They have the same magical aura around them that Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret (2006) and its law of attraction produced in the mid-aughts: Our brains are a machine more powerful than we could ever imagine. Subliminals call to mind new-agey fads of yore. They aren’t sheeple blindly ordering Coke at an AMC concession stand, but are, instead, people who want things that many of us want: clear skin, confidence, love. By 1962, when Vicary admitted that his claims were based on too little research, subliminal messaging had already seeped into the American zeitgeist, from backmasking in The Beatles’ “Revolution 9” to Josie and the Pussycats with, as noted by Consequence of Sound, the “ film’s plot around the perils of subliminal advertising.” The difference between Vicary’s subliminal messaging of the ’50s and the subliminals that populate Reddit in 2020 is that the people in r/Subliminal are using them consciously. In 1957, market researcher James Vicary claimed that by flashing the phrases “eat popcorn” and “drink Coca-Cola” throughout a movie, he dramatically increased sales of popcorn and Coke. Unsurprisingly, many of these subliminals seem to target a demographic that is already primed to have boatloads of insecurities: teen girls. These subliminals play on insecurities and desires so absurdly specific, one might not even know they have them. You can also become a TikTok celebrity, a K-pop idol, or get the tiniest waist in existence-plus 11 abs. Instead, she posted the collage to r/Subliminal, a Reddit community that focuses on “subliminals,” YouTube videos intended to reprogram your subconscious to change your body or mind in some way. She didn’t post these selfies to a skincare or a makeup subreddit, where one would expect beauty imagery to be shared for thoughts and feedback. In the before picture, she has acne, and in the after, she doesn’t. On April 5, 17-year-old Reddit user u/Dizzy_Bother posted a collage featuring a before-and-after photo.
Photo credit: Bitch Media Illustration/Screenshots from Reddit user u/Dizzy_Bother
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