Move Over Flat-Earth-Conspiracy A New Mass Delusion Is In Town: "The Mandela Effect"
Since recently YouTube started making the suggestion that I should watch videos about The Mandela Effect. I'm not sure why but I guess occasionally watching videos about conspiracies, Pyramids and UFOs puts you in that box.
While ignoring the topic for some time, over the weekend I finally clicked on one of the videos to see what's behind that issue - and it did not disappoint:
Wild and crazy with a hint of superficial probability.
The Mandela Effect Explained
The alledged "effect" is named after Nelson Mandela, the South African politician. Apparently, some people thought he died already in the early 1990s and not in 2013. They were absolutely convinced to have read about his death back then and watched TV reports about his demise and described the events around it in quite some detail.
The number of people who thought him to be dead since the 1990s was so big that it caught some attention in the Internet. People exchanged their alledged memories and debated the issue until someone decided to turn it into a bigger theory and called it The Mandela Effect.
At the center of this bigger theory sits the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Some people believe that its activities disrupt our universe. Earthquakes, micro black holes, shifting realities, eating homework - the CERN is supposedly responsible for all sorts of phenomena from plausible to fancy and at one point, the CERN and the false(?) memories of Mandelas death have mingled.
According to the theory behind The Mandela Effect, the CERN caused a break-down of our reality and merged several closely related parallel universes into one and some of us are from this reality and some of us are from the other reality. We all still have the memories from our original universes, but we are also faced with different facts from other universes in the current mix of realities. And to make matters worse, this mixed reality is not stable, but changes continuously. The only good news is that this memory confusion will end somewhere around 2020 as soon as everything has been changed.
Sounds complicated, but is very simple in its effects when you see some examples.
Shazaam or not Shazaam?
Some Examples Proving The Mandela Effect (Watch Out, It Could Blow Your Mind!!)
1. Nelson Mandela died in 1991/2013
The founding myth is the day of death of Nelson Mandela. If you remember him dying in 2013 as his Wikipedia Site (currently!) says, you are from this universe. But in case you remember him dying in the early 90s with TV specials and international Stars wearing shirts with his prisoner number to commemorate him, then you have shifted here from another reality.
2. "I am your father, Luke" and other changes in movies
Did Darth Vader say "I am your father, Luke" or "No, I am your father"? Depending on which, you are from elsewhere - to be specific, it's the first version which indicates that you originated somewhere else.
Another one would be: "Life was like a box of chocolates" versus "Life is like a box of chocolates". Which one do you remember Forrest Gump say at the beginning of the movie? It's the latter one this time which marks you as an alien. What makes this example more complicated than most other cases is the fact that screen writer, DVD box and Forrests mother in another scene of the movie actually use the version with is. So, it's probably several universes that got merged and the fusion is not fully accomplished, yet. (So, better watch out for new holes in the floor that just got shifted here from another reality!)
Interesting is a third movie example. Apparently, in a closely related parallel universe there was a 90s movie called Shazaam. In our reality there is no such movie. Although there is an actor - from the other universe - who claims to have played a taxi driver in the movie and - this makes it actually quite spicy - there is a scene of the movie on YouTube (the scene is linked above; pun intended).
3. Several brand logos changed - especially car logos!
Volkswagen has now a horizontal bar between the V and the W in its logo:
Volvo is now the male-sign:
The Ford F has now a pig-tail:
Crazy,isn't it. There are countless other examples of brands with logos that have changed a tiny little bit and there are zero records that these changes have ever occurred. I'm just glad that my favorite car brand Mercedes is still the same. It's probably because Mercedes cars are an inter-dimensional classic: When you try to build the best car ever, you just necessarily end up at the same point. That's why their logo looks the same in all universes.
Was this Photoshop - or was it a photonic transition - or maybe just an illiterate interior designer? You decide!
A Little Reality Check
There are now plenty of videos about this alleged Mandela Effect on YouTube and it seems like some of the ones who suffer the effect are compensating their delusions the deconstruction of their reality with a lot of YouTube ad money - at least the number of views of their videos indicates that. They are in the hundred thousands.
Accordingly, almost daily there are new videos uploaded about the latest changes of our reality (remember, this is an ongoing process). What you won't find in the videos are objections because they could make sense. Like the one that the CERN is not the first and not the only installation of its kind.
Or that CERN surprisingly cheap with only 1 Billion US-Dollar per year as a budget in the notoriously expensive Switzerland. Considering that you could gain potentially weaponizable knowledge by running such a collider - and even a place like Chile could afford one - it is more than likely that since decades there are dozens of secret CERNs running all over the world. I would also bet that they are all more powerful than this little international cooperation project.
Another aspect is the human conscience - it's more than fallible. Apparently, the thing is a catastrophe on two legs and this even when you are (sic!) sober and fully awake. I'm not an expert on this matter, but just the other day I found a video in which Scott Adams (-> Dilbert Cartoonist) explains cognitive dissonance and he explains it much better than I ever could.
His specific example is Cathy Newman and her interview with Jordan Peterson, but in the second half of the video he makes a couple of interesting generalizations about the extreme fallibility of the human memory:
Adams explains Newmans hallucinations, but also utterly destroys the idea for "The Mandela Effect".
I'm sure you're asking yourself right now: Why did he write this post?
Well, I just wanted to inform you all that I just remembered coming from a different universe in which I am extremely rich and that I have a total of twelve girlfriends who are also Victoria Secret Models. The problem is: There must have been some trans-dimensional shift and I lost everything! Literally all my money and all my hot girlfriends are gone.
So... it would be really nice of you if you could help me regaining what I have lost without any fault and resteem and - especially when you are a whale(!) - upvote this post with 100%! (@sweetsssj can you help me here, please?)
And in case you are a lingerie model: How about a date?
Do you see me anywhere on our latest family foto? No? That's because this is the wrong universe.. grmpf!
Wait... What?? Morgan Freeman didn´t die in 2013??? ;)
Oh, and I loved the Shazaam-Movie - a classic!
I'd first heard about the Mandela effect with "The Berenstein Bears vs. The Berenstain Bears" controversy. For those who don't know it is a popular children's book that people collectively remember the spelling wrong (myself included). I'm pretty sure I am also from your alternate million dollar lingerie model universe.
Yeah, I think I remember you being my cocaine dealer there. You always had very fancy wrist watches made by Molex in Ritzerland^^
I was the manager of a movie theater at the time this came out. This is the correct quote.
Jane Goodall wasn't killed by apes.
But, there was another woman scientist who was killed by villagers and the movie Gorillas in the Mist portrays that, with the lesser known scientist, Dian Fossey
Berenstain Bears vs Berenstein is probably the biggest one, because it apparently depends on where you grew up.
And the Mandela Effect was around before the The Large Hadron Collider....or is that part of what happened?
Tricking the human memory is extremely simple - and this also on a mass level. All you need it is a tiny little confusion and the brains fill the gap on their own. Personally, I was baffled by the VW logo. This is kind of scary. It shows how much you can fool society when you have the means to reach everyone.
Simple enough. Old VW logos just got dirty or warn so that you wouldn't see the line.
Or fake ones were too lazy to make the line.
...eine Runde Mitleid...oooooh
:)
Sneaky Ninja Attack! You have been defended with a 1.07% vote... I was summoned by @doodlebear! I have done their bidding and now I will vanish...Whoosh