Mandela effect

English

Etymology

Coined by American writer and paranormal consultant Fiona Broome in 2009 in reference to a false memory she had of South African leader Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) dying in the 1980s that other people reportedly shared.[1][2]

Noun

Mandela effect (plural Mandela effects)

  1. The phenomenon of a large number of persons independently sharing the same false memory.
    • 2021, Rizwan Virk, The Simulated Multiverse […] ‎[1], Bayview Books, →ISBN:
      It's easier to understand the scope of the Mandela effect and to come up with explanations for individual effects by taking a bird's-eye view of the landscape.
    • 2022, Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties, New York: Penguin Press, →ISBN:
      The subsistence and mass identification of phenomena like the Mandela Effect could only come to fruition in the Internet Age. Without the internet, there would be no universal platform to academically discuss a concept so daft, nor would there be any way to efficiently and convincingly disprove so many disparate memory errors. Yet the content of the Mandela Effect—the objects and ideas that people misremember—is almost entirely tied to the era just before the internet became common.
    • [2024 May 25, Tim Harford, “The detours on memory lane”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 21:
      When Broome discovered that she was not the only person to remember an alternative version of events, she started a website about what she dubbed “the Mandela Effect”.]

Translations

See also

References

  1. ^ Neil Dagnall & Ken Drinkwater, "The Mandela effect: Explaining the science behind false memories", The Independent, 15 February 2018
  2. ^ Austin Schoonmaker, "What is the Mandela Effect?", San Diego Entertainer Magazine, 20 October 2019
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