♪ (CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN WILSON: Hey, New York.
Life is filled with precious moments.
Ones, uh, that we wish we could hang on to forever.
But our ability to recall everything,
no matter how much it means to us,
gets worse and worse over time.
And if you don't have an accurate record,
you may never be able to, uh,
trust your own version of events.
And then you'll just end up remembering things
the way that someone else wants you to...
but it doesn't have to be this way.
So stick with me,
and I'll show you how to turn every waking moment
into something that's impossible to forget.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
Now, a good memory is
one of the most attractive qualities a person can have.
My memory's not very good,
and it's always made me feel insecure.
This is kind of why I started shooting so much video.
I've also been writing down every single thing I do
every single day for over a decade now.
Whenever I do something or go somewhere,
I put it right here in these books.
♪ (CHEERFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
On January 10th, 2018,
I woke up at 8 a.m. and ate four strips of bacon.
On August 22nd, 2014,
I got a haircut at, uh, Home Run Barbershop.
And on March 12th of the same year,
uh, I got a salad for lunch
and accidentally dropped it all over 32nd Street.
It's kind of like time traveling.
If I ever need to remember something,
I can just go back to my book and read about that day,
and I'm immediately transported.
But unfortunately, this isn't memory,
because the second I look away from these books,
everything just begins to blur together
and I can barely remember who I am or how I got there.
And if I'm not careful,
one day all these records could just go up in smoke.
But New York can be a painful place
to have a good memory
because the better you remember it,
the less, uh, you recognize over time.
There used to be a-- a bar on 2nd Avenue, uh,
called Mars Bar that I used to go to.
But now it's a TD Bank.
Um, thankfully, it looks like
some of the regulars, uh, still hang out there, though.
They also recently demolished
one of my favorite, uh, movie theaters.
There aren't many left quite like it in New York City.
But at least it, um, looked like
they were having a good time destroying it.
A friend told me recently about
someone who lives in my neighborhood
who has such a good memory
that she actually competes in memory competitions.
And she let me come over to look at some of her awards.
JOHN: Let me see this--
-YANJAA WINTERSOUL: Oops-- Yeah. -JOHN: Oh my god, sorry.
Yes, this is... yeah, World Memory Championship 2017.
These are Singapore,
and then there are some from, I guess, Sweden, Fra--
not France, what is this?
JOHN: She seemed a little bored, but maybe that's because
this was her third interview in 24 hours.
Were there any methods of yours
that you used to improve your memory?
Uh, most competitors use a technique called
the memory palace technique.
For example, if you want to know
the periodic table of elements in order,
then you can place them in the memory palace
and go, like, "H, hydrogen," so maybe on your bed
you put... like, lots of water.
Your bed is suddenly just made of water,
and then your nightstand might be made out of balloons
so then you remember helium balloons.
I mean, you kind of just move along in a logical pattern.
JOHN: The technique she told me about sounded like a good idea.
All you have to do is close your eyes
and imagine you're walking through a physical space
that you know really well...
♪ (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
...and mentally place the things you want to remember,
uh, all along your path.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
JOHN: So I tried to use it to remember
my, uh, grocery store list.
And I'll use my commute to work as, uh, the memory palace thing.
So, here's what it looks like in my head.
♪ (MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I leave my apartment,
and I almost slip on a banana peel.
(WHISTLES)
Then, on my way to the subway,
uh, I'm reminded that I need to buy some broccoli.
I also need drumsticks...
And some brea-- chicken breasts.
When I get on the subway,
I'm reminded of the fresh baguette that I want
and the dandruff shampoo that I also need.
A few stops later, I remember to buy Fuji apples.
But when I get off the train,
I realize that I actually want, uh, Granny Smith.
I also need a pack of playing cards,
acne cream,
and also, some, uh, donuts.
A couple of hunks of cheese wouldn't hurt, either.
I also needed... uh...
ah, grapes.
And a... Snickers bar.
Nutella was on my list.
And a good old Zagnut.
-Perfect. -♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
Now that I had my list memorized,
I went to the supermarket to buy everything.
But even though I knew exactly what I wanted,
I had a really hard time
finding some things in the store.
The only available employee was a security robot.
The rest of the staff was preoccupied
because someone had actually just run out of the store
with a bunch of groceries without paying,
and nobody knew what to do.
The robot looked trustworthy and wise,
and I couldn't believe
that such a sophisticated piece of technology
would allow a robbery to take place in broad daylight.
But maybe that's not what it was, uh, programmed to do.
So I got as much as I could off the list...
but, uh, I still couldn't find any Zagnut bars.
Unfortunately, this fucking machine
could not accept questions,
but I finally spotted an employee
uh, who didn't seem too busy.
-CHRIS ANATRA: What's that? -JOHN: A Zagnut bar?
No.
JOHN: Uh, it's like a candy bar.
Okay.
JOHN: It turned out, uh,
he didn't actually work at Stop & Shop,
but he was the creator of the inventory software
used to organize everything.
CHRIS: Pretty much, from A to Z, all of their needs,
anything that needs traceability,
is what our software is really good at.
JOHN: I told him I was making a student film about memory,
and he started sharing some of the weird experiences
he's had in the world of supermarket inventory.
I specifically remember
this being called Stouffer's Stovetop Stuffing.
But it's always been, now, Kraft Stovetop Stuffing.
And it's always been that way, it wasn't--
From the 1970s, it's always been Kraft.
But I remember the commercials,
I remember everything about being it
called Stouffer's Stovetop Stuffing.
So, here's another one, too. The Raisin Bran guy?
I know he always used to have sunglasses,
but now, he's never wore sunglasses, ever.
Febreze, I always remember it being spelled
with two e's, "Febreeze."
Now it's "Feb-rez."
And it's always been this way. Like, that's the point...
that I want to make. It's always spelled this way,
it's never been spelled with the two e's.
JOHN: Not everything he said resonated with me,
but I definitely thought, uh, "Febreze" had more e's in it.
So, when he invited me back to his, uh, office
to check out his inventory software,
I said, uh, "Yes, sir."
There's no... there's no Stovetop Stuffing
-for Stouffer's in... -CHRIS: No stuffing.
However, I'm gonna bring one up
that myself and my dad
got into, like, a little kerfuffle about.
Um, it was about the JFK assassination.
Like, if you look at the picture of the car here,
there's, like...
all these extra people in the car.
I-- I always remember there distinctly being
four people in the car,
and then as I was searching to try to find an answer,
because every video was the same Zapruder film,
I saw, "JFK assassination Mandela effect."
I'm like, "Mandela effect?
What the heck is a Mandela effect?"
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Some people have a very distinct memory
that Nelson Mandela was killed in prison in the late 1980s,
and then, I think around 2009, were kind of shocked to find out
that Nelson Mandela was still alive.
So that was the first recorded group remembering of an event
that did not match the historical record.
JOHN: Oh, okay.
So, is-- is there, like...
What, uh...
The more you look into it,
the more you see these different things,
not just in food service, but in geography of the planet.
For example, I remember when South America
used to be under North America,
not pushed all the way out towards Africa.
Or your heart used to be offset to the left.
Now, it's just about in the center of your chest.
From what I remember, it used to be Sex in the City,
and now it's Sex and the City.
Is the word "a lot" one word, a-l-o-t, or is it two words?
"Sometimes," is it s-o-m-e-- Is it two different words, or--
I actually called the Scotchgard company,
and I'm like, "When did you guys change your product name
from 'guard,' g-u-a-r-d, to g-a-r-d?"
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
Is there a hidden meaning?
Are we being communicated with
somehow regarding these Mandela effects?
Is it trying-- Are we trying to be taught something
that we haven't quite grasped yet?
So, myself and others are, like, really looking into that,
and we're starting to find patterns.
JOHN: I still didn't have all my groceries,
but I was hypnotized by his elaborate theories.
JOHN: Were you afraid of Y2K when it was about to happen?
No, actually, I really wasn't.
JOHN: And I soon learned that
this was more than just a hobby for him.
The first official
Mandela Effect Conference is being organized,
so that people can feel at ease about their memory,
in that, "Don't worry, there's a lot of people
that have the same type of memories that you have,
and they're-- and they're shared."
So there's gonna be a group of people
coming together to talk about that.
I think it's gonna be an-- an historic event.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES♪
JOHN: After I left, I couldn't stop noticing, uh,
little inconsistencies, uh, everywhere that I looked.
Is there always a dash in the "Coca-Cola"?
TRUCK DRIVER: Huh?
JOHN: The "Coca-Cola," is there always a dash in there?
TRUCK DRIVER: Yeah.
JOHN: Oh, okay, but what about on the back of your jacket?
There's no dash on there.
-TRUCK DRIVER: There's no dash? -JOHN: Yeah.
I've never seen it without the dash before.
Nah, it's 'cause I had it-- I had it made up.
-JOHN: Oh, okay. -I had it made up.
That's the only reason it don't have the dash.
JOHN: Oh, okay.
I wasn't sure what was related to the Mandela effect or not.
But there was definitely something going on.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
I walked outside of my apartment recently,
and I noticed that the city changed out all the garbage cans
to the older, uh, "Oscar the Grouch" style,
uh, which I thought was weird.
As I kept walking, my neighbors looked different, too.
I was-- I was getting really confused,
but I soon realized
I had actually just stumbled onto the set of a movie.
It was Stephen Spielberg's remake of West Side Story.
And they were pretending that Queens
was the Upper West Side in the early '40s.
For the rest of the week,
it was hard to tell who was a human and who was an actor.
And I kept getting in trouble walking around
because I was from the wrong era.
A week later,
I thought my neighborhood was back to normal,
but it turned out they were, uh, just shooting another movie.
After that, I had trouble trusting anything I saw.
And I just started assuming that everything was a movie.
This looks like a good one.
Excited for this one to come out.
But the more I paid attention,
the more I wondered if some of this confusion was by design.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I was walking by the Thanksgiving Day parade,
and I saw that there was a malfunction
with the Ronald McDonald balloon,
and it had to be pulled in the middle of the event.
But later, when I mentioned this to a friend
who had watched the parade on TV,
they had no idea what I was talking about.
It turned out, the live broadcast
had spliced in footage from last year's float
to make it seem to viewers at home
that everything was normal,
while in reality, Ronald's deflating carcass
was being pulverized in the middle of 42nd Street
while spectators watched in horror.
This act of deception created two groups of people
with completely different memories of the same event,
and neither of them is wrong.
The conference that the guy mentioned was happening soon.
And I was starting to feel like I shouldn't miss it.
So I caught a cheap flight to, uh, Ketchum, Idaho,
where the first-ever Mandela Effect Conference
was being held at a Best Western, uh, "Plus"
in the, uh, Pow Wow Room.
The conference organizers were just getting set up.
But once they installed their, uh, custom sign
that they had shipped in,
uh, the host took a moment to chat with me.
So, in my head, it's always been "Berenstein" Bears.
I learned to read on those books.
I was as sure as my next breath that it was an e.
Turns out it's never been an e,
it's always been an a.
And that bothers me a lot.
That was my first one I ever found.
And I couldn't let it go.
When you know what you know, you can't deny your memory.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: Everyone started to file in
and sample free veggies and dip.
The guy from the supermarket showed up, too.
There was a lot of literature there.
And, uh, custom apparel and decals.
People were having very animated discussions
about their different theories.
Like, I was just hearing that
-somebody remembered having a dog... -Right.
...and then their mother's like, "No, we never had a dog,
-we were a cat family. Never." -Right, right.
And she has all these memories of this dog.
You know, where did they come from?
-This happens a lot? -Yeah.
JOHN: All the presenters talked about
some of the most well-known, uh, Mandela effects.
Minds were being absolutely obliterated
with all of this forbidden knowledge.
Now, when you look at this picture, do you see a Mandela effect?
-AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Yes. Yes. -AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: Yeah. The stripes.
The stripes! Those were never there before.
Not-- not that I remember.
JOHN: But the more I talked with people,
uh, the more I realized that they didn't think of this
as a memory problem at all.
What do I think the Mandela effect is?
Um, I would say it's a timeline shift,
you know, um, proof of the multiverse...
you know, different timelines.
It's like evidential existence of parallel timelines.
JOHN: Everyone there,
no matter their individual experience,
was on the same page about this.
So, the Mandela effect
is the consequence of jumping timelines
while holding memories of the previous timeline.
JOHN: In their minds, their memories were perfect,
and they were the chosen few who could remember details
from alternate dimensions that they once inhabited.
PRESENTER: And I remember Benicio del Toro,
he died around 2001.
I think both of them are still alive right now, I hope,
and I'm not sure what that's about,
but it is interesting.
JOHN: They were using the most complicated
scientific theories possible to explain what most people
would consider, uh, everyday forgetfulness.
Personally, I think-- I've-- I've done this.
Literally, I'll have a pen that I'd like to write with.
I put it down, I stood up, turned around,
and went, "Oh, I want the pen," and it was gone.
It was not there.
And I just... looked on the floor,
looked on the table, nothing.
Three days later, I'm sitting at the computer
like this with the pen,
and I have no idea where it came from.
Um... no.
JOHN: I purchased his book to learn more
about his, uh, quantum timeline theory,
and I took it back to my room,
which was conveniently on the other side of the wall
from the convention space.
There wasn't a lot of, uh, science in there,
but in the first 30 pages,
the author claims to have invented Pokémon...
and met Mark Twain in a hot tub.
This didn't explain much,
and I was hoping to get more of an explanation
when the Q&A began.
CHRIS: It's usually, um, some kind of, like,
um, hard drive technologies.
CHRIS: What's that?
-AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: Silicon. -CHRIS: Yeah, I think ultimate--
yeah, ultimately silicon.
CHRIS: Yeah, yeah.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:
CHRIS: Okay.
JOHN: The conference was almost over.
Uh, but before leaving,
I decided to spend some time with the organizer, Jerry.
He wanted to show me the town's, uh, other Best Western,
where he worked as a night manager
and, uh, actually lived there too.
According to science,
we're in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way.
Generally speaking, the dash was always
in the middle on the Coca-Cola logo.
The company Costco lost their t.
Another strange thing about the flip-flops
is all evidence of the flip disappears after the flop.
JOHN: So, are your coworkers gonna be in there?
JERRY: They will be. They will be.
And all of them are affected, too.
They were actually affected before I ever got here.
'Cause people asked them the questions,
and they realized that things
aren't the way they remember 'em either.
One of our amazing front desk managers,
Miss Brooklyn.
JOHN: Uh, have-- have you been, uh, affected?
Yeah, actually because of him,
I've realized that a lot, I have, yeah.
-Absolutely. -JOHN: Like what?
Well, like "Kit Kat." "Febreze" blew my mind.
"Froot Loops." (CHUCKLES)
JOHN: Oh, so it's, like, the spelling of things?
Yeah, just the spelling, and the way I remember it.
JOHN: Do you think this has a lot to do with memory,
or is it something different?
I personally think it's memory. That's me.
But I know these guys think a little bit differently,
but I think it's memory.
-No, please be honest, whatever you think. -No, yeah. (LAUGHS)
-(JERRY LAUGHS) -We talk. (CHUCKLES)
-JERRY: Absolutely. -JOHN: Yeah.
Yeah.
JERRY: Not gonna lie, I'm a bachelor.
JOHN: Me, too.
-JERRY: Really? Very nice. -JOHN: Yeah.
JERRY: It's the way to be, man.
Save a lot more money that way.
♪ (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
So, let me turn the question on you.
Are you affected?
JOHN: Yeah, I mean, I--
Which ones just really grabbed you and said,
"Oh my god, some-- That's not right"?
JOHN: Uh, the rearview mirror.
Uh, "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear."
Right!
JOHN: It seemed like I had found the one place
where the worse your memory was, the more people liked you.
And they would go to great lengths
to make you feel accepted.
JERRY: Here we go!
"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."
JOHN: 'Cause you remember "may be," right?
JERRY: Yes, sir!
(BOTH LAUGHING)
JOHN: It felt kind of nice to be validated so easily.
And I was almost sad that it was time to go back home.
When I landed in New York, I was hungry,
so I stopped for lunch
at an airport restaurant called CBGB.
It seemed like it had a lot of music-themed decor,
but I was here for the food.
I ended up getting their, uh, signature hot dog
for twelve dollars,
and it wasn't half bad.
When I got home, I tried to write everything
from that weekend down in my calendar,
but I got distracted and started looking at old entries.
And I eventually read everything, uh,
from the beginning, chronologically.
It was the first time I had ever done that,
and it felt like I was reading about a different person.
I remember being spontaneous in my 20s,
but everything I read proved that I was a slave to routine.
And I noticed relationship patterns
that I had been trying to ignore.
By the end of it, I was in a terrible mood.
And I realized that maybe it's unnatural
to try to preserve some things.
The way the past exists in our head
is not always the way that we experienced it.
And at the end of the day,
there will always be distortions
as long as humans are responsible
for remembering everything.
So enjoy this fantasy while you can,
because if you're having a bad day today,
you can always remember it being better tomorrow.
♪ ("OBJECTS IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR" BY MEAT LOAF PLAYING) ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
♪ And objects In the rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
♪ And objects In the rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
♪ And objects In the rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
♪ They are ♪
(CHOIR VOCALIZING)
♪ Objects in The rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
-♪ They are closer ♪ -♪ And objects In the rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
-♪ They are closer ♪ -♪ Objects in The rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
-♪ They are closer ♪ -♪ And objects In the rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
-♪ They are closer ♪ -♪ And objects In the rear-view mirror ♪
♪ May appear closer Than they are ♪
♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪
JOHN: This is John Wilson. Uh, thanks for watching.
♪ (JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (FLITTERING MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
I sat here eating a tub of coffee ice cream
and I-- I spilled it
(LAUGHS) on the furniture.
What about you? What have you spilled here?
Oh, I have never spilled anything.
-JOHN WILSON: Oh, really? -Yeah.
-JOHN: Oh, wow. -I'm very careful.