through, the behavior of others in the setting.
- The work is attempting to teach An Aesop. This can vary from the dangers of propaganda to the value of good education to how anyone, even authority figures, can sometimes be wrong.
- The work is portraying a scenario where the ignorant characters (i.e. most of the population) are somehow antagonistic, and our protagonists are some form of Guile Hero, Badass Bookworm, or in especially dire cases, just The Everyman.
While sometimes, the people in these settings are ignorant on purpose, it's usually not by choice. There might be a Lotus-Eater Machine controlling the population, or an oppressive regime enacting a campaign of censorship and propaganda that is almost 100% Gaslighting by volume, or, in more localized settings, some kind of contaminant or phenomenon that's causing erratic behavior and lowered intelligence.
Compare Cloudcuckooland if Played for Laughs. In stories where this is Played for Drama, expect this to be a Crapsack World as well, and a World Gone Mad if the setting wasn't always like this. If the grown-ups specifically are so unhelpful (or in this case, stupid) that the underage protagonists have to deal with the big problems themselves, that's Adults Are Useless. Also compare Stupid Future People if set in the future, or Medieval Morons if set in the past.
Both compare and contrast Humans Are Morons, for when humans specifically are depicted to have stupidity as their hat in contrast to other sapient species; a World of Funny Animals can be a World of Dumbass, but Humans Are Morons would generally not apply there.
May overlap with the World of Jerkass if a disproportionate number of characters are rude, hostile, obnoxious, or otherwise unpleasant — in this case, it would be a world full of Insufferable Imbeciles where a Kindhearted Simpleton would be out of place.
Related to Only Sane Man, for the only intelligent and sensible character in such a world, and Surrounded by Idiots, for when someone thinks that they're in such a world (but may not necessarily be the case).
Despite the connotations, these settings usually do not involve an Idiot Plot, and if they do, it's likely not intentional on the author's part. Not to be confused with Global Ignorance, which is about how people are ignorant about geography.
Because everyone has an opinion of what qualifies as ignorant that can encompass entire groups, philosophies and areas of geography, No Real Life Examples, Please!
Please only provide examples that are addressed In-Universe. If the authorial intent behind the behavior of characters acting contrary to common sense is unclear, it could be potential Flame Bait.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Dumb Ways to Die: As the title would imply, the majority of the characters in the Public Service Announcement are portrayed as Too Dumb to Live — most of them are named after words relating to stupidity (e.g. Dunce, Dummkopf, and Pillock), and they make poor decisions that result in their deaths. These include (but aren't limited to) setting themselves on fire, poking a bear with a stick, and selling their kidneys on the internet. The purpose of the PSA is to educate viewers about train safety, focusing the last few lines on showing unsafe behavior around trains, and mentioning that they're as much of dumb ways to die as the rest of the bad decisions described in the song.
Comic Strips
- Dilbert: Dilbert's company makes products that are lethal, hazardous, useless or unfit for sale, yet enough customers buy them to make the CEO stupefyingly rich. Dilbert's co-workers, especially those in non-engineering departments, also seem to be moronic, and survive only by lying to their bosses about how useful and productive they are.
- Minimum Security: Kranti and her friends are the closest to smart that the protagonists can get, and everyone else is stupid, weak, and/or evil.
Film — Live-Action
- The world of Deep Murder is set in a badly written porno from a Skinemax-knockoff, so all the characters are themselves incompetent in a situation that isn't just a set-up for sex.
- Idiocracy might be the Trope Codifier as far as the portrayal of this trope in the 21st century is concerned. The film depicts a future where, due to 'dumb' people having more children than 'smart' people, America becomes a capitalist, sex-obsessed hellhole where the average IQ doesn't even reach room temperature and everyone acts like a Lower-Class Lout. Costcos the size of whole cities dominate what parts of the skyline aren't obscured by mountains of trash. The protagonist, an Everyman from the early 21st century, discovers that the famine that the US is facing caused by the agriculture industry attempting to grow crops with a Gatorade-like sports drink called Brawndo instead of water.
- In Mom and Dad Save the World, Earthlings Marge and Dick Nelson are captured and taken to a planet where nearly everyone is incredibly stupid, including their clownishly narcissistic dictator.
Literature
- Fahrenheit 451: Captain Beatty reveals that society chose to ban books in a bout of widespread Political Overcorrectness, which has resulted in televisions that take up whole rooms (with screens making up entire walls) becoming a major form of recreation; it's implied, among other things, that this paradigm shift towards television has led to an increase in violent crime, has made elections easier to manipulate, and has given several people (including Montag's wife) unhealthy parasocial relationships with the characters on TV.
- Gulliver's Travels: Played with in the third book, which concerns Gulliver's adventures in Laputa and several other lands. Laputa itself is portrayed as a civilization on a Floating Continent that's magnetically suspended, which is possible due to the fact that Laputans have made massive advancements in astronomy, science and mathematics… but its citizens fail to use this knowledge in any practical manner, having architecture that's unstable and clothing that doesn't fit, in part because they take all their measurements with cartographic tools as opposed to something more practical such as a tape measure.
- The short story "The Marching Morons" by Cyril M. Kornbluth might be the Ur-Example. Similar to Idiocracy, which it predates by several decades, the human race has become progressively dumber as stupid people outbreed smart ones. The smart people are forced to work harder and harder to feed and support the stupid ones. Just like in the film, a person from hundreds of years before (1988, even though the story was written in 1965) is found in suspended animation and asked to help solve the world's problems. His solution and final fate are much darker than in the movie.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: As a general rule, 80% of the people Violet, Klaus and Sunny encounter on their adventures are either actively incurious, anti-intellectual, and completely disregard any opinions the orphans have. A further 10% have some level of malicious intent towards them (sometimes both, as is the case with The Daily Punctilio), with the remaining 10% either being well-meaning but powerless to help them, or getting killed off before the book they're introduced in ends.
- Shades of Grey depicts a post-apocalyptic society of humans living in a Fantastic Caste System based on what colors they can see; it's mentioned multiple times across both books that multiple "De-factings" have taken place, which have led to the loss of technologies including cars, phonographs, telephone networks, televisions and riding horseback, and have made the populace of the Collective placid and largely unwilling to question the reality they live in. Anything that can't be explained within the confines of the Rules is considered 'apocrypha', meaning that its existence cannot be acknowledged without punishment.
- Stage-Land is entirely devoted to snarking about the nonsensical plots of Victorian theatre and the complete lack of common sense displayed by its stock characters. When the narrator gets to the Detective, he offers the following praise:
Possibly in real life he would not be deemed anything extraordinary, but by contrast with the average of stage men and women, any one who is not a born fool naturally appears somewhat Machiavellian.
Live-Action TV
- The Boys (2019): Thanks to Vought having a near-monopoly over both the news and entertainment media, they've managed to turn the American Public into this regarding Supes; at best, they're kept in the dark with regards to the most heinous acts of The Seven, with attempts at government regulation being actively sabotaged by a mole implanted by Vought and at worst, the public is actively fawning over Homelander, who they truly believe to be The Paragon, and not a Psychopathic Manchild mass murderer that the audience, and the Boys, see.
- Doc Martin: Doc Martin acts as the Straight Man in Port Wenn, a village comprised mostly of simpletons. Many of the residents (as well as visitors) tend to ignore his medical advice, only to later need his help when their condition flares up. Officer Joe Penhale in particular is quite incompetent at his job.
- Dinosaurs: Almost all the dinosaurs (save for a few like Fran) are often slow on the uptake and prone to jumping to drastic decisions over small things. By the end of the series, they end up being responsible for their own extinction when they try to fix their ecosystem, only to make things even more disastrous.
- Eureka: The town is normally populated by people with genius-level IQs, but in the Season 2 episode "E=MC…?", everyone starts acting erratic and child-like; initially, it's blamed on energy released by an experiment meant to replicate the conditions of the Big Bang, but it turns out that a cloning process for creating lab-grown meat produced chemicals that blocked neurotransmitters when ingested, and the only unaffected characters either refused to eat it or are vegetarians.
- Kaamelott: Just about every single character not named Arthur is in some way an idiot, obnoxiously "quirky", not entirely sane, or both — and even Arthur has his moments.
- The peasants spend more time pursuing Sitcom Arch-Nemesis vendettas that end up destroying crops and livestock than they do farming, the soldiers are incapable of understanding basic tactics, the knights are a bunch of morons who can't complete a quest without it turning into a catastrophe, the women are catty bitches (many of whom want to become queen with no idea of what that entails) or have zero interest running their household, the gods can't even agree on what the Grail even is or looks like, and just about the only reason Britain hasn't been overrun by barbarians is because they're just as stupid.
- The constant idiocy is a major factor in Lancelot's rebellion and his taking over the country, believing the quest for the Grail requires competent individuals and not the current shower of jackasses… who then spends the next ten years oppressing peasants and wasting the kingdom's money to find Arthur, unaware that Arthur is somewhere in the Mediterranean in quasi-Happiness in Slavery.
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: In the episode "Among the Lotus Eaters", the often-referenced planet of Rigel VII is revealed to have been affected by an asteroid impact that causes a variation of this. The radiation from said asteroid induces amnesia in everyone on the planet, making it impossible to retain skills more advanced than 'chop wood' or 'break rocks'… except for the ruling class, who have infrastructure and equipment that renders them immune to the radiation.
Puppet Shows
- "Dumbass" is probably a strong word to describe many of the characters in Thunderbirds, but considering that many of the disasters that International Rescue have to save people from is often brought on by human error and a lack of OSHA compliance, it'll make one wish that the Tracy Boys and Lady Penelope would just let the rescuees save themselves from the disasters they get themselves into.
Video Games
- Lemmings has the player attempt to save as many of the mindless little lemmings as possible. This is not so easy, as the lemmings are like mindless toddlers, marching into certain doom because they're all Too Dumb to Live. Some levels are a real challenge to keep these zero-survival-instinct critters from perishing in droves.
- Team Fortress 2: The supplemental comics reveal that the town of Teufort, the closest population center to where the mercs are based, has a severe lead poisoning problem in its water supply, which explains the Cloud Cuckoolander behavior of the townsfolk. Miss Pauling explains that she's been supplying the mercs bottled water because of this… to which the Soldier asks, "Bottled what now?"
Web Original
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged: Parodying how Dragon Ball Z has characters act more on pride and fighting compared to using critical thinking, intelligence, and pragmatism to the point where other characters call each other out on their choices, escalating the plot rather than doing something to resolve it.
- Happy Tree Friends: Almost everyone has a Too Dumb to Live moment at one time or another, which naturally leads to many gruesome deaths that they always come back from. Even Flaky, the Only Sane Woman, has had her share of it, like the time she got into an inflatable raft and popped it, robbing her chances of survival. Sniffles the Ditzy Genius has his dumb moments as well, such as when he went to the trouble of making a time machine just to stop himself from spilling his milk.
- Kingdom Hearts in a Nutshell: Not a single person in the entire universe is immune from holding the Idiot Ball, not even Sora, who is routinely portrayed as the Only Sane Man. You have everything from blindly trusting the most Obviously Evil characters they can see, taking them at their word even after they've proven to be untrustworthy ("okay i believe you"), and so much Comically Missing the Point that it's a wonder anyone can even function.
- Red vs. Blue: Subverted. The core cast all start off as blatant stereotypes (the bloodthirsty sergeant, the lazy private, the know-it-all kissass, etc.) who are barely able to function. It's later revealed that these are, however, the least competent members of the UNSC military, reassigned to be one of many training bases for actual soldiers in the Human-Covenant War. Later on, they also prove their mettle together, showing that they're actually quite competent, if still more than a little eccentric.
- SCP Foundation: Site-333
in Atlantic City is described as a place where Foundation personnel "wash up" — it's essentially a last-chance facility for some of the Foundation's biggest fuck-ups who haven't fucked up quite hard enough to face termination, either of employment or otherwise. The site is deep in debt, the head of the cryptozoology department is obsessed with proving the Jersey Devil exists, and the Site Director is described as "selfish and untrustworthy" and only maintains his position because more qualified candidates aren't willing to move to New Jersey; overall, the tone is more reminiscent of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia than the Horror-Urban Fantasy hybrid the rest of the Foundation has, with awful, stupid people constantly doing awful, stupid things.
- Virtually everyone in Sonic for Hire ranges from morons at best to complete lunatics at worst. Even Dr. Eggman, who supposedly has a PhD, is often too blinded by his gluttony and hedonism to be of any real smarts. The only characters among the main/supporting cast who are remotely intellectual are Tails, Earthworm Jim, Knuckles, Mario, and Eggette, with the keyword here being 'remotely'.
- Sword Art Online Abridged: Established from the outset, the intelligence of the average SAO player is… lacking, to say the least. Highlights include:
- Many of them don't even get the concept of dying until that clip from Scanners is shown. Then they promptly forget it. Kayaba has to keep the clip tabbed.
- The following several months of playing the game see several players die from their own stupidity, including standing in a fire, motionless. Kirito's internal monologue narrator complains about this.
Narrator: A month had passed since that fateful day. When everyone's world got all twisted, leaving them stranded in a castle in the sky. Since then, 2,000 poor souls came to an abrupt and tragic end. Some by bad luck, others by sheer stupidity. I mean, really, why would you just stand in fire!?
- During a battle with a floor boss, one of the squad groups was playing Bejeweled.
- They believe "group up and hit it till it dies" is a viable strategy with no additional nuance, which leads to large body counts.
- Kayaba Akihiko cannot help but vent his frustrations to a captive audience.
"I tried, you know? Lord knows I tried. But there's just no helping you people. It's like you crave death! But not just any death! Nooooo! You fuckers seem to have some sort of pool going to see who can end their existence in the dumbest, most avoidable way possible! And you just keep one-upping each other! Do you know how many of you have died screaming 'Leeroy Jenkins'?! More than zero! Which, as far as I'm concerned, is grounds to exterminate the species!"
- Nearly everyone in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series is either Too Dumb to Live, a Cloudcuckoolander, a complete Jerkass, or a combination thereof. Yugi Moto, Ishizu, Mokuba, and Florence are the only characters with any semblance of sanity, but they are definitely not without their moments.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball: With the exception of Nicole and Anais (and some minor/supporting characters), there is little-to-no intellect in the Crapsaccharine World of Elmore. Gumball himself tends to be reckless and ignorant, although he does have his moments of being somewhat self-aware and abstract.
- Angry Birds Toons: Downplayed as it is just one location rather than the whole world, but Pig City has very stupid residents, with the very few smart ones often being treated like Butt Monkeys.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Almost everyone in the show's warped version of New Jersey is an utter moron. A few characters such as Frylock, Carl, Dr. Weird's Beleaguered Assistant Steve, and a few minor characters are intelligent enough to serve as straight men, but it's also repeatedly shown that they're still lunatics in their own way.
- Back at the Barnyard: Humans Are Morons applies in full force, with none of them being able to distinguish animals in obvious disguises from actual people. The animals themselves aren't really much better due to their recklessness and convoluted ideas.
- Beavis and Butt-Head: Even putting aside the extremely idiotic and clueless main characters, most people have a Horrible Judge of Character when it comes to managing the two, which generally leads to trouble.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- In the Made-for-TV Movie Channel Chasers, one of the shows Timmy goes into is based off The Simpsons, where every adult there is too dumb to be of any use. Timmy even lampshades this:
Timmy: Is every adult in this show a moron?!
- Dimmsdale itself isn't much better, with everyone being either too oblivious or too inane to actually handle any given situation. Even Timmy himself isn't immune to this, as his careless wishes are what accounts for most of the problems in the first place. The citizens of Yugopotamia and Cosmo the fairy aren't the sharpest tools in the shed either.
- In the Made-for-TV Movie Channel Chasers, one of the shows Timmy goes into is based off The Simpsons, where every adult there is too dumb to be of any use. Timmy even lampshades this:
- Family Guy: Just about everyone is depicted as either a Cloudcuckoolander or Too Dumb to Live, being prone to angry mob mentality when anything goes wrong. The most notable exceptions are Brian and Stewie, which isn't really saying much.
- Futurama: The episode "The Day The Earth Stood Stupid" depicts alien Brains attempting to turn Earth into one of these, with Fry being unaffected (though still naturally dimwitted) due to lacking a specific brain wave. The acts of idiocy committed by the characters under the influence of the Brains include sticking their hands in fire and joining the Reform Party.
- Gravity Falls: Most of the townsfolk leave much to be desired for in terms of intelligence, including the police force. It ends up being deconstructed in "Society of the Blind Eye" when it's revealed that the reason for this is because of brain damage from having their memories repeatedly erased whenever someone sees and/or experiences something they can't comprehend.
- In Inside Job (2021), Cognito Inc. and the Illuminati justify their existence by the conceit that most humans are too stupid to protect themselves but also to stupid to be reasoned with; thus, the only way to protect them is to keep them ignorant and incurious about the realities of their world.
- Invader Zim: Everyone on Earth except the Membrane family is so stupid that Zim the alien can fool them into believing he's a human child with only a wig and a pair of contact lenses, while passing off his green skin and lack of ears as a skin condition. Even Zim himself isn't immune to this, as his own ineptitude is the main (if not only) thing that actually prevents him from accomplishing his goals to Take Over the World.
- Johnny Test: Porkbelly is shown to largely be an intellectual wasteland, although the few smart characters tend to excuse the townsfolk for causing problems since they're too dumb to know any better.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): The majority of Townsville's citizens are shown to be almost incapable of thinking for themselves and don't even try to solve problems on their own without asking the girls for help. Highlighted in one episode where the girls try to instruct them to battle a monster, with their interactions being akin to that of a teacher and a classroom full of preschool students.
- Rugrats (1991): Most of the characters, particularly the adults, are portrayed as oblivious, incompetent, or clueless. They never notice whenever the babies are on their adventures, sometimes even misinterpreting the situations entirely. Ironically, the babies themselves, for all their naivety and cluelessness, have a rather surprising level of resourcefulness and problem-solving for their age.
- The Simpsons: Springfield veers into Crapsack World territory after the first few seasons, being filled with and run by eccentrics and morons. Several episodes feature characters proclaiming Springfield to be a town full of gullible hicks and idiots. The townsfolk are often depicted trying their best to uphold that reputation, even resorting to assaulting those who are intelligent. Even the more intelligent characters, like Lisa, prove to be Not So Above It All during the series and cause several problems with their foolishness. The episode "Homer's Enemy" is a standout example. It's not Homer's incompetence that drives Frank Grimes to suicidal madness, but the fact that he's the only one intelligent and observant enough to recognize said incompetence.
- Sonic Boom: Knuckles is a dimwit who can't read or count; Sticks is a nutty, paranoid Cloudcuckoolander; Eggman is a Ditzy Genius, sometimes a Genius Ditz; and all of the villagers (except Perci) are often portrayed as gullible morons who lack common sense and are Too Dumb to Live. Sonic, Tails, and Amy have common sense, but sometimes, they'll grab the Idiot Ball as well.
- South Park: The people in South Park are all complete idiots whose reactions to any given situation range from juvenile to downright insane. In the episode "Cancelled", it turns out that Earth is set up by extraterrestrial life as a Reality TV show for the rest of the universe's silly amusement. Earth responds, "We're on TV!" Even the more reasonable characters, like Sharon and Chef, aren't without their Not So Above It All moments.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The characters range from simply idiotic and clueless to reckless and self-harmful. SpongeBob himself is an Idiot Hero, with Patrick being his moronic partner in crime. Not even the usually level-headed Squidward and Evil Genius Plankton are safe from making terrible decisions due to their hubris. The only few genuinely smart and rational characters in this show are Sandy and Karen.
- Trulli Tales: The intelligence of the villagers can be questioned as they are too helpless to do anything when the Big Bad, Copperpot, attacks. The episode "Beards For One, Beards For All" also exemplifies this as they believe "red beard = Copperpot".
- Viva Piñata: Most of Pinata Island's inhabitants tend to be extremely gullible and stupid, with the few intelligent ones like Les and Paulie basically being their only line of defense against anyone who would try to hurt and/or take advantage of them.
- Wordgirl: Most of the townsfolk leave a lot to be desired for in the intelligence and common-sense departments, often requiring WordGirl to bail them out of situations they themselves cause.