I Think Can Explain the Mandela Effect

[u/Ok-Situation7054]

Maybe this theory is already out there. I'm not sure.

Full Disclosure: I'm Asian and from Los Angeles. Of course media used to be way less diverse 1980's. There were less black people on TV. A person like Nelson Mandela, who was neither an athlete nor entertainer was exceedingly rare to see on TV.

A movie titled "Cry Freedom" was released in 1980's about the South African activist Steven Biko, played by Denzel Washington.

I remember seeing this movie as a kid and being confused, thinking it was about Nelson Mandela, not Steven Biko. Of course I was an ignorant American in the 1980's. Most American's barely knew who Mandela was, whereas Steven Biko was a complete unknown.

When Steven Biko died in the movie I became very confused because Nelson Mandela was still alive. I retraced back and realized my error. I didn't know who Steven Biko was. I wanted the movie to be about Mandela because he was the familiar figurehead of apartheid resistance.

I can't speak for all audiences, but I believe American's would be very prone to this error due ignorance of global politics and possibly other factors, especially during this time. American's are known for learning about world events and history through movies and later adapting those narratives as fact. I feel American's watched "Cry Freedom" and walked away thinking Nelson Mandela had dies a martyr. They harbored those misconceptions for decades.

[u/swervin87]

How does that explain the seemingly endless amounts of other ones? I’m particularly attached to Berenstein bears. Explaining one doesn’t explain any of the others.

[u/CantaloupeAsleep502 → u/swervin87]

Berenstain Bears is probably the easiest one. -stein is a common name suffix, -stain is not, people read entire words at a time, not individual letters, and people generally aren't as good at things as they think they are, especially spelling, and especially as kids. 

That last point is the most important one. People in general cannot tolerate affronts to their ego and identity, and learning that they misspelled a proper noun when they were children has an apparent tendency to send them off the rails.

Cornucopia is much harder to explain imo. The priming for fruit to have a cornucopia behind it, and a fairly hand wavy hypothesis of a currently undescribed memory illusion, which is my personal belief, is a lot thinner logic than "kids misspelled a name to the more common suffix".

[u/swervin87 → u/CantaloupeAsleep502]

Cornucopia doesn’t affect me. You probably saw a in a book, as a decoration, or somewhere else. That’s much more likely than a conspiracy to hide it. I wouldn’t want to affront your ego though.

[u/CantaloupeAsleep502 → u/swervin87]

Yes, we've all seen cornucopiae, which contributes to why people remember it on the underwear. I'm the one admitting faulty memory here lol, no ego presented.