The other day I was clicking around YouTube as Dianne was reading and came across videos on the Mandela Effect. Simply put this is a weird situation where a large group of people remember events differently than they happened and the repeated talk about it reinforces the belief. Now anyone who studies memory knows that this is an easy thing to explain. Memory is not like a recording of events, it is more like bullet points that we fill in the gaps with our previous experiences. This is true of many memories even ones that we make emotional attachments to and think that they are solid. An example is that of major events when people say "I always remember where I was when..." Various historical events include: Pearl Harbor, Kennedy assassination, the Challenger explosion, Princess Diana's death, 9-11, etc. Called flash bulb memories they seem seared into our brains but in fact they are not. Often when you take a deeper dive into your own personal story about where you were and what you were doing when you learned about them, you are wrong. Sometimes remarkably wrong and other times just a bit off. Many times, even in the face of real evidence, they still believe what they remember and not what is proven fact.
With the Mandela Effect, often you have many people who remember the same way you do, even if clearly wrong. Named for Nelson Mandela, because when he left prison in 1990 many people were surprise because they had thought he had died earlier in the 80s, But as late as 1985 there were plenty of people raising awareness of Apartheid, and the Artists Against Apartheid released Sun City that ends with a call to Free Nelson Mandela. In part the news of the time was all over the place but so many people believed that Mandela had died, stories rose that there was a funeral, an Oprah special etc. These are hard memories to dispel in people even with the fact for many years after Mandela was seen regularly on the world stage. The Mandela effect has many other examples. People remember a movie call Shazam, staring actor/comedian Sinbad in the mid-90s. It never happened. There was a movie called Kazaam staring Shaquille O'Neil and in the 60s and 70s a cartoon called Shazzan had a similar plot to the missing movie. Couple that with Sinbad hosting a movie about Sinbad the Sailor dressed in stereotypical Middle Eastern garb often associated with a genie and the confluence of things built a memory.
I could list many other examples but the point is that most of the Mandela Effect memories are easily explained and often silly. But that hasn't stopped a niche market of people to believe that something more sinister or other worldly is going on. If you search the internet you can find places that speak of the Mandela effect as being evidence of us shifting to alternative timelines, others saying it is a full on psyops program by the government. In medicine there is a saying, when you hear hoof beats think horses not zebras. The simplest diagnosis is often the right one. But for so many they thrive on the conspiracy theory to drive and seem to build their identity around it.
This is dangerous because reality matters, a lot. Trying to convince people that every thing can be traced to a nefarious cause has consequences. This week we learned the often repeated lie about Seth Rich, a Democratic staffer who was murdered in what police believe a failed robbery, was a story planted by a Russian operation to discredit Secretary Hillary Clinton. The lie was the Rich was the leakier of Clinton's emails and she had him killed. This lie found purchase in the right wing noise machine underbelly and soon found its way to Fox News and talk radio that talked about it even after the election. This could be one more piece of the horror show that is the political conspiracy world that included a story that a pizza place in Washington was the headquarters of a sex ring that was managed through the basement of the building. The building had no basement but that didn't stop someone showing up with a gun to demand he be allowed to investigate. If you think this is all over, earlier this week a group of right wing activists went to the New Castle Police department in New York to call for them to arrest her.
Some of the people who spread this nonsense on the internet were invited to join the President at the White House this week. He was discussing with them how social media is treating them badly because, and I am not kidding, they get banned for violating the rules of use of the platform. The President of the United States is whining and wants to use the power of the government to help people who report things like Facebook and Twitter are shadow banning them. That some how they think they are posting but no one can see it. They did that on Twitter and Facebook. Others spoke of various plots by Clinton and other Democrats to overthrow the government. Some in the room promoted the Birther cause and the raging Islamophobia that pollutes their websites often speaks of an attempt to overturn out government through Creeping Sharia. Oh and a real life Nazi was there.
Nonsense has cache and not only in the political world and frankly not only with conservatives. But conservatives have the loudest voices in politics. This week there are thousands who claim they will storm Area 51, a military base in the Nevada desert used to test and develop secret projects, in search of the aliens rumored to be there. This place has been ground zero for the alien crowd so much that it is part of the vernacular of the country. Why people believe the US has aliens and using their technology is beyond me but in the end it is easier for people to believe the lie for whatever reason.
Nonsense is something that people seem to thrive on. Be it people who would rather believe they are bouncing between alternate realities than memory is a faulty mistress or that Hillary and Bill Clinton are criminal geniuses that have gotten away with dozens of murders but couldn't stop a TV personality from winning the Presidency you will never go broke creating a good story to sell to people who would rather believe than think.
With the Mandela Effect, often you have many people who remember the same way you do, even if clearly wrong. Named for Nelson Mandela, because when he left prison in 1990 many people were surprise because they had thought he had died earlier in the 80s, But as late as 1985 there were plenty of people raising awareness of Apartheid, and the Artists Against Apartheid released Sun City that ends with a call to Free Nelson Mandela. In part the news of the time was all over the place but so many people believed that Mandela had died, stories rose that there was a funeral, an Oprah special etc. These are hard memories to dispel in people even with the fact for many years after Mandela was seen regularly on the world stage. The Mandela effect has many other examples. People remember a movie call Shazam, staring actor/comedian Sinbad in the mid-90s. It never happened. There was a movie called Kazaam staring Shaquille O'Neil and in the 60s and 70s a cartoon called Shazzan had a similar plot to the missing movie. Couple that with Sinbad hosting a movie about Sinbad the Sailor dressed in stereotypical Middle Eastern garb often associated with a genie and the confluence of things built a memory.
I could list many other examples but the point is that most of the Mandela Effect memories are easily explained and often silly. But that hasn't stopped a niche market of people to believe that something more sinister or other worldly is going on. If you search the internet you can find places that speak of the Mandela effect as being evidence of us shifting to alternative timelines, others saying it is a full on psyops program by the government. In medicine there is a saying, when you hear hoof beats think horses not zebras. The simplest diagnosis is often the right one. But for so many they thrive on the conspiracy theory to drive and seem to build their identity around it.
This is dangerous because reality matters, a lot. Trying to convince people that every thing can be traced to a nefarious cause has consequences. This week we learned the often repeated lie about Seth Rich, a Democratic staffer who was murdered in what police believe a failed robbery, was a story planted by a Russian operation to discredit Secretary Hillary Clinton. The lie was the Rich was the leakier of Clinton's emails and she had him killed. This lie found purchase in the right wing noise machine underbelly and soon found its way to Fox News and talk radio that talked about it even after the election. This could be one more piece of the horror show that is the political conspiracy world that included a story that a pizza place in Washington was the headquarters of a sex ring that was managed through the basement of the building. The building had no basement but that didn't stop someone showing up with a gun to demand he be allowed to investigate. If you think this is all over, earlier this week a group of right wing activists went to the New Castle Police department in New York to call for them to arrest her.
Some of the people who spread this nonsense on the internet were invited to join the President at the White House this week. He was discussing with them how social media is treating them badly because, and I am not kidding, they get banned for violating the rules of use of the platform. The President of the United States is whining and wants to use the power of the government to help people who report things like Facebook and Twitter are shadow banning them. That some how they think they are posting but no one can see it. They did that on Twitter and Facebook. Others spoke of various plots by Clinton and other Democrats to overthrow the government. Some in the room promoted the Birther cause and the raging Islamophobia that pollutes their websites often speaks of an attempt to overturn out government through Creeping Sharia. Oh and a real life Nazi was there.
Nonsense has cache and not only in the political world and frankly not only with conservatives. But conservatives have the loudest voices in politics. This week there are thousands who claim they will storm Area 51, a military base in the Nevada desert used to test and develop secret projects, in search of the aliens rumored to be there. This place has been ground zero for the alien crowd so much that it is part of the vernacular of the country. Why people believe the US has aliens and using their technology is beyond me but in the end it is easier for people to believe the lie for whatever reason.
Nonsense is something that people seem to thrive on. Be it people who would rather believe they are bouncing between alternate realities than memory is a faulty mistress or that Hillary and Bill Clinton are criminal geniuses that have gotten away with dozens of murders but couldn't stop a TV personality from winning the Presidency you will never go broke creating a good story to sell to people who would rather believe than think.
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