Does Piachu’s tail have a black strip in it? Does Mr. Monopoly wear a monocle? Does Mickey Mouse wear suspenders? The answer to all of those questions is no. In those questions one experiences the Mandela effect, which is described as a false memory that is shared by a large number of people. And if you have any form of social media there is a good chance that you have run into a Mandela effect video in which a creator has described and shown popular Mandela effects. But how is it possible that a whole group of people, a vast majority of the population, have an incorrect shared remembrance of something in their past? Can it really just be a coincidence or is there a greater motive behind the all-too-famous Mandela effect.

Unfortunately, this theory has little evidence as a lot of names are unknown and the timings are unknown as well. A woman (name unknown) experienced the Mandela effect after she heard that the Fruit of the Loom logo did not have a cornucopia. However, she believed that this logo was changed, she said that she remembered the cornucopia so well that it had to have been there. In order to prove her point she emailed the company and asked about their logo and they denied ever having a cornucopia in the logo. These women believed so deeply that there was a cornucopia that she went through her closet and her friends’ closets to find old fruit of the loom clothing, and she found them. In the photo above one can clearly see that there is indeed a cornucopia, but why was everyone telling her that there wasn’t?

If you google “Does the fruit of the loom logo have a cornucopia?” all the answers say no; that is a popular example of the Mandela effect and the logo never actually had a cornucopia. However, this photo clearly shows that there was a cornucopia. The conspiracy theory behind this story is that the Mandela effect is indeed not a “shared false memory with others” it is an experiment to see how easily it is to falsify information. The main tactics used to falsify the information are denying that there was ever any evidence, destroying as much evidence as possible, and the main tactic is well gaslighting. They make one person feel so isolated in their beliefs or make their opinions feel so small as they did to the women. The woman in the story also went to her therapist and told her about her experience and everyone including her therapist questioned her on why she “even cared?”. They made her feel as if she was going crazy and it would simply be easier to forget all about her memories and beliefs and just believe what the masses did.

So, why is the Fruit of the Loom logo still seen as a Mandela effect as it definitely did have a cornucopia at one point? Is it simply an example of misinformation being spread, or is it all too powerful disinformation? Well, we may never know if the Mandela effect is actually an effect to see if your brain will comply with what the people in power are saying or if it is just an old logo that people have simply forgotten about.