Categories
Blog Business Lifestyle

Internet Use Subliminal Messaging to Manipulate Your Children

Those of us who grew up in the 90s had our fair share of conspiracy theories and like each period, this memorable era had its unique campfire tales and anecdotes. It is to be noted that the first half of the last decade of the 20th century was a world mostly without the internet, so information traveled around more slowly, whether by print, television, or word of mouth. It also meant that verification of facts took more time. Subliminal messaging became a popular subject when an audio documentary on a cassette started making rounds. The documentary, dubbed “The Shadow Cassette/tape”, narrated a very strange, interesting, and disturbing story about how the ones that ruled the world from the shadows, were using subliminal messaging tactics in music ad popular media to control our minds, promote commercialism, capitalism, and basically, to mold society to their end.

What is subliminal messaging?

Sub means below, and liminal refers to limits. Subliminal messaging is the art of using images, words, hidden and very subtly flashed, and even audio at different frequencies to influence someone’s thoughts. These messages are unnoticed by the conscious mind, the part of the psyche responsible for actively accepting or rejecting, and embed themselves in the subconscious mind. Psychologists and scientists have debated about the efficacy of subliminal messaging but the proof does lie in the pudding. . The advertisement business has relied heavily on the tactic and the fact that corporate icons like Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Baskin N Robbins have successfully implemented the technique, speaks for itself.

How much subliminal messaging have your kids been exposed to and how is it affecting them? 

A child’s mind is said to be a lot more absorbent as well as moldable than adults, making children an easy and soft target for subliminal messaging.

Just very recently, in 2017 and the following years, Youtube channels that were targeted at children and were on kids’ channels, became the subject of alarming controversy.

One of many such incidents that were discovered by Android monitoring software, involved suicidal messages embedded in the middle of videos for kids that were featured particularly on kids’ channels. The messages were contained as instructions and part of a “challenge”, flashed briefly and randomly during these videos. Fortunately, parents were alerted about this or happened to notice when their children were visibly upset and some of whom were having recurrent nightmares.

After some of these channels were shut down temporarily, investigations uncovered that predatory hackers and malicious individuals were the culprits behind these crimes.

Soon after, more news surfaced involving pedophiles and perverts posting seemingly harmless comments on popular Youtube kids’ videos, mentioning time stamps that led kids to sexually suggestive or inappropriate images flashed for a fraction of a second.

Peppa Pig, a crazily popular British children’s cartoon that is educational and loved by children around the world, also raised eyebrows in an internet scandal. A few random videos featuring the Peppa character, made by independent individuals and without affiliation to the actual cartoon, were found to have violent, homicidal as well as suicidal themes. It seems that while going through a Youtube automatically generated recommendation-based playlist; children can go from nursery rhymes to watching snuff films starring their favorite cartoon icons. Youtube has worked hard on filtering and blocking these offensive channels as well as individuals, but the enormous amount of content that it gets each second makes it virtually impossible to keep the platform safe for kids.

How influential is subliminal messaging?

The impact and power of subliminal messaging have been quite clear in advertising at least, where it was seen to influence choice strongly. For example, participants in one study were significantly more likely to choose a Lipton Ice drink when they were subliminally primed with “Lipton Ice”.

Intelligence agencies around the world have also been notorious for using subliminal messaging to control and train operatives as well as for interrogation. Few but history buffs know about Project MK Ultra, and most dismiss it as myth or a conspiracy theory derived from Stephen King’s writing. The project was a clandestine operation encompassing experiments that included conditioning, drugs, and subliminal messaging to emulate mind control, information extraction, and psychological torture, all using subliminal messaging. Perhaps, the fact that the stories surrounding the Project were so chilling, is why most of them were discarded and considered fiction.

Children are naturally curious creatures, with their subconscious minds more active and vulnerable than those of adults. That is also why they think, dream, and imagine more actively than grownups. Keeping an eye on the material your child views is necessary for their mental and psychological wellbeing and can be done by using Android & iPhone monitoring software.