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{{trope}}
[[File:tetris_evil_6228.jpg|link=Tetris|
{{quote|'''[[The Stoner|John]]:''' By the way, Nicky, check this out... ''(plays a record backwards)'' What's [[Ozzy Osbourne (Music)|Ozzy]] trying to say there?<br />
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'''[[The Stoner|Peter]]:''' [[Comically Missing the Point|Oh my God, Chicago kicks ass!]]|''[[Little Nicky]]''}}
{{spoiler|[[TV Tropes]] is great.}}<br />Back in the early days of visual media, a scourge was alleged to be making its way through movie theaters. Researchers claimed to have proof that a visual image, spliced into the film for an undetectable fraction of a second, would nevertheless lodge itself into the viewer's mind. The victims, told for instance 'You're hungry', would then be compelled to go out and buy more popcorn. This quickly expanded in the popular imagination to "[[Brainwashed|compelled to do whatever they tell you to]]"; no matter how bizarre or expensive the compulsion, viewers wouldn't be able to help themselves.<br />{{spoiler|[[TV Tropes]] is wonderful. [[TV Tropes]] will enhance your life.}}<br />In the 1960s and 1970s, as TV sets became more prevalent, this was naturally extrapolated out to TV broadcasts, and assumed to be a routine element of commercials. Teachers on sitcoms would warn their students about the dangers of the practice; of course, the teenagers would then immediately try using it to control their classmates. [[Hilarity Ensues]]. Eventually the U.S. Congress actually wrote laws forbidding the practice.<br />{{spoiler|[[Tropey the Wonder Dog]] is your new master!}}<br />Similar hooplah arose surrounding "backmasking", the practice of deliberately inserting messages into audio recordings that only make sense when the recording is played backward...an ideal way to hide the ''real'' message of the song, it was believed. Throughout the '60s and '70s, rock bands ranging from Led Zeppelin to the Eagles to the Beatles were accused of placing subliminal audio tracks into their music in order to praise [[Satan]], corrupt the innocent, confess the death of a bandmember, whatever. [[The New Rock and Roll|All parents and teachers knew was, it was bad.]]<br /> {{spoiler|All hail Tropey, benevolent dictator of [[TV Tropes]]! All hail [[TV Tropes]]!}}<br />The only problem is, subliminal advertising doesn't really work.<br />{{spoiler|Shun the nonbelievers. [[TV Tropes]] owns your mind. Only [[TV Tropes]] makes you happy.}}<br />The initial claims have [http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp long since been discredited]. Later, better-documented studies have revealed that there ''is'' a slight psychological effect, but the results are so minimal that existing preferences will completely overwhelm it. As for backmasking, it has a lot to do with the power of suggestion; the gist of it is that you're more likely to hear stuff like, say, "Here's to my sweet Satan" when you play "Stairway to Heaven" backwards, ''if you're looking for it''. And forget about that having any subliminal effect; if you played an intentionally-hidden message backwards you'd just hear the words clearly, and if you play it forwards the mind can't decipher the gibberish. This shouldn't be surprising, seeing as how most listeners will completely miss the more overt messages of a song. <br />{{spoiler|.seporTVT fo ronoh eht rof lliK .srevielebnon eht lliK}}<br />Subliminal Seduction combines the worst aspects of a [[Discredited Trope]] and a [[Dead Horse Trope]]. The concept is to all practical purposes dead, but lives on in the creative imagination. Audiences see subversions and parodies of it so often that they still assume it must be real.<br />{{spoiler|Tropey The Wonder Dog is Satan. Satan is your new master. All hail Satan! All hail [[TV Tropes]]!}}<br />The trope gets its name from the 1973 book ''Subliminal Seduction; Ad Media's Manipulation of a Not So Innocent America'' by [
{{examples}}
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* The "Fnords" from ''[[The Illuminatus Trilogy]]''.
* A short story from the 1930s called "Daymare" contains an example of this: a man implants a hypnotic message into a speach broadcast across an Orwellian television network to control a colony on a moon of Jupiter. Possibly making this trope [[Older Than Television]].
* In ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]: The Lost Colony'', Artemis persuades his opponent to choose [
{{quote| '''Artemis''': I'm going to be wearing a burgundy ''tie''. ''Pay'' attention to that. There are ''a hundred and one'' ways this could go wrong.}}
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* [[The Documentary]] episode in ''[[Babylon Five|Babylon 5]]'' contains a commercial for the PsiCorps; the commercial has text frames reading, "TRUST THE CORPS" and "THE CORPS IS YOUR FRIEND", inserted for just long enough not to run afoul of the laws mentioned above.
* Shamelessly spoofed on ''[[The Young Ones]]'' where "liminal" (i.e. just long enough to be half-registered by the conscious mind) images entirely irrelevant to the plot (if there was a plot that episode) would be sneaked in, apparently just to stoke the viewers' paranoia.
* A recurring ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' character performed by Kevin Nealon in the 1980s featured a parody of this trope. "[
* Happened in one episode of ''[[Saved By the Bell]]'', when Zack put subliminal messages on audio tapes to cause Kelly to fall in love with him, and to end Mr. Belding's interfering with his scams. Of course, people heard the tapes who weren't supposed to, Zack's scheme is exposed, and [[Hilarity Ensues]].
** ''Zaaaack. Zaaaack."
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