war memories found on the Internet

On Reddit and TikTok, internet users claim to remember countless Fruit of the Loom logos, an element that never existed, depicting the Mandela effect and warping the collective memory. This phenomenon, amplified by social networks, shows how our memories can be reconstructed and shared.

Over the course of several weeks, in November, an unexpected spat sparked Reddit and TikTok. At the center of the debate: the logo of an American underwear brand. Fruit of the Loom, founded in 1851 in Kentucky, is known worldwide for its high-value T-shirts and boxer shorts. The symbol seems familiar to everyone: a small pile of fruits made of grapes, apples and green leaves placed on a white background. However, for millions of Internet users, something is missing.

Thousands of Americans (and some French) swear that, during their childhood, these fruits were stored in cornucopias, woven baskets shaped like shells. They see it, they remember it perfectly, some even say they see it before their eyes while folding their laundry. False information combined with the spread of logo images created using AI with… the famous cornucopia.

Problem: these horns were never in the logo, says the brand itself. Internet users remain confident that the company “lies to obscure the truth.” On TikTok, conspiracy theories seem like parodies. “They’re shining a light on us!” exclaimed one American user, who swears that her therapist and her husband told her to stop worrying about the abundance of extramarital affairs.

This problem is not entirely new. It reappears regularly. The debate was relaunched this fall, revived by social networks and algorithms that favor warped memories.

This visual case of conscience illustrates a broader phenomenon: the Mandela effect, namely the fact of sharing a collective memory… that never happened. The term comes from an American researcher, Fiona Broome, who in the early 2010s believed that Nelson Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s. While discussing it, he discovered thousands of people “remembered” the same event. In reality, Mandela was released in 1990 and elected president of South Africa four years later.

Since then, the concept has expanded to dozens of cultural examples: the Monopoly man, whom many imagine with a monocle (he never had a monocle), Mickey Mouse, whom everyone drew with suspenders in the famous Disney short films of the 1930s (he didn’t wear any glasses), or even the song. We Are The Championswhose last words were not “from the world”.

In October, MIT Technology Review devoted a long article to this mystery. Scientists are now paying great attention to this. Our brain “reconstructs” images and sounds based on logical patterns. He filled in the blanks with what seemed reasonable to him. We imagine monocles because people are rich “must” have one. We created a cornucopia because of it “doing well” with fruit. The more logical a memory is, the more it takes root, especially when other people confirm it.

This phenomenon is growing online. On forums, doctored images, video clips and contradictory testimonials maintain the illusion. We end up convincing ourselves that we are right, because other people “remember” it too. This memory transmission has become the object of study by psychologists. This proves the extent to which memory is social, malleable, and often collective rather than individual.

The most famous example of the Mandela effect is a film…that was never filmed. Thousands of people, mostly in the United States, remember the 1990s film entitled Shazaamwith actor Sinbad playing the genie. However, this feature film does not exist: it was never produced, never broadcast. But here again, some people reject the rational version: for them, Shazaam indeed there is, in “another timeline”.

The story of Fruit of the Loom says a lot about our digital practices. We live surrounded by images, captures, rearranged memories. By passing it around, we come to believe that it is ours.