I had pretty much the same reaction — I was actually hoping a little bit to be able to finish the article, run my own queries through Google, have them come up empty, and get a small taste of the supernatural.
But nope, Kazaam is a perfect fit. I had remembered Shaq being in it from the beginning too, and was starting to think that my memory was a a bit faulty.
I would have also guessed "Berenstein", but to be fair, I barely knew how to spell when I read through those books.
>I would have also guessed "Berenstein", but to be fair, I barely knew how to spell when I read through those books.
I didn't know about the Berenstain alternate universe until long after it was a thing, and I this was my first reaction as well. I never really knew how to spell it, and I hadn't see one of those for many years since.
I also think it's one of those easily confused suffices: -ein, -ine, -ien, -een, -urg, -erg, etc.
I can't remember any Mandela effect. There's group consciousness (mentioned in RS and CC, but covered massively in Absolution Gap and some short stories), and some contact with a parallel universe (in AG/RA), but no independent mass misremembering.
There's some mandala drawings in Revelation Space (Philip Lascaille draws them on the pavement in chalk), and there are huge structures called Mandalas in the second and third parts of the Poseidon's Children series. Is it possible that this is what you refer to?
It goes into it a bit when they go over the history of that mass reducing machine, how a scientist testing it was wiped from history except for one nearby co-worker.
Or does it have to be more widespread to be the Mandela effect?
Whenever I see stuff on reddit I have to think there are a bunch of trolls doing stuff like this "for the lulz". This is relatively harmless but then you have stuff like /r/The_Donald and even worse, Pizzagate.
The stuff about europe on the donald and related places is totally crazy IMO. At first it was a joke, one europe earned after merkels public invite. But then it slowly creeped into mainstream media and now is used by politicans in the USA and even "documented" in propaganda material.
Sure i'll try. Obviously europe had a few more immigrants than otherwise over the last 2 years. The general idea was that under these immigrants will be a lot of terrorists (which showed to be wrong, because by far most attacks were done by people living there for a while) but is used until now from right partys. These US dominated subreddits like /r/The_Donald or even /r/4chan turned this into memes along "Blacks come to rape your woman" (projecting much?). And meanwhile Trump uses Europe as example for getting overrun by terrorists and turning Islam (whatever this means) in every other speech.
The thing is, what most european leaders are fully aware of, its not immigration that is the problem but bad immigration where Germany and France are prime examples.
To the guy that answered and then removed the question (Got a notifaction). Yes i live(d) in europe. In Switzerland where this whole thing barely seemed to be a problem and only named as problem by a few right politics. Also i am not claiming the sitation wasnt hard to some countries to scope. Its just that criminality & terrorism did not rise at all in most of them.
I have experienced this effect multiple times when my wife remembers me saying something I have no recollection of :-). I like the idea of a mandella effect, or perhaps someone does invent time travel and the only change was who starred in the movie and what its title was. Something like "in the timeline where Sinbad was in a genie movie the world is destroyed but scientists stepped back in time and changed just enough to save the world, unfortunately causality resulted in the movie no longer existing even though some still remember it. A small price to pay for saving the world."
I don't think that was the only time Sinbad dressed as a genie. I have no memory of a movie but I remember a nineties commercial where he played a genie but I don't recall the product.
Was he wearing blue and gold? I seem to remember Sinbad in a genie suit too but nothing like what Shaq's costume looks like in Kazaam. I'm totally in the camp of memory is faulty but it's just fascinating to me that so many people misremember the same things. I vote that it's the government testing time travel technology.
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why people make such a big deal out of it, muchless why it's a front page article here. When I read the first few lines of the article I figured it was referring to the movie with Shaq, then realized I remembered the name wrong when I saw the image for "Kazaam". It wasn't exactly earth shattering that I misremembered something that was a minor part of my childhood.
Same with the Berenstain Bear books - I'm pretty sure I remembered it as Berenstein as well, but I guess I was wrong, or just mispronounced it as a kid and it stuck. While I remember having read all the books multiple times, it's not like they were that important.
The impact that this has and the amount of discussion it generates is very confusing to me. If it's all in good fun and jest, then no worries I suppose, but if misremembering or simply making a mistake with facts is this mind blowing to people, I'm really curious how they handle more important incorrect facts they hold dearly. Maybe it's a function of my education hammering home the fact that what I knew yesterday might not be true to day (science and technology is like this), but making a mistake like this isn't that earth shattering to me. There's a lot of data out there to remember and of varying priority - a kids movie about a genie and the name of a book I read when I was 4 isn't quite that important to me now as it was when I was 4.
I'm sure most of this is just people having fun with a really widely held mis-memory, but I really hope people don't take it too seriously.
edit: changed opening to include my confusion why this hit front page.
> Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why people make such a big deal out of it
Memory is our connection to the past, to the events that led us to the present. We perceive and interpret the present through the models we constructed with what we experienced before. If we can't trust our memories to be good approximations of past events, we can't trust our judgement.
Let's say physicists around the world start reporting consistent FTL neutrino detections. It could be, of course, a batch of defective cables, but it'd be much harder to convince those who made the measurements when lots of people are getting the same results.
I don't remember Sinbad in anything related to this story. Although I very clearly thought the Shaq movie was named "Shazaam", even as far as remembering his catchphrase from the movie as "I am Shazaam".
Probably. But some people are acknowledging both films, and remembering that when they saw the Kazaam publicity that it looked like a crappy rip off of Shazaam.
I have no truck at all with this being mystical or a conspiracy, but I'm enjoying the idea of it.
Incidentally, "Shazam" is associated with the comic book character Captain Marvel; I'm not sure whether the comics introduced the name or merely popularized it, but in Google Ngrams it's virtually nonexistent before taking off in the 1960s (Captain Marvel first appearing in 1940).
my own "favourite" false memory is a cover version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah done by Nick Cave. The is a song named Hallelujah by Nick Cave but it is a different song. None the less I remeber very distinctly Nick Caves cover version of Hallelujah sung in his unmistakable style.
I went so far to listen to several dozen cover versions of Hallelujah on Spotify and Youtube but found none that came even near.
Should we also discuss witnesses' recollections during trials?
I remember thinking about that very much when I listened to the podcast Serial. What do we actually remember? I think I only really remember "methods". (neural passageways?)
edit: I was a pain in high school for my physics teacher (and for myself), I never learned any formulas and did everything with dimensional analysis...
Historically I believe we always trusted eye witnesses pretty heavily in trial, but they're known to be unrelated. I remember myself testifying once, and it's the strangest experience.
I remember what I thought I saw. I don't remember seeing. Even at the police station immediately after the "replay" was fuzzy. 3 months later? I was literally just parroting what I remember saying and thinking at the time not what I remember seeing.
I absolutely think that's a better way to behave. Once I replay/recall a memory a couple of times in my head it becomes as real as the original, eventually more real. I guess I'd favour my odds of being correct closer to the event but overall I just think humans are unreliable overall.
Memory is volatile, I would describe it as, every time you access a memory you store the active copy back into memory, allowing for alteration or the data depending on what you feel at the time or external suggestions.
Read an article a few years ago, where a lot of people claimed that New Zealand used to lie north of Australia. The same conclusion was made: it must be a merge of two parallel universes. Nobody stopped up to think that maybe they're just really bad at geography.
I think what makes this magical is the suggestion that a misremembered, imaginary D-list 90's movie—supposedly featuring Sinbad—is somehow evidence for Bostrom's simulation hypothesis.
False memories are very interesting (and a bit scary) stuff! For example, I distinctly remember eating moose meat at a restaurant with my grandparents, even though that never happened.
I wish there was a way to find out how much of what I remember never actually happened
The crossed movie is Aliens for Breakfast. I distinctly remember a Sinbad genie despite never having been on the Reddit discussion or thinking twice about it since the dawn of the internet. I'm pretty sure the movie people are thinking about is Aliens for Breakfast though.
The first few paragraphs I thought - "yes, I remember this". But once I got farther into it, I realized it was definitely Shaq's Kazaam that I was misremembering.
However--I would never have thought it was Sinbad at all, if the article had not suggested it first.
I'm not sure if that says more about the nature of memory, or the power of suggestion.
Perhaps fading memory combined with strong and 'seemingly accurate' suggestion is quite a powerful thing. There are tons of examples of this.
For example, was that old Tom Cruise movie called "Interview with A Vampire" or "Interview with THE Vampire"? Like 'Shazaam', many people say that at some point the movie title changed. But there's no evidence of that at all.
Basically, a writer is magically given Shakespeare's memories. "But he soon discovers that memory is a slippery thing, 'not a summation, it is a chaos of vague possibilities.'"
The greatest labyrinth of all might just be the mind.
As a 90s kid I thought the article was going to talk about the Shaq Genie movie, and it turns out it was.
I do know there was a Shazam cartoon on VHS. My local Rite Aid used to have a tiny VHS rental section. It was organized by having all of the covers stuffed into a poster display (the kind where a good number of flat frames are hinged at once side and attached to a shelf so you can flip through them like a book), and you simply found one you wanted to rent and told the clerk. The clerk would pull out the movie from underneath the shelf for the one day rental. Anyway, they had an extremely narrow kids selection, which we burned through almost immediately. Except for one title. The only cartoon in the list, Shazam was apparently some kind of superhero, but we would never know because the VHS tape was lost long ago and the manager wasn't interested in either ordering a second copy or removing the cover from the display. So every week we would ask and every week the tape would be missing.
In retrospect it was probably shit, but so was most everything kid oriented in those days.
55 comments
[ 284 ms ] story [ 308 ms ] threadIt was always the Berenstein bears though, get out of my universe!
Edit - If anyone wants a good sci-fi novel, the revelation space series touches on the mandela effect a bit.
But nope, Kazaam is a perfect fit. I had remembered Shaq being in it from the beginning too, and was starting to think that my memory was a a bit faulty.
I would have also guessed "Berenstein", but to be fair, I barely knew how to spell when I read through those books.
I didn't know about the Berenstain alternate universe until long after it was a thing, and I this was my first reaction as well. I never really knew how to spell it, and I hadn't see one of those for many years since.
I also think it's one of those easily confused suffices: -ein, -ine, -ien, -een, -urg, -erg, etc.
There's some mandala drawings in Revelation Space (Philip Lascaille draws them on the pavement in chalk), and there are huge structures called Mandalas in the second and third parts of the Poseidon's Children series. Is it possible that this is what you refer to?
Or does it have to be more widespread to be the Mandela effect?
The thing is, what most european leaders are fully aware of, its not immigration that is the problem but bad immigration where Germany and France are prime examples.
I hope this helps :)
Plz seed!
It revolves around a town of people who all claim the existence of a dog. Trouble is, there is no such dog.
Being shaper in the morning I see I should have written Jean Labadie.
Same with the Berenstain Bear books - I'm pretty sure I remembered it as Berenstein as well, but I guess I was wrong, or just mispronounced it as a kid and it stuck. While I remember having read all the books multiple times, it's not like they were that important.
The impact that this has and the amount of discussion it generates is very confusing to me. If it's all in good fun and jest, then no worries I suppose, but if misremembering or simply making a mistake with facts is this mind blowing to people, I'm really curious how they handle more important incorrect facts they hold dearly. Maybe it's a function of my education hammering home the fact that what I knew yesterday might not be true to day (science and technology is like this), but making a mistake like this isn't that earth shattering to me. There's a lot of data out there to remember and of varying priority - a kids movie about a genie and the name of a book I read when I was 4 isn't quite that important to me now as it was when I was 4.
I'm sure most of this is just people having fun with a really widely held mis-memory, but I really hope people don't take it too seriously.
edit: changed opening to include my confusion why this hit front page.
Memory is our connection to the past, to the events that led us to the present. We perceive and interpret the present through the models we constructed with what we experienced before. If we can't trust our memories to be good approximations of past events, we can't trust our judgement.
Let's say physicists around the world start reporting consistent FTL neutrino detections. It could be, of course, a batch of defective cables, but it'd be much harder to convince those who made the measurements when lots of people are getting the same results.
Edit: In fact, they were both mentioned in Scheherazade's 1001 Nights
I have no truck at all with this being mystical or a conspiracy, but I'm enjoying the idea of it.
...
You all know I never said I didn't right?
I then married and had a kid with a Korean female.
...the fuck is wrong with some people
I remember thinking about that very much when I listened to the podcast Serial. What do we actually remember? I think I only really remember "methods". (neural passageways?)
edit: I was a pain in high school for my physics teacher (and for myself), I never learned any formulas and did everything with dimensional analysis...
I remember what I thought I saw. I don't remember seeing. Even at the police station immediately after the "replay" was fuzzy. 3 months later? I was literally just parroting what I remember saying and thinking at the time not what I remember seeing.
Was a weird experience
Edit: Sorry forgot about Jingle All the Way, after that
Edit2: Oh man, and he was great in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I wish there was a way to find out how much of what I remember never actually happened
The first few paragraphs I thought - "yes, I remember this". But once I got farther into it, I realized it was definitely Shaq's Kazaam that I was misremembering.
However--I would never have thought it was Sinbad at all, if the article had not suggested it first.
I'm not sure if that says more about the nature of memory, or the power of suggestion.
Perhaps fading memory combined with strong and 'seemingly accurate' suggestion is quite a powerful thing. There are tons of examples of this.
For example, was that old Tom Cruise movie called "Interview with A Vampire" or "Interview with THE Vampire"? Like 'Shazaam', many people say that at some point the movie title changed. But there's no evidence of that at all.
Perhaps my all time favorite story about the strangeness of memory is more relevant than ever. Borges' story, "Shakespeare's Memory". Read aloud for the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/fiction-podcast-h...
Basically, a writer is magically given Shakespeare's memories. "But he soon discovers that memory is a slippery thing, 'not a summation, it is a chaos of vague possibilities.'"
The greatest labyrinth of all might just be the mind.
I do know there was a Shazam cartoon on VHS. My local Rite Aid used to have a tiny VHS rental section. It was organized by having all of the covers stuffed into a poster display (the kind where a good number of flat frames are hinged at once side and attached to a shelf so you can flip through them like a book), and you simply found one you wanted to rent and told the clerk. The clerk would pull out the movie from underneath the shelf for the one day rental. Anyway, they had an extremely narrow kids selection, which we burned through almost immediately. Except for one title. The only cartoon in the list, Shazam was apparently some kind of superhero, but we would never know because the VHS tape was lost long ago and the manager wasn't interested in either ordering a second copy or removing the cover from the display. So every week we would ask and every week the tape would be missing.
In retrospect it was probably shit, but so was most everything kid oriented in those days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmm781WHxdk