#SaharasMusings – Subliminal Messaging

I was born in the late 50’s and spent my childhood during the 60’s and 70’s.  I think sometime during my Junior High years, there was a huge public outcry regarding subliminal messaging.  I was a kid, I didn’t understand or care what it meant.  Sadly, that’s who they were targeting.

I listen to people who are in their late 30’s now bemoaning how bad our society has gotten.  They want to blame it on all the garbage being pumped out on social media channels like TikTok, Instagram, or Tweeter.  What they don’t know, because they’re too young, is it started decades before that.  Through Subliminal Messaging.  Something that’s been used since the 1400’s, I think. 

“A subliminal message is a technique used in marketing and other media to influence People without their being aware of what the messenger is doing.

This may involve the use of split second flashes of text, hidden images, or subtle cues that affect the audience at a level below conscious awareness.”

As you can see from the above definition, Subliminal Messaging is a horrible evil being perpetuated against anyone who watches, T.V., movies, reads, or listens to music.  From the moment we wake up and plug ourselves into whatever we use for entertainment, we are being brainwashed.  Yes, BRAINWASHED. 

Do I sound a bit hyperbolic?  Well, let’s dive into the facts, then.

The controversy over subliminal advertising started in the late 1950’s.  In 2009, Robert A. Fullerton from The American University in Cairo, Egypt wrote a paper regarding his findings. The outcry over this type of advertising started over an experiment in a movie theater to see if they could get movie-goers to buy more popcorn and Coca-Cola.  Did it work?  Some say yes, others say no.  The problem is, how do you really measure what effects subliminal stimuli has on human behavior?   

Some researches say that only people who already wanted to buy the popcorn were effected.  Others say that this type of stimuli has a longer term effect and could influence a persons buying behavior years later.

Another study was done in September 2009 by UCL stating that subliminal messaging was more effective when negative.  Let that sink in and think about all the HATE that’s been spewed out everyday on T.V. and Social Media.  What’s really lying beneath the surface that we can’t perceive but our minds do?

In 2018, Sophia Frazier wrote her honors paper for Parkland College about the effectiveness of subliminal messaging.  Her results were inconclusive.  However, in 2012, a Nova Law Review went into quite a bit more detail.  Even though bills were put in front of congress to ban, or at least curtail, subliminal messaging, they were never heard.  So, the only governing branch over how our brains are being manipulated is under the FCC and FTC jurisdiction.  And they can’t make up their minds which party would be considered the victim,  The advertiser over their Freedom of Speech rights or the public over having their brains unknowingly manipulated. 

If you’re my age, have you wondered how our society has changed so much regarding the social issues we’re facing now?  It’s because the activists started putting subliminal messages in your favorite T.V. shows.  And the FCC sided with them. Yeah, we know how the wind blows with them.  Money and POWER. 

Let’s take this down an even darker pit of mind control.  Politics. 

In 2000, when George W. Bush was running against Al Gore, a subliminal message was slipped into the ad.  Of course, they denied it was intentional. 

Mind you, this was back in 2000. How more devious has either party gotten by now, especially with no oversight by the federal government. 

Part of the political hotbed we’re in right now is the sexualization of our children.  Did you know that Disney has used subliminal messages about sex in their movies?  Why?  What are they trying to accomplish? 

I encourage you to read the Nova Law Review.  It links subliminal advertising in music to suicide and other scary stuff. 

If you still don’t think subliminal advertising works, then why do marketers spend lots of money to put them in their ads?   

So, the next time you reach for that Coke or Pepsi, was that you who wanted it, or were you manipulated?