I can’t remember the year first learned about subliminal messaging, but I am positive it came from one of my sisters. She told me she was going to “Mind Bend” me into doing all her chores for her. With subliminal messaging. She convinced me I would become some sort of Zombie Child without a will, and on Saturdays when it was her turn to clean the bathrooms, I’d really be in for it. She started stalking me with this shadow, and would stare at me with her dark brown eyes across the dinner table, and squint them pointedly, for effect. I cried at night, and finally asked my Dad if he would still love me, even if I became a Mind Puppet. Of course, that put an end to all of that. Sort of. But I do blame my OCD cleaning tendencies on those early years of walking around our home without my aluminum foil hat on.
The “real” subliminal messaging was born in a New Jersey movie theater in the summer of 1957. A market researcher, named James Vicary, decided to pull a little stunt. So, during the Academy Award-winning film “Picnic,” he arranged to flash advertisements on the screen every 5 seconds. We know how it works. The images were flashed on the screen, so fast — 1/3,000th of a second — that they were undetectable by the conscious mind. The ads he put up said: “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Hungry? Eat Popcorn.” As a result, Vicary reported that there were increased Coke sales by 18.1% and popcorn by 57.8%.
At least, that’s what he told everyone. Eventually, the president of the psychological test company called Psychological Corp. challenged Vicary to repeat that nifty experiment. Vicary did it all again, but this time he failed to re-create the gains in sales. Then later, he admitted he had fabricated the results. Some historians and experts believe he never completed the original experiment at all. I’m not sure what he was trying to gain by this stint, but it seemed to be a complete farce.
Generally, “subliminal” messaging is a bit “iffy.” The method can actually be influential. But how well it works is dependent on a lot of factors, the main one being the audience’s predisposed nature.
Here’s how it goes, in theory. The subliminal messages deliver an idea that the conscious mind doesn’t detect. And once our happy little brains “see” this message, we may ignore the information because it is delivered so quickly. But for it to take effect, we have to already be “likely” to take the suggestion.
I learned that this has been a “happening” thing in our lifetimes. During the 2000 election, George W. Bush launched to smear campaign against his presidential rival, Al Gore. He ran ads that flickered the word “RATS” across the screen, when Gore was shown. Whether these attempts affected voters is unknown. But in 2000, I personally bought two pet rats and named them Georgie and Albert. Not really, but I do have an unexplainable yearning to get a couple of pet rats.
Anyway, scientists do know that subliminal messaging works in the lab. They’ve tested it in all sorts of ways. They concluded that subliminal messaging “works best when it taps into an existing desire.” We have to have some sort of need, desire, goal in our minds first. Otherwise, the messaging won’t be very effective. Also, the messages are short-lived. They only last about 25 minutes, those scientists say.
The article continued, saying that subliminal messages can’t make us go buy something we don’t want or vote for a political candidate we don’t like.
I’m not completely convinced. I’m not sure how they can justify their summary, especially since so much of their data shows “increases” in the intended behavior. Although, even if a sledgehammer came through the TV screen, it would not convince me to vote Orange. Not a chainsaw with Freddy Krueger on the end of it either.
But if there were little flashes of cute white puppies….
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We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.
— Stephen King
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The future influences the present just as much as the past.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
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“History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies
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