4 ms·

These ads showed up in rock magazines like Creem and rolling stone, playboy, oui, counter culture newspapers, etc.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago
I am not sure if there is a name for this phenomenon, but it seems to be a frequent issue where, e.g., in this case some probably very limited run ads in obscure magazines only the fringe of society every even possibly saw are now in the future interpreted and assumed to have been seen by everyone, all the time, and were of far greater importance or impact than they really were in reality. Does anyone know if there is a term for that kind of "bias" or self-deception? The odd reflexive impact of that seems to be that today's historians and social sciences people are prone to falling prey to the "bias" and then weaving it into preconceived notions and narratives due to other biases like confirmation bias.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  In this case, the ads were seen by far more people than understood them. Even those that asked and found out, many of them weren't interested and tuned it out mostly; so its not surprising if they do not remember it decades later. History never has much to do with what actually happened, anyhow.
- vkou 5y ago
  It's just shoddy analysis of sources. You see it all the time on Facebook, or reddit, or wherever people post things like 'Did you know <group of ancient people believed> <something utterly ridiculous> without quantifying whether or not this was a common belief, or just a drinking story that they told. An outsider who isn't careful about this might make a similar claim that modern Americans believe in a heroic lumberjack giant called Paul Bunyan, who has a giant pet blue ox. This is technically correct, but is also utterly useless as a description of modern Americans.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  All of the magazines mentioned had massive circulations and were available at every 7-11 in the country. A more interesting phenomenon is where media consumed by a tiny group of well-educated wealthy elites is considered universal or common. There's no way the New Yorker had a bigger circulation than Hustler in the 80s. edit: according to wikipedia, Hustler's peak circulation in the 80s was 3 million copies a month.
  - phone8675309 5y ago
    > A more interesting phenomenon is where media consumed by a tiny group of well-educated wealthy elites is considered universal or common. That's probably a consequence of those same elites controlling the media.

I am not sure if there is a name for this phenomenon, but it seems to be a frequent issue where, e.g., in this case some probably very limited run ads in obscure magazines only the fringe of society every even possibly saw are now in the future interpreted and assumed to have been seen by everyone, all the time, and were of far greater importance or impact than they really were in reality. Does anyone know if there is a term for that kind of "bias" or self-deception? The odd reflexive impact of that seems to be that today's historians and social sciences people are prone to falling prey to the "bias" and then weaving it into preconceived notions and narratives due to other biases like confirmation bias.

h2odragon 5y ago
In this case, the ads were seen by far more people than understood them. Even those that asked and found out, many of them weren't interested and tuned it out mostly; so its not surprising if they do not remember it decades later. History never has much to do with what actually happened, anyhow.
vkou 5y ago
It's just shoddy analysis of sources. You see it all the time on Facebook, or reddit, or wherever people post things like 'Did you know <group of ancient people believed> <something utterly ridiculous> without quantifying whether or not this was a common belief, or just a drinking story that they told. An outsider who isn't careful about this might make a similar claim that modern Americans believe in a heroic lumberjack giant called Paul Bunyan, who has a giant pet blue ox. This is technically correct, but is also utterly useless as a description of modern Americans.
pessimizer 5y ago
All of the magazines mentioned had massive circulations and were available at every 7-11 in the country. A more interesting phenomenon is where media consumed by a tiny group of well-educated wealthy elites is considered universal or common. There's no way the New Yorker had a bigger circulation than Hustler in the 80s. edit: according to wikipedia, Hustler's peak circulation in the 80s was 3 million copies a month.
- phone8675309 5y ago
  > A more interesting phenomenon is where media consumed by a tiny group of well-educated wealthy elites is considered universal or common. That's probably a consequence of those same elites controlling the media.