“Memory – like liberty – is a fragile thing.” - Elizabeth Loftus.
We tend to think about memories like photographs. They’re snippets of the past, and we go over the most monumental (or embarrassing) moments in our lives time and time again, sometimes just to remind ourselves of who we are. It's such a fundamental part of our daily routines that we forget how reliant we are on memories. Every thing from the taste of strawberries to the name of that film you saw yesterday are all parts of what we need just to get by, and few of us would ever question the validity of the human mind. However, should we be so certain of what we perceive, or be a lot more suspicious? What if I told you that your most precious recollections could be false?
When Fiona Broome participated in a DragonCon convention (a meeting for followers of various fan culture) in 2010, she started a conversation about how many people remembered the death of Nelson Mandela in jail during the 1980s. In truth, the protester turned political leader, President of South Africa, died on 5th December 2013. This supposed false memory soon sparked numerous conversations about the potential conspiracies behind it all. Soon after, the term Mandela Effect was officially coined after incidents where a person would “misremember” an event differently to what facts present. False memory wasn't a satisfying conclusion for Broome and her supporters, however, so they decided that there was something more interesting going on. Possibly involving parallel universes. …show more content…
Naturally, if for some reason we can’t rely on our mind, we turn to the internet or some other sources for a fact-check. Fiona Broome and her supporters are firm in their beliefs that what they remembered was real. What happens when all the information you see tell you that you’re wrong? Would you shrug it off, or stay determined in proving your memory right like followers of Broome? Are you already affected by the Mandela
We tend to think about memories like photographs. They’re snippets of the past, and we go over the most monumental (or embarrassing) moments in our lives time and time again, sometimes just to remind ourselves of who we are. It's such a fundamental part of our daily routines that we forget how reliant we are on memories. Every thing from the taste of strawberries to the name of that film you saw yesterday are all parts of what we need just to get by, and few of us would ever question the validity of the human mind. However, should we be so certain of what we perceive, or be a lot more suspicious? What if I told you that your most precious recollections could be false?
When Fiona Broome participated in a DragonCon convention (a meeting for followers of various fan culture) in 2010, she started a conversation about how many people remembered the death of Nelson Mandela in jail during the 1980s. In truth, the protester turned political leader, President of South Africa, died on 5th December 2013. This supposed false memory soon sparked numerous conversations about the potential conspiracies behind it all. Soon after, the term Mandela Effect was officially coined after incidents where a person would “misremember” an event differently to what facts present. False memory wasn't a satisfying conclusion for Broome and her supporters, however, so they decided that there was something more interesting going on. Possibly involving parallel universes. …show more content…
Naturally, if for some reason we can’t rely on our mind, we turn to the internet or some other sources for a fact-check. Fiona Broome and her supporters are firm in their beliefs that what they remembered was real. What happens when all the information you see tell you that you’re wrong? Would you shrug it off, or stay determined in proving your memory right like followers of Broome? Are you already affected by the Mandela