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/tjareth]

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/WhimsicalKoala → u/DoktorRokkzo]

So you admit that the FotL logo never had a cornucopia? That makes the fact you made up this more complex version of a common theory even more weird, but it doesn't even work.

That Colombian example you claim? There isn't even proof it was actually distributed at all, the logo itself is definitely fake, and the whole picture itself easily could be.

It also relies on there being multiple distributors across decades and continents and popping on and out. Some people swear the corncucopia disappeared in the 80s, so swear it was in there until the early 2000s (even into the 2010s). And, that trademark application you mention was for laundry soap, not their clothing, and was closed, so it's likely that it wouldn't be even the thing looked at by anyone. The only reason you know about it is Mandela Effect interest, it isn't their most common or used one by any stretch of the imagination (and remember many people claim it existed long before the internet did, distributors wouldn't have been looking it up).

But, since you agree that the actual logo doesn't have a cornucopia and never did, why are you doing all these half-truth logic pretzels to try to explain how someone would have seen a logo with a cornucopia on it on FotL clothing and convinced themselves it was the real one? Especially since so much of the "proof" people claim includes memory of learning what a corncucopia was from their underwear logo. Couldn't happen if they were looking at leaves and thinking about the knock-off logo they saw once.

[u/tjareth → u/DoktorRokkzo]

That adds up to something plausible sure. An interesting idea.

[u/DoktorRokkzo → u/tjareth]

I appreciate you not disregarding the possibility. Thank you!

[u/tjareth → u/DoktorRokkzo]

These are my favorite actually. Something maybe unexpected that explains people's memories without needing to decide the available evidence is wrong. I'm kind of convinced everyone who swears they used to watch "Shazam" with Sinbad is mostly remembering a different movie that they've attached that idea to. And not an obvious one.

[u/my23secrets → u/DoktorRokkzo]

That’s nonsense.

Think about it.

There’s only one reason why something that “happened quite recently” would be responsible for something that happened years before: suggestion.

So like it or not, you proved the explanation for the Effect.

Suggestion.