6 Brainwashing Techniques They're Using On You Right Now
Brainwashing doesn't take any sci-fi gadgetry or Manchurian Candidate hypnotism bullshit. There are all sorts of tried-and-true techniques that anyone can use to bypass the thinking part of your brain and flip a switch deep inside that says "OBEY."
Now I know what you're thinking. "Sure, just make an ad with some big ol' titties on there! That'll convince people!"
While that's certainly true ...
... they've got a whole arsenal of manipulation techniques that go way beyond even the most effective of titties. Techniques like ...
#6.
Chanting Slogans
Every cult leader, drill sergeant, self-help guru and politician knows that if you want to quiet all of those pesky doubting thoughts in a crowd, get them to chant a repetitive phrase or slogan. Those are referred to as thought-stopping techniques, because for better or worse, they do exactly that.
Sounds like:
"Say it with me now, folks!"
"FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!"
"One, two, three, four, I, Love, The Marine, Corps. One, two..."
Why It Works:
The "Analytical" part of your brain and the "Repetitive Task" part tend to operate in separate rooms. But you didn't need an expert to tell you that. You know you can't solve a complex logic puzzle if I force you to scream the chorus to that Chumbawamba song over and over again while you're doing it. Try it.
Meditation works the same way, with chants or mantras meant to "calm the mind." Shutting down those nagging voices in the head is helpful for stressed-out individuals, but even more helpful to a guy who wants to shut down an audience full of nagging internal voices suggesting that what he's saying might be retarded.
Recently Seen:
At the political conventions, notice how they trained the audiences to fill the gaps between applause lines with chants ("U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!") rather than, say, pensive silence to carefully consider what the speaker has just said.
Also, those of you who've worked at Wal-Mart are familiar with the "Wal-Mart Cheer" that begins every shift:
They used to sacrifice a goat at the end, but PETA put a stop to it.
#5.
Slipping Bullshit Into Your Subconscious
The rise of the internet news portal has given birth to a whole new, sly technique of bullshit insertion. What They (and from here on, "They" with a capital T means anyone who draws a paycheck by manipulating your opinion) have figured out is that most of you don't read the stories, you just browse the headlines. And there's a way to exploit that, based on how the brain stores memories.
The Drudge Report lives off this. A single anonymous source will report to some news blog that, say, Senator Smith runs a secret gay bordello in New Orleans. Drudge will run the headline:
NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT SMITH'S SECRET GAY BORDELLO
Or perhaps there'll just be a question mark on the end:
SMITH: SECRET GAY BORDELLO ASS MASTER?
It doesn't matter that the headline merely involves "questions" about the bordello. The idea has been planted, and two months later when somebody mentions Senator Smith around the water cooler you'll say, "The gay bordello guy, right?"
Sounds like:
"WHAT IS OBAMA'S CONNECTION TO LEFT-WING EXTREMISTS?"
"TOYOTA PRIUS - MORE WASTEFUL THAN A HUMMER?"
"OFFICIAL SAYS WTC COLLAPSE 'UNEXPLAINED'"
Why It Works:
They call it "Source Amnesia." For instance, you know what a wolverine is, but probably don't remember exactly how you learned that piece of information. The brain has limited storage, so it stores just the important nugget (that a wolverine is a small, ferocious animal) but usually discards the trivial context, such as when and where you learned about it (the movie Red Dawn, probably).
In the era of the web and information overload, that's a mechanism They can exploit very easily. What They have found is that a piece of information--say, an ugly rumor about a politician--can be presented with all sorts of qualifiers (a question mark, attribution to a shitty source, the word "unconfirmed") but often the brain will only remember the ugly rumor and completely forget the qualifier.
And get this: it happens even if the headline we read was specifically about the rumor being untrue.
You'll see this daily, in every election cycle. The entire point of putting a shaky rumor into the press is to force your opponent to deny it. Why? Because They know that the denial works just as well as the accusation. Thanks to Source Amnesia, for millions of people all three of these ...
SMITH DENIES GAY BORDELLO RUMORS
SMITH REFUSES COMMENT ON GAY BORDELLO RUMORS
SMITH ADMITS GAY COCK BORDELLO
... register as the exact same headline.
Recently Seen:
During the presidential primaries, Drudge ran a huge photo of Barack Obama wearing a turban. Under it was an inflammatory headline about how disgusting it was that Clinton staffers were circulating such a picture.
But a huge number of people who saw it only remembered the picture (months later, 13% of voters still thought he was a muslim). That's the idea.
#4.
Controlling What You Watch and Read
Restriction of reading and/or viewing material is common to pretty much every cult. Here on the internet, we've all heard horror stories about Scientology, which goes as far as filtering members' internet access. Obviously the idea is to insulate the members from any opposing points of view, to keep them marching in line.
That technique works just as well outside of the cult world, but They have to be more subtle about it. It just takes a little poison in the well, that's all.
Sounds like:
"Of course the public is misinformed! They're reading that trash in the liberal mainstream media!"
"Of course the public is misinformed! They're watching Faux News and the other trash in the corporate mainstream media!"
Why It Works:
Studies show the brain is wired to get a quick high from reading things that agree with our point of view. The same studies proved that, strangely, we also get a rush from intentionally dismissing information that disagrees, no matter how well supported it is. Yes, our brain rewards us for being closed-minded dicks.
So with a little prodding, the followers will happily close themselves in the same echo chamber of talk radio, blogs and cable news outlets that give them that little "They agree with ME!" high.
This wouldn't have been possible even 20 years ago. I grew up in the 80s, in a house with three TV stations. Three. We got one newspaper, the local one. You didn't get to pick from the conservative news or liberal news, back in my day you took what you got and you were thankful for what you had, dammit.
Today, I go through that many outlets a day just to get my freaking video game news.
And now, that explosion of the 24-hour cable news stations and, later, the web and blogosphere, has created these parallel universes of Right vs. Left media outlets, complete with their own publishing arms.
And for each, their favorite topic of discussion is how corrupt and ridiculous the other side's media is. They each even have "watchdog" groups that exist purely for the reason of hammering away at each other (the left has FAIR and MediaMatters, the right has the Media Research Center).
Recently Seen:
When an MSNBC interview with candidate John McCain got tense, he responded to the question by openly accusing the reporter of being an operative for the other side:
Just days later the campaign called The New York Times "a pro-Obama advocacy organization."
This technique is relatively new, but you'll see a lot more of it in future elections. The candidate will talk right past the reporter asking the questions and says to his supporters, "These guys work for the enemy, don't believe a word they say. Their lies will only poison your mind."
Due to the author adding in two #1's, I have perceived the article as such:
Reply#6: Chanting Slogans
#5: Slipping Bullshit Into Your Subconscious
#4: Controlling What You Watch and Read
#3: Keeping You in Line With Shame
#2: Black and White Choices
#1.5: "Us vs. Them"
#1: Titties
#0: Titties
Anyone else who says otherwise is a conformist.
on the big three game systems i prefer ps3 but i love and play all three. so yeah.
Reply"I won several formal debates in college using my patented technique of simply repeating my opponent's argument in a high-pitched, mocking tone while wiggling my fingers in the air. There really is no defense."
Replymy friend does this to me and i f*****g hate him for doing it. such an asshole.
Go Salma.
ReplyExcellent article. People use these techniques every day, whether they realise it or not, and think that just because it sounds convincing it must be true.
ReplyIt amuses me that the "small town types clinging to guns and religion" picture is a screenshot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail... specifically the scene where they're persecuting and attempting to burn a "witch".
Replythose are some mighty fine tittays (*)(*)
ReplyDavid Wong is so funny!
ReplyI love how cracked assumes 99.9% of its readers are men.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesI'm not a man, but I do like titties.
With you there, Mr. Prostitute.
Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that most of the cracked writers ARE men? And the only regular female columnist writes s**t articles that mention cats way more than they should and make me realise where people get stupid stereotypes about women from.
I love how male Cracked writers mock themselves and other men being sexist and boob-driven. No sarcasm from my part, it's funny, they're not being serious. This is a comedy site.
And there's what Rickie said above, too.
Not a man, still afraid of losing the titties.
Either that, or they think every girl here is a lesbian.
...and no, fellow gentlemen, they DO NOT want you! Stop oogling.
I'm a primarily gay man and I still love tits.
Hmmm... Interesting article, but unless I missed something most of the conclusions are based on a particular brand of non sequiturs that have been active in the exciting field of evolutionary psychology for the last decade or so. And by exciting, I mean that a handful of human biologists, presumably bored with the whole idea of supporting claims with actual evidence ('damn, I had to do this through my whole dissertation, screw this shit, I got tenure now') came up with sociobiology 2.0, probably because it sold a lot of books and made them look like hotshots at faculty meetings.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThe whole thing basically goes something like: the human brain is the product of evolution. Therefore, its modern form(s) must have provided specific evolutionary advantages to our ancestors, while our non ancestors were left tittiless and blueballed. So, if we run some statistical analysis on certain types of behaviours, and certain reactions seem more prevalent than others, it must have been the result of a particular set of evolutionary conditions. Q.E.D. How you ask? I dunno, make up some nonsense about how Timmy's claustrophobic because his ancestors had to live in s****y caves all the time. Sounds reasonable.
Problem is, what we know of the modern human brain is based on some fairly complicated medical procedures and (very recent) research in neurobiology. What we don't have is any surviving examples of Lucy's brain to stick in an MRI. All we can do is extrapolate based on some fairly loose guesses about how human biology and social structure 'used to be'. But even then, there's nothing connecting the 'evolution' of a trait to its actual recurrence in behavioural patterns. This is unsurprising, because we haven't yet demonstrated convincing links between gene patterns and behaviours. We have shown, in some limited cases, a correlation between a specific gene and the occurrence of a basic behavioural model, but this sadly does not amount to causation.
Basically, our own assumptions about human behaviour get swapped out in the absence of actual evidence (e.g. a precise biochemical mechanism through which genetic code is transmitted to complex behaviour such as 'tribe forming'), and while it seems reasonable to conclude that human beings are social animals, and we may be 'hard wired' to form groups, we don't have a clue as to where to look in all the GGAUCGUCCA to find said information, nor a firm enough grasp of our own biological history to pinpoint its source.
But these sorts of arguments are immensely popular, and often unexamined, because a) it appeals to evolution, which has passed all other sorts of logical litmus tests (as well as being an observed fact of biology), and b) it seems to cleverly explain the things we see all around us. So sure, a shitload of people we know form groups. This may even be some (as yet unidentified) genetic prerogative, but the ways in which this happens don't necessarily lead us to black vs. white. It just happens that that's how a lot of people think in North America (and to be fair, a good chunk of the rest of the world too). But a lot of people in North America (and to be fair, a good chunk of the rest of the world too) belong to a particular cultural tradition based in a rather identifiable set of monotheistic practices (not to mention the legal and economic systems those people construct), a main tenant of which is a dichotomy between good and evil. Even the colours black and white are often used to represent this idea. But, too often, we take ourselves to be the sample for 'humanity' and then assume an (undiscovered) neuroevolutionary process to account for what we claim to see, in the process often disregarding simpler or more insightful possibilities (sure! it's the...uh...scientific method?).
So what's more likely, that humans, everywhere, are preprogrammed to handle only two choices, because we totally know what kickin it in a tribe back then must have been like, or that Western psychologists just aren't very good at using actual multicultural research methodology? (protip: Hondurans are mostly Catholic too).
See what I did there? I just appealed to your neurologically programmed desire for hard and fast dualism. Or was I appealing to your cultural sensibilities? Or neither?
Truth is, I'm sick writing my goddamn thesis so I'm venting on a cracked article. f**k grad school.
Cracked is an entertainment site. Anyone who takes it as an information source is a lost cause.
Oh wait, there's that source amnesia thing. Crap, we're screwed.
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I'm not one to say this, generally, but: TFL; DDR god almighty save the essay for school
Yep, that sure is a wall of text.
If you wanna see just how much those flight or fight instincts in your brain can affect you? Holy shit.
ReplyEver had a panic attack? Thats it. Your brain has just convinced you to run away from something. Trouble being theres nothing there..But, wait, you're panicking...There has to be SOMETHING. Right?!
You invariable answer "Yes" several thousand times before you realise that while technicly correct, its probably stupid to be panicking because you're terrified of being panicked.
Then go through that processes every single day. Certianly passes the time. But its a great example of how our head works. it will do absolutely anything to get you to respond without thinking, to the point where it doesnt let you recognize that the symptoms of the panic are itself being generted from the panic not, from an external event.
And thats why people with panic attacks don't believe in a benevolent deity. Cause if this is benevolent he can go to hell.
Or maybe its just me. Its just me isnt it? I knew that existential anxiety test was trying to say something when it scored me as "Holy f**k how have you not killed yourself yet?"
"Us vs. Them". Ya know, a cheeseburger does sound good.
ReplyThis article is in no way biased against republicans!
ReplyHonestly, if you look for examples of this, Republicans are easier to find. They're just so much less subtle.
I hope it is biased; if this article IS biased towards the GOP, then in reality they ARE better than how they're portrayed! And if that's the case, then Republicans are actually kinda epic people...
...Thanks, CNN and MSNBC!
Insightful and accurate, with one exception. "Douchebags" are not people outside our social sphere, they are, in fact, douchebags. I give you Guy Fieri and those orange fags from Jersey Shore.
ReplyHey! Don't malign us fags by lumping those asshat twatwaffles in with us!
In #3, I loved those Alltel commercials! I thought Chad (the blond one) was really hot, lol.
ReplyIs that caricature of America wearing a sash that says "JITTERBUG"? And, um, why would the Nazis take issue with the KKK of all things?
ReplyThe KKK thing was just propoganda. It doesn't matter that the Nazi's were into eugenics.
In fact, in the same image, you see racist caricatures of black people.
It was just pure propaganda
post deleted due to potential flame war.
ReplyNice try, faggots, but I have no "brain". I am invincible, I am pure.
Reply"They used to sacrifice a goat at the end, but PETA put a stop to it."
ReplyDamn you PETA. Damn you to hell. (Falls on knees weeping)
Back during the 2008 elections, a couple days before voting day, my dad and I sat down with my grandmother to convince her that Obama wasn't a Muslim, and that he wouldn't side with the terrorists, etc. All because of that friggin' picture.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesBecause voting for a muslim is actually supporting terrorism. Congratz on completely missing the point.
"It's cool, you can vote for that guy. He's not a midget, that picture is just photoshoped."
I think all three of you should have stayed home.
Well to be fair I prefer not to vote for Muslims OR Christians. Or anyone else who tells me they have an invisible authority whose rules supersede the laws of the office to which they want me to elect them.
Well, I don't think that they thought he was muslim OR terrorist. I think he meant that the grandmom thought he was a terrorist because she thought he was muslim.