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The Berenstain Bears conspiracy.

It seems that we are all in the same generation, though there might be a couple older ones here, so I was wondering what you would all think of this: http://mandelaeffect.com/berenstein-or-berenstain-bears/

I always remembered it as Berenstein Bears, but when I was young, I incorrectly called them the Bernstein Bears, then I eventually noticed it was Berenstein and was actually upset about that.
Proof of alternate universes and timelines? I found out about this from watching the Angry Video Game Nerd's videos, wondering all the way through the video if it was just some joke he was playing for the act in the video itself.

Comments

  • FreejackFreejack Jake the Not-so-Wise
    edited January 2017
    Not much of one for conspiracy theories, but I do think it is an interesting study in how inaccurate and biased by perception the human memory can be. I think many of those grew up pronouncing BerenstEIn and so our memories perceive an "e" instead of an "a"...

    Here is a good excerpt from the comments section of you link above:
    I think the most likely explanation for all of this stuff is a particular kind of memory problem. It’s not simply mis-remembering something, or forgetting something, or being wrong about something. I think especially with the Henry VIII portrait and the Berenst*in Bears, it seems one possible solution is that the human mind just has certain paths it wants to take, and that there are certain concepts or images kind of lying around, and as we recall things from the past we are recalling them in according with these paths and images lying around. I have a notion that King Henry VIII was kind of a glutton, and I have a notion of fat gluttonous kings eating turkey legs, so when I need to recall an image of Henry VIII, I put these things together. This creates a memory, but one associated with the past, and one that is now wrong. You really have this memory, but it’s not a memory of anything real.
    Jake
  • DarthCaligulaDarthCaligula Elite Ranger
    edited January 2017
    No, this is clearly the true answer:

    "You are only 18 and can remember the Berenstein books. That means whatever happened was probably within the last 12 years. My wife and I have 2 children to whom we have read the books and, watched the shows with. We are both adamant that it was The Berenstein Bears.
    What the hell happened? The Hadron Collider?"

    The Large Hadron Collider sent some of us into a different reality where the Berernstein Bears are the Berenstain Bears! This is obviously the most logical of answers.
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    There was another recent example of a mass delusion along these lines, with a Reddit community inventing and elaborating on a terrible '90s kids movie which is clearly an amalgam of several real terrible '90s kids movies.

    One thing to remember is that the human brain isn't write-only. Remembering a thing also revises the memory. I've had a number of experiences that bear this out personally; under conscious anesthesia for a dental procedure, one of the side effects is that despite awake, you can't remember what happened while you were "under." I can remember the drugs starting to take effect, and I remember when they cleared, but the actual operation is a void— except I can remember remembering parts of the operation immediately afterward.

    Likewise, after first learning about this, I had a memory I, for want of a better word, coveted. I kept myself from revisiting the event in my mind for a year or two. When I finally did, it remained fairly sharp and contained, but now that I stopped avoiding it, it's become fuzzy and smoothed-over, the details diffuse instead of immediately accessible.

    I have to say, though, it's not great that a sizable number of people will, with conviction, say the entire universe must be conspiring against them rather than admit that they misremembered a detail that isn't pertinent to their lives, like a nonstandard spelling, which actor was in a genie movie, or which political prisoners died while incarcerated.
  • FreejackFreejack Jake the Not-so-Wise
    To your last point, which is very salient, I think in general humans have a strong need for order, even if we aren't all that good at expressing or implementing it. Having perception that our memories are accurate and consistent lends to that sense of order, so when that perception is challenged, we quickly reach for outside explainations rather than just admitting we are often bad at remembering details.

    Specificly to the alternative timeline notion that is batted about, why, if we indeed we had entered an alternate timeline, would only the physical manifestations of the name change, but not our memories too? Wouldn't our memories be also altered if the said timeline was altered?

    Jake
  • No way, there are only two possible answers. Either it's a massive world wide conspiracy that secretly went about replacing every Berenstein Bears books with Berenstain Bears books, copying every book down to the folds, tears, and stains, or people somehow shifted into another alternate reality with only this difference. And why wouldn't our memories change? Duh! Because we're from that other reality and so we still have our old memories! You can't prove this isn't true, therefore it's clearly the truth!
  • DarthCaligulaDarthCaligula Elite Ranger
    edited July 2017
    Now I'm embarrassed to have even joked about this, since I've seen all these idiots online who actually believe in this stupid Mandela Effect thing. These people are so unbelievably stupid, like when I found out that the line in the movie Apollo 13 "Houston, we have a problem" was actually a mistake, and Jack Swigert actually said "Houston, we've had a problem." So obviously, when the movie was written, this was a mistake, but oh boy, when I looked on YouTube for audio from the actual Apollo 13 project and then the movie to compare, I found all these idiots who are like "OMGWTF D00D IT FLIPPED AGAIN FOR ME!!!11!!!!11" going on about how when they last watched the clip he said something different. I mean, there's no way that we could just have faulty memory! No! Like when I was talking about the Berenstain Bears, I was really surprised that I had gotten it wrong all this time, and wondered how that could be, but I know that the real reason is because when I read those books all those years ago, I was a kid, and got mixed up. Like I said, I actually thought it was Bernstein Bears for a long time.

    Which also brings me to Captain Disillusion's wonderful video explaining it all, and how it's not people traveling between alternate worlds or whatever stupid thing they all like to believe. I think he makes the case for why we experience these weird things pretty clear.

  • SanfamSanfam I like clocks.
    edited July 2017
    I have to comment here for awareness of Captain Disillusion's cause. You're doing the lord's work, DarthCaligula! For those unfamiliar, I highly recommend you check out his Youtube channel. It's a source of great entertainment and insight.

    People really do downplay the power association and familiarity have in forming and calling upon memories. The brain isn't magic and certainly isn't capable of recording every minute detail. object association and comparative analysis are large factors in human perception. If "-stain" was a common surname suffix in the modern world, more people would be apt to remember it that way. "-stein," very similar but not quite equal, is rather common and easily mistakable to our younger selves. Given that most of us would pass over the title quickly, the brain will in gaps of perception and connect the dots, and then cement that notion by forming whatever neurological connections link those concepts.
  • DarthCaligulaDarthCaligula Elite Ranger
    I found out about Captain Disillusion pretty recently. Probably a couple weeks before I decided to post the video here. I saw a video of space footage with weird shapes flying around, and I was wondering about that, like what could they be, or is it even real? I just searched for a video explaining this sort of thing and found one by him, and now I've watched almost all of his videos I think. I loved it when I found this video since I've gotten so sick of OMG D00D MANDELA EFFECT idiots who think that they're shifting from one timeline to another or something stupid like that. Amazing how the only differences are things that don't really have any profound effect on our lives! No shifting into another reality where Archduke Ferdinand wasn't assassinated or something! No, it's just that Mickey Mouse had overalls instead of shorts, and that's it.
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