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I posted this on social media in the past, but never on my blog.

For those few that don’t know, the Mandela Effect is an effect popularized by a “paranormal consultant” (i.e., a kook) to describe false memories shared by a large number of people. Some famous examples are the misremembered movie, Shazam, starring Sinbad, which was memorialized in an April Fool’s Day joke; spelling errors like “Fruit” Loops and Oscar “Meyer”; and, of course, the alleged 1980s death of Nelson Mandela in prison from which the phenomenon gets its name.

Enter Juiblex, the grotesque demon lord of slimes first introduced in the 1st Edition D&D Monster Manual. Whenever I mention this, there’s always someone that chimes in that, even today, they thought JuIBlex was spelled JuBIlex. That is, many people, myself included, switched the ‘i’ and ‘b’ in the word. This might be — and I say “might” because I’m neither a psychologist nor a sociologist — because a few people made that mistake, and then it cascaded through nerd society (i.e., the Mandela Effect). It might also be because “Jubilex” is easier to pronounce, so everyone making that mistake did so independently based on some psychological effect (i.e., not, as I understand it, the Mandela Effect). I prefer the former hypothesis. It supports my premise.

Now there’s some psychological bullshit.

Earlier this week, I published a post on Atlas. As originally written, I pointed out that Atlas carried the world on his shoulders. I was reminded that this is, of course, wrong. Atlas held up the sky. This common mistake has changed the way Atlas is portrayed in art, and may be the origin of the phrase, “carrying the weight of the world on one’s shoulders.”

It appears this may also be an example of the Mandela Effect with an interesting impact on art and language.

Considering how cold the South Pole is, you’d think he’d wear more clothing.

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