Subliminal Seduction: Difference between revisions

[[File:tetris_evil_6228.jpg|link=Tetris|right|I ''[[Dirty Communists|knew]]'' it.]]

{{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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bryan_Key Wilson Bryan Key]. Key claimed that ''his'' research had revealed a [[Milkman Conspiracy|massive conspiracy]] among American advertising agencies to lace both products and photographic images used in ads with subliminal references to sex, and proceeded to show every example he could find. While very popular at the time, his conclusions were controversial and have long been challenged. Key's evidence was at best questionable -- he claimed that every Ritz cracker has the word "sex" embedded on it 12 times, to cite one case -- and many of his photographic examples can be interpreted as wishful thinking or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia paraeidolia].<br />{{spoiler|SEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEXSEX.}}<br />[[Subliminal Advertising]] is what happens when marketers try to use subliminal messages to sell products anyway, either seriously or as a parody.<br />{{spoiler|Now, give this page as many wicks as you can. All hail Tropey The Satan Dog! All Hail [[TV Tropes]]!}}

* In ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]: The Lost Colony'', Artemis persuades his opponent to choose [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101 Taipei 101] as a meeting place by dropping words into the conversation. That it actually works seems like a far-fetched [[Xanatos Roulette]], except that the man is already intimately familiar with the location and calls it "his second home".

* A recurring ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' character performed by Kevin Nealon in the 1980s featured a parody of this trope. "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Subliminal#Mr._Subliminal Mr. Subliminal]", as the character came to be known, initially appeared as an advertising executive named Phil Maloney who would use subliminal cues and messages in his own speech to influence the people around him. Later Nealon would apply the device in his role as anchor on the "Weekend Update" segment, where he would lace his "official" editorials with ironic and often biting commentaries.