The Mandela Effect

[Bellver888]

Has anyone experienced it?
I’m currently sending my head backwards and forwards because I thought “Vimto” was “Vimpto”

Golden Wonder cheese and onion were green and salt and vinegar blue, opposite way round on Walkers Crisps!

I’m also in agreement about the blue/green crisp packet change...but the question is, how on earth are we all convinced it was Walkers and not let’s say, Golden Wonder that changed?? Maybe it’s like that striped dress thing - you know where people see different colours? Well the memory/brain does some weird things.

Maybe this is a great PR stunt on the part of walkers, as everyone talks about it so it’s very effective marketing??

Also, my weird memory that could be a ‘non memory’, is seeing an article in either Hello or OK magazine of a celebrity wedding (tbh it was a bit ‘B-list’!!) and even bumping into the couple in a pub in London, only to find all traces of the relationship vanished. I’m also quite accurate on detailed memory and people are often astonished at what I remember, but this wedding is untraceable. It’s very odd and still bugs me almost 20 years after I think it happened 🤷🏼‍♀️.

‘Do you take ...’ is not in the wedding vows - it’s ‘will you take’ and the answer is ‘I will’ not ‘I do’ - all on the C of E website! So all those ‘I do’ wedding cards etc are wrong!

@DrSbaitso

I think the Mandela effect is when lots of people have the same false memory. Named for the phenomenon of people "remembering" that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s. He didn't.

I am aware of that the Mandela effect is, but what I don't understand how anyone could remember him dying in prison in the 80s. Surely anyone who was around in the 80s would also remember the campaigns to free him and his ultimate release. Or did they have the memory in the 80s rather than now and were surprised to see him released because they thought he had died?

@Sk8ermum3000

I’m also in agreement about the blue/green crisp packet change...but the question is, how on earth are we all convinced it was Walkers and not let’s say, Golden Wonder that changed?? Maybe it’s like that striped dress thing - you know where people see different colours? Well the memory/brain does some weird things.

Maybe this is a great PR stunt on the part of walkers, as everyone talks about it so it’s very effective marketing??

Also, my weird memory that could be a ‘non memory’, is seeing an article in either Hello or OK magazine of a celebrity wedding (tbh it was a bit ‘B-list’!!) and even bumping into the couple in a pub in London, only to find all traces of the relationship vanished. I’m also quite accurate on detailed memory and people are often astonished at what I remember, but this wedding is untraceable. It’s very odd and still bugs me almost 20 years after I think it happened 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Who was it?

@HarrietSchulenberg

I was one of the many people who swore salt n vinegar crisp packets swapped colours with cheese n onion. Apparently they didn't.

I think they did. Blue for salt & vinegar. Green for cheese & Onion.

In 1988 there was a televised Mandela 'Tribute' Concert at Wembley. Mandela was still in prison at that time. It followed all the uprisings in South Africa. He had suffered from TB and been ill. The concert was to mark his 70th Birthday. I think calling it a tribute concert may have led to many people thinking he had died.

Yes it did... google it 😃

The one that got me was Adidas I swear used to be threes D’s - 3 Ds for three stripes. Also how deep is you love, I swear it was I really need to know. Who knows!

Here's one for you, when I was a kid we were quite poor, it was the 80s and for school we would have packed lunches and has crisps that opened lengthways not like "normal" crisps. I can't find these anywhere on the internet and it's driving me insane cause I know for sure they existed!

I’m also in agreement about the blue/green crisp packet change...but the question is, how on earth are we all convinced it was Walkers and not let’s say, Golden Wonder that changed??

Ok, again, the explanation.

Golden Wonder were the market leaders, and they had green cheese and onion and blue salt and vinegar. Still do.
Walkers had the opposite, blue cheese and onion and green salt and vinegar.
So at one point you had it stuck in your mind that S&V were blue, because you were used to seeing/eating Golden Wonder.
Then Walkers overtook GW and were then more ubiquitous, so you now gets into your mind that salt and vinegar have "changed" from blue to green.
But they have not. The brands are the same as ever and never changed, what changed was which one you saw a lot more of. But you forget that or never realised it, so you are left with a (false) memory that the crisp colours changed.

See? It's your perception of what changed that is wrong. Someting changed, but not what you think.

There's a misconception that human memory is good. It's not.

There are so many memory functions. Most erode because we couldn't cope with remembering everything we see and experience. Declarative memory is your recollection of an event. No two people will have the same recollection.

Huge events like 9/11 are called flashbulb memories, we remember where we were and what we were doing at the time but it probably wasn't exactly how you recall it.

When we remember things we are only remembering the last time we recalled it and each time there will be a small change in that memory.

Repetition helps encode short term memory into the long term memory store (hippocampus) but they still won't be entirely accurate.

None of the consensus list of Mandela effects apply to me except the fruit of the loom which has spun me out a bit. The kids at the comp near our school all had fotl jumpers instead of the plain burgundy ones so I saw that logo daily. Weird.

So after much research about the the changing of crisp packet colours, it would seem before walkers became popular cheese and onion were indeed green and salt and vinegar blue. Along came Walkers who for whatever reason swapped these colours around and soon everyone apart from Golden wonder followed. 🤪

I think the American states one is easy to explain.. you first learn there are 50 states then you learn that alaska and hawaii are two states that are not connected to the land mass that is north America.. you add them on in your head to get 52 even though they are already included in the 50.

It's a trick your brain plays when short cutting the memory of the facts by amalgamating them. Same with most of these.

The easiest way to remember is to think of hawaii five o

Apparently when you remember something, you are not remembering when it happened, but remembering the last time you remember it. So your memories are continually over-written, which can account for details becoming blurred or changing over time.

I had a personal experience of this. I wanted to look for a TV show on YouTube that I remembered from the early 2000s but I couldn't remember its name. I had a very clear memory (I thought) of me sitting watching it in a particular armchair and living room. I was therefore searching using the years when I'd lived in that house. I eventually tracked it down, but discovered I had the year completely wrong and I'd been living somewhere completely different when it was shown.

It was a one-off reality show ('Space Cadets' ) that I don't think has ever been repeated for reasons which will be obvious if you know the show I'm talking about.

I assume I have merged the memory with watching something else because despite now knowing when it was shown, the memory of me watching it in a place I couldn't have persists.

Omg I pronounce it vimPto too!

Definitely remember looney toons. I have a clear memory watching it as a child and wondering why they misspelled tunes, then twigged it was short for cartoons and felt pleased with myself. But apparently it never was! So mad. But more niche but I distinctly remember watching the 1950’s b movie the fly being in black and white but it never was

Patty... they are loony toons because they are cartoons... nothing to do with music

@boltfromtheblueblue

I’m also in agreement about the blue/green crisp packet change...but the question is, how on earth are we all convinced it was Walkers and not let’s say, Golden Wonder that changed??

Ok, again, the explanation.

Golden Wonder were the market leaders, and they had green cheese and onion and blue salt and vinegar. Still do.
Walkers had the opposite, blue cheese and onion and green salt and vinegar.
So at one point you had it stuck in your mind that S&V were blue, because you were used to seeing/eating Golden Wonder.
Then Walkers overtook GW and were then more ubiquitous, so you now gets into your mind that salt and vinegar have "changed" from blue to green.
But they have not. The brands are the same as ever and never changed, what changed was which one you saw a lot more of. But you forget that or never realised it, so you are left with a (false) memory that the crisp colours changed.

See? It's your perception of what changed that is wrong. Someting changed, but not what you think.

These images (sorry s and v one a bit blurry, couldn’t get a better pic) were taken of the Walkers crisp packets on the tv show Back In Time to the Corner Shop. It was the 1970s episode. All the other branding and packaging on the show is authentic (from the museum of brands in London?) so presumably this is too.....

@crochetcrazy1978

Definitely remember looney toons. I have a clear memory watching it as a child and wondering why they misspelled tunes, then twigged it was short for cartoons and felt pleased with myself. But apparently it never was! So mad. But more niche but I distinctly remember watching the 1950’s b movie the fly being in black and white but it never was

As another poster pointed out you were probably watching Tiny Toons 😃

I thought Jimmy Greaves died years ago . Very surprised to find out recently he is still very much alive 😳

@LisaD76

Patty... they are loony toons because they are cartoons... nothing to do with music

Loony Tunes Tiny Toons 😃

@HarrietSchulenberg

I was one of the many people who swore salt n vinegar crisp packets swapped colours with cheese n onion. Apparently they didn't.

WHAT???

THEY ABSOLUTELY DID!!!

@lifeturnsonadime

9/11 is a strange one for me , i clearly remember hearing the reports on the radio in the car on the way to a meeting (and discussing it at that meeting). But because of the time difference that must be wrong, it must have been on the way back as I was in a theatre the otherside of the country by 7.30pm. I remember pulling on to service station in shock and watching the second plane hit.

The first plane hit just before 2pm UK time. The second one at about 3.30 UK time.

I remember hearing about the first plane at about 2pm standing in the corridor at work. We thought it was a light aircraft accident until news of the second. I went back to my office and listened to the radio all afternoon and heard the news of the towers collapsing at about 3.30.

Tower 7 came down much later so perhaps this is what you watched in the service station?