A subject I have heard a lot about due to my consuming ridiculous amounts of strange and other worldly accounts from podcasts like Mr. Ballen and the WHY Files, is the Mandella Effect.
What is the Mandella effect, you might ask, and I’m glad you did, because it is described as a phenomenon in which a large group of people all collectively remember an event or image differently from how it occurred in reality. Popular conspiracy theories to explain away this strange occurrence range from false memories to alternative realities.
The Mandella Effect gets its name from one of the more glaring discrepancies; the collectively false belief that Nelson Mandella, the former South African president, died in a South African prison in the 1980s. In reality, the former African president passed away at his home in 2013.
The term was first coined in 2009 by Fiona Broome who started a website going deeper into the phenomenon after discussing Mandella’s death at a conference she attended and finding many others erroneously remembered the leader dying in the 1980s as she also did.
Since 2009, various forms of media have popped up touting more alleged evidence of our collective false memories.
Other examples of the Mandella Effect in modern times are:
1) Leave it to Star Wars to be entrenched in a conspiracy theory but in Episode V—The Emperor Strikes Back many remember Darth Vader saying, “Luke, I am your father,” when the actual line is, “No, I am your father.”
2) It could be a wicked witch’s spell if you remember the line from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Further review reveals the real phrase to be “Magic mirror on the wall.”
3) When it comes to Peanut Butter if you think the brand name was ever “Jiffy” you’d be wrong. The actual brand name is “Jiff” peanut butter because— “Choosy moms choose Jiff.”
4) Horrifying news I know, but the Monopoly Man never had a monocle.
5) In the Britney Spears music video “Toxic,” most fans remember her wearing a headset. In fact, Spears’s Barbie Doll dressed in her outfit from Toxic includes her wearing just such a headset, but the singer did not wear one for the music video.
6) While Leonardo DiCaprio did win an Oscar in 2016 for his role in The Revenant, he never won any Oscars for his performances in other films like Titanic and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
7) This one is more for those of us who lived through the 1990s, but there is no movie starring Sinbad as a genie. I repeat—there is no movie, it does not exist 90s kids. [Other generations think we are confusing Shaquille O’Neal’s role in the movie Kazam for the Sinbad as a genie movie, but we 90s kids know better. Wink, wink!].
8) In more pop culture, in the TV show M.A.S.H. viewers remember the death of one of the main characters, Colonel Walter Radar O’Reilly as portrayed by actor Gary Burghoff, but in real life, Burghoff’s character remained alive and well on the show until season 8.
9) A common misconception surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is that there were only four passengers in the presidential car when in actuality there were six. First Lady Jackie Kennedy explained this misremembered detail from the day as being the responsibility of the various camera angles both photos and video from the day were shot in. The six passengers inside the presidential car that fateful day were the driver, two secret service agents, Texas Governor at the time John Connally and his wife, Nellie Connally, plus President Kennedy and the First Lady.
10) Contrary to popular belief, in the movie Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins character Hanibal Lector does not say, “Hello Clarice,” instead he really says, “Good morning,” rather benignly.
Do you recognize any of these Mandella Effects? Are you aware of any mind-bending cracks in the matrix yourself?