Do you know about the Mandela Effect?
It’s when a group of people recalls something completely different than the way it really happened.
And it happens more than you’d think…
It’s actually a really interesting phenomenon that seems to have become popular in the last few years on social media.
People on AskReddit talked about different examples of the Mandela Effect.
Let’s take a look.
1. The big ones.
“Coca Cola and the hyphen, Mickey Mouse and the overall straps, Nelson Mandela and when he died (hence why it’s called the Mandela Effect).”
2. A mystery.
“I remember the Monopoly man having a monocle but apparently he’s never had one.
How weird is that?
Does anyone else remember him having a monocle? I’m convinced he did.”
3. A hot debate.
“The famous line from Star Wars when Vader tells Luke he’s his father.
Many people think the line is “Luke I am your father”, when the actual line is “no I am your father”.”
4. That’s interesting…
“In Denmark we have a very popular television show called “Matador” which takes place from 1929 to 1947.
There’s a very memorable scene where the town’s resident spinster has finally gotten married but when her husband wants to consummate their wedding, she locks him out on the balcony.
When the show re-aired for the first time in the early 1980’s there was a huge sh*tstorm because the broadcast company had removed the scene where he stands on the balcony, shouting to be let back in – only that scene never existed in the first place.
But everyone in Denmark who has watched “Matador” knows exactly how that scene looks.”
5. What happened?
“I do a fair amount of transcription work as a part of my job, logging specific statements that were made.
Two years ago, I was asked about a statement made by someone during a meeting. Five of us recalled the statement at issue the same way – and none of us were right.
When I logged the audio and sent it around, we were astonished by this lack of recall.”
6. Weird.
“Every Brit of a certain age remembers the double entendres in Captain Pugwash.
Characters included Seaman Staines, Roger The Cabin Boy and Master Bates. Except none of that actually happened. I have been told by many older people that this was on TV but it never actually happened.
Even The Guardian reported in 1991 that it was taken off air by the BBC due to the risque nature of the children’s cartoon.”
7. You’re wrong!
“Many people believe the Raisin Bran Sun wore sunglasses.
But this is not the case…”
8. Really?
“Mr. Rogers saying “it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood”
What he actually said was “it’s a beautiful day in THIS neighborhood”.”
9. Have to double-check.
“The Fruit of the Loom logo.
I swear to god it had a cornucopia!”
10. Smile or no smile?
“The Mona Lisa having no smile on her face.
People claim that she’s always had it (how it is now), but others, including me, remember the Mona Lisa not smiling in the painting.”
11. Peanut butter problems.
“Jif peanut butter.
My father is convinced with 100% certainty that it used to be called Jiffy, and not gonna lie the amount of certainty he says it with kind of makes me question if it in fact was called Jiffy at some point in the past.”
12. I know that place!
“Everyone in my town remembers “Dolly’s Soup Shack.”
But when you ask someone to point it out, no one can actually remember where it is and it doesn’t pop up on any Internet search.
I assume it was either a food cart that up and left or it was called something else.”
13. You weren’t there.
“My friend got married, and my other friend often talked about how great the wedding was and what happened, and we would all agree, until we remembered he didn’t even go!
I think because he’d seen pictures of us there and his wife had gone and probably described it when she got home, he’d just convinced himself and in turn us he was there.”
14. He’s still around.
“I could swear in early 2000 that James Earl Jones died.
This was later confirmed for me when Battlefront 2 came out and the voice for Vader was absolutely terrible.
When Rogue One came out I was shocked at how good the fake Peter Cushing looked and assumed there was some other kind of movie magic for Vader’s spot-on voice.
Little did I know it was actually James Earl Jones doing the voice of Vader in Rogue One and he is alive and well.”
15. Uh uh.
“I always thought Shel Silverstein (author of The Giving Tree) was black.
I only found out he was white maybe two years ago.
My whole life has been a lie.”
16. Creepy story.
“I swear I remember the girl in the Slenderman st**bing had died.
But I looked it up a week or two ago, and she’s alive! She had been st**bed 19 times but a passerby saved her!
I swear I remember it that the passerby found her, and that she died in the ambulance or something.”
17. Can’t find anything.
“Back in the late 1980s we had a Commodre 64.
It was hooked up in the family room and I remember putting in a disk and playing game, side scroll stylish, where you walk down and old western town and can enter buildings and interact with NPCs. I don’t remember a ton of other detail, but as hard as I tried, I could never find that game again.
My parents thought I was crazy saying it didn’t exist, but I remember playing it. I have searched the web and nothing…….”
18. Literally the Mandela Effect.
“The death of Nelson Mandela.
I’ve read accounts from people who claim to vividly remember hearing or seeing reports of Mandela’s death while he was in prison, even recalling a televised funeral.
Of course, in (this) reality Mandela did not die in prison and went on to become president of South Africa.”
19. Hmmmm…
“In Wells, Maine there used to be a house in the middle of a parking lot that had two ostriches outside. I saw them every summer as a kid. I touched one. I talked to the owners. You could see them from the like the 1 main road this place has.
Years later as an adult I got a job there and despite this being a ‘tourist town’ that is mostly just old people with their RVs who have been coming there for decades NOBODY believed me! People who lived there since I was a kid didn’t believe me! I thought I just remembered wrong and that I had seen them in a different place because a parking lot in front of a Hannaford’s is a weird place for ostriches, right?
But while out biking and getting groceries I noticed a house across the parking lot sort of hidden by vegetation and there it was! The ostriches are long gone and now that I just street viewed the property it looks more visible and nicer but I fu**ing knew it!
There was even a sign about ostriches still there. I showed everyone and they believed me but they still just didn’t remember.”
20. A big one.
“Berenstein Bears vs Berenstain Bears.
To this day I’m still convinced there is a parallel universe where the Berenstein Bears still exist.”
21. Wildly inaccurate.
“When I was in college, a guy ran into the classroom, grabbed a students purse and fled. The professor kept everyone in the room, and calm, and asked everyone to write down a description of the guy who did this.
We didn’t know it then, but this had been prearranged by the professor and the guy came back into the room after all the descriptions were collected and returned the purse to the student.
I was the only one in the classroom that described the “thief” as being dressed like a clown, complete with orange wig, face paint, giant red nose, baggy clothes made up of colorful patches.
The professor was astounded. In all the years he’d been pulling this stunt, to show that people’s recall of events that just transpired is wildly inaccurate, I was the first one to come close to describing the guy.
I was dumbfounded that no one else noticed. Everyone else kept arguing that the guy dressed as a clown couldn’t have been the one that took the purse, because they didn’t see a clown take the purse, they saw a “thief”.”
22. Why the long face?
“I distinctly remember the Mona Lisa painting having a frown I studied it at school.
I remember discussing it but it turns out apparently she’s always had a smile.
I know it didn’t have a smile but apparently now it always has. That freaks me the f**k out. We literally studied it and discussed the frown.”
Have you ever experienced the Mandela Effect?
If so, please tell us about it in the comments.
Thanks in advance!
