Backward Masking of Records... Where'd it Go?

Originally posted by nathraqBut most importantly: What are we supposed to do now, since the fun of spinning records backwards has left us? hehe

Originally posted by Kano
By all means share this proof NEO. I'd be most interested.

Originally posted by nathraq
Some of you may remember the Bible thumper fad of the 70's and 80's.... backward masking of records.

For those of younger audience, that was when a preacher, parent, rabbi, priest, etc. would take an Alice Cooper, Kiss, ELO, Led Zepplin, among many more, record, and spin it backwards on the turntable. Supposedly, secret messages regarding evil and Satan were heard as the record was being slowly turned the opposite direction.

Here's a link with examples:

www.triplo.com...

I remember my mom taking away Ozzies,"Bark at the Moon" record, because of something she watched on the subject. That really made me mad.

Now, with the advent of mp3's and CD's, what happened to the backwardmaskers? This subject died down alot since then. Did Satan forget to upgrade to the new technology? Did the over pious just move on to something else to try to prohibit and ban and bash, because records aren't being made anymore?

But most importantly: What are we supposed to do now, since the fun of spinning records backwards has left us? hehe

Originally posted by Gazrok
We'll just have to settle for the subliminal messages in disney flicks I guess...

Here's two of my favorites...

The Lion King: when Simba plops down on Pride Rock, to talk to Mufassa, the dust kicks up and spells out SEX briefly.

Aladdin: right before Aladin and Jasmine hop on the carpet, for "A Whole New World", turn up your volume to max, and you'll hear distinctly, in Robin Williams' voice, "All good teenagers, take off your clothes!"

I'm serious....try it, you'll laugh your ass off.....

Claim: An early experiment in subliminal advertising at a movie theater sunstantially increased sales of popcorn and Coke.

Status: False.

Origins: Public awareness of what we now term "subliminal advertising" began with the 1957 publication of Vance Packard's book, The Hidden Persuaders. Although Packard did not use the term "subliminal advertising," he did describe many of the new "motivational research" marketing techniques being employed to sell products in the burgeoning post-war American market. Advertisements that focused on consumers' hopes, fears, guilt, and sexuality were designed to persuade them to buy products they'd never realized they needed. Marketers who could reach into the hearts and minds of American consumers soon found consumers' wallets to be within easy grasp as well.

It was James Vicary who coined the term "subliminal advertising." Vicary had conducted a variety of unusual studies of female shopping habits, discovering (among other things) that women's eye-blink rates dropped significantly in supermarkets, that "psychological spring" lasts more than twice as long as "psychological winter," and that "the experience of a woman baking a cake could be likened to a woman giving birth." Vicary's studies were largely forgettable, save for one experiment he conducted at a Ft. Lee, New Jersey movie theater during the summer of 1957. Vicary placed a tachistoscope in the theater's projection booth, and all throughout the playing of the film Picnic, he flashed a couple of different messages on the screen every five seconds. The messages each displayed for only 1/3000th of a second at a time, far below the viewers' threshold of conscious perceptibility. The result of displaying these imperceptible suggestions -- "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat Popcorn" -- was an amazing 18.1% increase in Coca-Cola sales, and a whopping 57.8% jump in popcorn purchases. Thus was demonstrated the awesome power of "subliminal advertising" to coerce unwary buyers into making purchases they would not otherwise have considered.

Or so goes the legend that has retained its potency for more than forty years. So potent a legend, in fact, that the Federal Communications Commission banned "subliminal advertising" from radio and television airwaves in 1974, despite that fact that no studies have ever shown it to be effective, and even though its alleged efficacy was based on a fraud.

You see, Vicary lied about the results of his experiment. When he was challenged to repeat the test by the president of the Psychological Corporation, Dr. Henry Link, Vicary's duplication of his original experiment produced no significant increase in popcorn or Coca-Cola sales. Eventually Vicary confessed that he had falsified the data from his first experiments, and some critics have since expressed doubts that he actually conducted his infamous Ft. Lee experiment at all.

As usual, the media (and thereby the public) paid attention only to the sensational original story, and the scant coverage given to Vicary's later confession was ignored or quickly forgotten. Radio and television stations began airing subliminal commercials, leading to two congressional bills to ban the practice being introduced in 1958 and 1959 (both of which died before being voted upon). In 1973, Dr. Wilson B. Key picked up where Vicary left off, publishing Subliminal Seduction, an indictment of modern advertisements filled with hidden messages and secret symbols -- messages and symbols that only Dr. Key could discern (including the notorious example of the word "S-E-X" spelled out in the ice cubes pictured in a liquor advertisement). The old "subliminal advertising" controversy was stirred up again by Dr. Key's book, leading to the 24 January 1974 announcement by the FCC that subliminal techniques, "whether effective or not," were "contrary to the public interest," and that any station employing them risked losing its broadcast license.

For neither the first nor the last time, a great deal of time and money and effort was expended on "protecting" the public from something that posed no danger to them. As numerous studies over the last few decades have demonstrated, subliminal advertising doesn't work; in fact, it never worked, and the whole premise was based on a lie from the very beginning. James Vicary's legacy was to ensure that a great many people will never be convinced otherwise, however.

Sources:
Haberstroh, Jack. Ice Cube Sex.
Notre Dame: CrossRoads Books, 1994. ISBN 0-940121-17-4 (pp. 7-10, 130).

Key, Wilson B. Subliminal Seduction.
New York: Signet, 1973.

Rogers, Stuart. "How a Publicity Blitz Created the Myth of Subliminal Advertising."
Public Relations Quarterly. Winter 1993 (pp. 12-17).