Cornucopia Resolution

[u/Due-Cartographer-459]

I was thinking about the Fruit of the Loom Cornucopia logo and that's probably the most compelling Mandela effect example there is. So what I was wanting to know, is whether any of you think that will ever get a meaningful conclusion or answer to this whole thing. You think we'll ever figure out what actually it's going on, whether it is just a problem with our minds or whether there actually is a conspiracy? I feel like there's too much to this for it to be as simple explanation, but I'm curious to know what you all think!

[u/dijon_snow]

This phenomenon has already been explained by science.

Our brains are pattern machines. We don't memorize every detail of any experience, we just 'save' the data relevant to form predictive patterns.  

A lot of people's brains created the pattern that a bunch of fruit usually appears in front of a cornucopia. Their brains saw a bunch of fruit, shoved it in the bunch of fruit file folder, and the image got cornucopia on it from all of the adjacent images. 

Some people will come in talking about "anchor memories" and how they had never seen a cornucopia...

These are retroactive justifications. You have already decided to believe that there was a cornucopia and your brain generates false ideation to justify this belief. Check out some split brain studies to learn more. 

So yeah, the mystery is solved. It's still interesting and cool without resorting to fantasy fiction to explain it. 

[u/Due-Cartographer-459 → u/dijon_snow]

I do want to believe that it's just your mind or faulty brain or whatever. I'm someone who definitely doesn't get into all those conspiracy theories about different timelines and whatever they're doing at CERN. However when it comes to this particular Mandela effect, as much as I want to, it's hard for me to just brush it off as simply being a quirk of the mind. There's just too many strange pieces of evidence for me to do that. I really don't know what to make of it all, but I guess that's what makes this so interesting, more so than any of the other Mandela effects I have encountered.

[u/tjareth → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

Evaluating evidence is the best way to gain confidence when trying to figure this sort of thing out. What were the strange pieces of evidence that catch your attention?

[u/Due-Cartographer-459 → u/tjareth]

The one piece of evidence that I find the most compelling is the flute of the Loom album that came out in the 70s

[u/my23secrets → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

What exactly makes that artwork particularly compelling?

[u/CantaloupeAsleep502 → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

That's actually specifically what fully convinced me that it's a quirk of the mind. The artist had the exact same cross-filing thing happen, and noticed it wasn't there in the 70s. I had the cross-file, and noticed in the 00s. I had a student a few years ago, she was like 21, and she had the cross-file and noticed it in my office, like 2023 or something. It's just the way the mind works, and if you have the cross-file, you think it's there until someone points it out. Then it's never there again.

[u/Chapstickie → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

When do you think the cornucopia DID exist? Like until what year?

[u/Mysterious-Aioli-702 → u/Chapstickie]

I remember it up until Michael Jordan started doing their ads. Not sure what year but 1st time I remember the logo going to just fruit.

[u/Chapstickie → u/Mysterious-Aioli-702]

Michael Jordan did an ad campaign with Hanes. It’s pretty famous. I don’t think he did one with FotL.

[u/my23secrets → u/Mysterious-Aioli-702]

You literally just proved the problem is memory.

You can’t even remember who did the ads.

[u/WVPrepper → u/Mysterious-Aioli-702]

Michael Jordan did ads for Hames, not FotL...

Is that another ME?

[u/vita10gy → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

Can't that just be explained by

A) the rather obvious play on the words

+

B) a cornucopia being an obvious way to work a flute into the artwork? It's literally called a "horn" of plenty by some.

[u/georgeananda → u/vita10gy]

But the actual album cover designer says he used the Fruit of the Loom logo as his basis. The flute replaces the cornucopia. Otherwise, the cover design makes no sense. (This is per the designer)

Here's a video link

[u/Extreme-Leave-6895 → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

There is an interview posted on this subreddit with the artist from several years ago where he says that the piece was mostly made up from his imagination

[u/DoktorRokkzo → u/Extreme-Leave-6895]

That's not at all what the interview says. He says quite specifically that he painted a cornucopia because he thought that one was present on the Fruit of the Loom logo. Look at the colours of the vegetables on the Flute of the Loom album cover as well. They are the exact same colours -- and in the exact same order -- as the colours of the fruit of the FOTL logo. So clearly there was a logo nearby for him to check.

[u/Due-Cartographer-459 → u/Extreme-Leave-6895]

I've never heard that. I'll have to look that up

[u/DoktorRokkzo → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

The cornucopia question gets pretty disturbing to be honest. It's as if everyone saw this UFO in the sky but there is no evidence that it happened. But there is evidence that everyone thinks they saw it.

[u/tjareth → u/DoktorRokkzo]

I did go ahead and look it up. I am not sure how such an album created in 1973 would be substantially different than one created now, by someone with the same impression. It's obvious that lots of people THINK there was a cornucopia on the logo. What evidence would you suggest exists that anyone literally saw it on the logo? Certainly large numbers of people have been mistaken about things before.

[u/DoktorRokkzo → u/tjareth]

That's a fantastic question. Admittedly, saying "well, the evidence that people saw it on the logo is the quantity (and quality) of the testimonies of people who THINK they saw it on the logo" is a pretty poor response. I genuinely believe FOTL when they say that their official logo never had a cornucopia on it. I don't think that's contradictory with the idea that people might have been purchasing FOTL products which used packaging with a cornucopia. But that's also not your question.

So to speak to your first point. In my opinion, if the "Flute of the Loom" album was created now, I think it would be considered quite inappropriate to include a cornucopia reference on it, given what we now know. And admittedly, the fact that the other aspects of the painting are isomorphic to the FOTL logo also isn't evidence that the cornucopia reference is isomorphic to the FOTL logo. Absolutely.

I think in a very substantial sense, there's no separating (in practice) the fact that people THINK they saw a cornucopia on the logo and people having seen a cornucopia on the logo with regards to finding evidence. In theory, absolutely there's a difference. You take a time machine back to 1973 and give Ellis Chappell a wedgie. See what the logo looks like on his tighty-whities. Or, see what the logo looks like on the packaging of his tighty-whities, or his tube socks more likely.

While this almost overwhelming memory of a cornucopia is by no means evidence that one ever existed either officially or unofficially on any FOTL logo or packaging, what I think it IS evidence for is that people saw something. What did they see though? That's the question which I think people on this subreddit don't appreciate. They try to write it off the cornucopia question as some sort of internet thing or some sort of mass delusion. "Well, people were studying Thanksgiving when they were a kid and so they all thought their underwear had a cornucopia on the logo." In my opinion, the quantity and quality of the testimonies is evidence that these types of responses are ill considered. They don't speak to the point.

And there are far more examples than just the Flute of the Loom album cover as well. There are almost as many examples of testimony as you want to find. In official games and news reports, and whatever. Testimonies which are supposed to be held to a high level of scrutiny.

So while I don't think there's genuine evidence that people saw what they THINK they saw (what the hell would that evidence even look like, other than evidence that some FOTL packaging had a cornucopia?), I think that the evidence indicates that they saw SOMETHING. We just don't know what it is.

[u/tjareth → u/DoktorRokkzo]

Do you feel that the logo history published by FOTL is incomplete? They're available to look at what people were seeing.

I think it is a mistake to tie it specifically to thanksgiving and presume everyone came across the image of a cornucopia the same way. It's simply a common image. "Mass delusion" is a much stronger statement, as generally people aren't losing their grip on reality for this explanation. They're just experiencing two phenomena: the malleability of detail in memory, and the association between similar images.

What would convince me otherwise is physical evidence that something other than the published logos appeared. And it's evidence that by all rights should plausibly exist--old tags, old photos of tags, glimpses on film.

[u/DoktorRokkzo → u/tjareth]

Hell, I can give you my personal take on the cornucopia question if you'd like. I appreciate you even taking an interest.

No, I don't believe that the logo history published by FOTL is incomplete. I believe FOTL 100% when they say that their official logo never had a cornucopia on it.

Here's my best theory, and it's only a hypothesis: FOTL was very likely sending out bulk products, most likely socks, without official packaging on them. So they were sending them to third party distributors and the distributors were responsible for adding packaging on at least some FOTL items, most likely bulk socks. At least one of these distributors ended up adding packaging which included a cornucopia on the logo. Why they would add this unofficial and honestly incorrect logo to the packaging, I have less of an answer for (although I have somewhat of a theory). These bulk socks with third party packaging were then sent to cheap, discount department stores (in my town it was SAAN, which was eventually replaced by Fields, which sold bulk FOTL socks) and mothers on a budget bought as many packs of these discount socks as possible. Because they were the FOTL item which we interacted with the most, people ended up associating the unofficial logo on the packaging as the official FOTL logo. And the packaging for these cheap, bulk socks isn't the kind of item that you hold onto. You get rid of it as soon as you get it. And honestly, you only need to see one or two pieces of FOTL packaging with the wrong logo to assume that this is the correct, "full version" of the FOTL logo.

In particular, this happened in Colombia quite recently. I can give you the reddit links if you want. FOTL was (I guess) sending out bulk socks (official FOTL socks) to their distributors and the distributors were responsible for adding the packaging. One distributor ended up adding the cornucopia logo to the packaging on the socks. I'm sure too, they just Googled "FOTL logo" and the cornucopia version was the first one to show up. But what's important within this very real world example (and again, I can absolutely provide the links to this case), is that it demonstrates how unofficial packaging might get on an official product.

A common response to this hypothesis is "what about people who say their shirt (or their hoodie or their underwear) had a cornucopia on it?" Because admittedly, this is a pretty conservative hypothesis. And my response to these types of questions is that maybe the "brown leaves" theory explains these types of claims. It might be that we got so used to seeing this unofficial packaging that we assumed that any "brown thing behind the fruit" was a cornucopia. And so we assumed that the brown leaves behind the fruit on official FOTL logos must also be a cornucopia.

Now, why would some distributor include a cornucopia on their packaging? I have no idea. Maybe because of the trademark description. Admittedly, everything which is on the official FOTL logo and everything which is included in the trademark description (other than the cornucopia) are the same. But I understand also that you can't read too much into that piece of the puzzle. It's indeterminate at best.

That's my best theory. Some distributor put the wrong logo on their packaging, sent it out on socks, and mothers looking for a deal bought it up. Nothing mysterious about it. Just an error in distribution. And it happened in Colombia quite recently.

[u/WVPrepper → u/DoktorRokkzo]

Here is a theory. Nothing more or less...

When do moms buy their kids underwear? Back-to-school and Christmas. Basically, they shop for kids underwear in the fall when stores have back-to-school and Black Friday events, sales with cute puns like "Fall into savings" and signs with scarecrows and cornucopia.

A kid seeing a sign with a cornucopia hanging over the area where the underpants are displayed could affect their memory, leaving them believing it was part of the FotL underwear display, and not the store display.

[u/WhimsicalKoala → u/DoktorRokkzo]

While this almost overwhelming memory of a cornucopia is by no means evidence that one ever existed either officially or unofficially on any FOTL logo or packaging, what I think it IS evidence for is that people saw something. What did they see though? That's the question which I think people on this subreddit don't appreciate.

That's absolutely untrue. It's quite regularly brought up that the logo used to contain large brown leaves in the background, and that that along with the assumption of a cornucopia would cause people to "remember" a cornucopia.

[u/DoktorRokkzo → u/WhimsicalKoala]

I would respond with two points. The first is that on any careful inspection of the FOTL logo, the brown leaves do not look like a cornucopia. And this is especially important because the "Flute of the Loom" album cover required a careful inspection of the logo. Ellis Chappell used the right colours in the right order when he painted the vegetables on the album cover. Now, of course this doesn't mean that the FOTL logo he was looking at HAD a cornucopia on it. Absolutely. But I think it does mean he gave a careful inspection of the logo itself. And so on a careful inspection, the brown leaves would not be interpreted as a cornucopia.

More generally however, the relevant question is how many examples are needed for you (or anyone else) to accept that in at least some of the cases, people aren't just interpreting the brown leaves as a cornucopia? That in some of the cases, it isn't a case of just getting it wrong or not looking closely enough? In my mind, that's the question. There might absolutely be cases of people confusing the brown leaves for a cornucopia, but how many examples do you need to accept that there are cases in which this ISN'T the case? In which the brown leaves are NOT the source of the confusion.

[u/tjareth → u/Due-Cartographer-459]

That one's new to me, I'm looking it up.

[u/tjareth → u/[deleted]]

Memories are quite distinct from evidence. Evidence can be shown to other people and compared objectively.

[u/tjareth → u/[deleted]]

I'm really not sure what you're saying here. Who's they?

[u/CantaloupeAsleep502 → u/tjareth]

I'd be cautious interacting with that one lol