For those of you unfamiliar with the Mandela Effect, it's the phenomenon in which names, places, words, and events have changed from the way you remember them. The term comes from the fact that many people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 80s, although this is not the case in this current reality. Some people see the changes and some don't. Some people see some changes, but not others.
Nelson Mandela is not part of my "Mandela Effects". Growing up in the 80s, there was much awareness about South Africa and Apartheid. We lamented over the fact that Mandela still in prison after 30 years and seeing the decade pass before he was finally released. Other people distinctly remember him dying in jail.
Many more examples like this exist. This is not a few people remembering things incorrectly, this is hundreds, possibly thousands of people remembering things being different, all with the exact same "false"memory. How could so many people misremember things that were so significant in their lives and pop culture?
Theories on this phenomenon include a time shift or parallel universe and the strange part is that things seem to constantly be changing. Product logos, celebrity names, and word spellings that you've recently seen are now different with no proof that the old versions actually existed.
Every once in awhile you come across things from the "old world" and I am here to document the proof I find. Please comment and share your experiences.
I only came across Mandela Effect a couple of days ago, so please excuse my boldness here, but don’t “old world proofs” actually debunk the theory? That is, if there’s documentation that something used to at least sometimes be spelt a certain way then there’s nothing strange about us remembering it that way?
ReplyDeleteThe intriguing ones for me are things like Looney Toons, which I was genuinely surprised to see was (or is now) Looney Tunes, and the Ford logo which I certainly don’t remember having the pigtail on the F. That is to say, instances where lots of people will swear it was Looney Toons in their childhood (or Ford without the pigtail) but there is no evidence that it ever was. Surely those sort of cases are suggestive of a change in the world, whereas if you can say, “Yes, sure you remember it as Lay-Z-Boy rather than La-Z-Boy because it used to be spelt that way in old adverts,” then that just proves there’s nothing odd going on, the makers have just changed the way its spelt.
Reba McEntire/McIntyre, for example is, to me, just proof that a lot of journalists have misspelt an unusual name over the years. Happens all the time, as I regularly see two more country singers Charley Pride and Patsy Cline getting spelled as Charlie and Kline even though their names are famous enough that people should know how to spell them by now.
The Mandela Effect is a fascinating subject but I think some theorists are diluting the genuinely puzzling instances with badly researched ones. For example, one YouTuber was talking about the Lord’s Prayer changing from “trespasses” to “debts.” I was genuinely taken aback by this “change,” until I clicked on Wikipedia and found there have always been two versions, with “trespasses” being traditional and “debts” maybe used more nowadays.
You’ve got some fantastic research on this blog, but wouldn’t it be better to use things like the pictures of old VW badges to debunk the idea that the new badge is the result of the Mandela Effect? I think debunking the explainable cases would strengthen the case for the inexplicable ones.
As far as name spellings, many of the "old" spellings were that way for decades then all of a sudden in the last few years, they have changed. Are we to believe that celebrity names were consistently misspelled for decades in newspapers, on TV, and in magazines without anyone catching on?
DeleteWhat about words? It's not just what's in print, but what we were taught in school. I (and many others) remember being taught how to spell "dilemna" and "definately", now they are spelled differently. So, copy editors, writers, and teachers alike spelled everyday English words incorrectly all this time? Once or twice is a spelling error, this is something else.
The company logo and name changes are not just the companies rebranding. If you search those logo and name histories, it's as if the old version never existed.
As for the Lord's prayer, I knew that there were two versions as a child, but we said the "debts" version. Most people were probably taught one or the other, so it makes sense that they wouldn't have heard of the other version. This is not a Mandela Effect for me.
You said, "wouldn’t it be better to use things like the pictures of old VW badges". I use whatever picture I can find that shows the logo the way people remember it. I don't have any personal VW pic on hand.
You are new to the Mandela effect, so keep researching. You'll see that it is not as simple as you think.
Thought you may like to see this piece I've just written on the Mandela Effect in the Daily Telegraph:
ReplyDeletewww.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/20/are-you-living-in-an-alternate-reality-welcome-to-the-wacky-worl/
This is awesome. Thanks!
DeleteHey Melissa,
ReplyDeletei'm happy you allow comments now, without having to register first. Thanks for that.
I'm affected by the ME too and have already witnessed multiple flip flops, so no way it can be bad memory.
Just wanted to thank you for your awesome work here. I really enjoy your blog and visit regulary.
I'm going to contact you via your contact form on the sidebar (which hopefully works) soon, as i have a question.
Keep up the great work and best wishes to ya... <3
Thank you so much! I'll definitely link your forum!
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