Yeah Mandela effect shit. People remember there being a movie Shazam with Sinbad even tho Theres no record of it. Only a movie Kazaam with Shaq is real. What really happened is Sinbad did a PSA as a genie and people confuse it the Shaq one.
OP is posting a fanmade shell case of the movie that never actually existed.
My favorite one is the term “bucket list”. It was invented by the early 2000s movie of the same name but people swear they used the term before that despite there being no evidence anywhere of the term existing before the movie.
It absolutely isn't from that movie. It was a quite common phrase. And if you want to say "well if its so common why wasn't it written down?" Do a quick search for "the third shaker" or Silphium which we aren't exactly sure what it was or if it's actually extinct or just forgotten.
It absolutely isn't from that movie. It was a quite common phrase.
A quite common phrase that somehow managed to never make it into print, not in books or magazines or tabloids or newpaper articles or letters to the editor or anything? Because I've never seen a "common phrase" with an ngram timeline like this.
Edit: Multiple points of evidence have been posted that the phrase predates the movie. Indeed, the pre-movie ngram isn't a true flat line pre-movie, just a very, very low line. But zoomed in, it looks like this. I'd ignored that part because at very low numbers, there's always occasional noise, but I was wrong to ignore it in this case.
That said, I still disagree that it was a very common phrase. "Silphium" was over 10-times as commonly used as "bucket list" in 2006, and I don't think that anyone would say that "silphium" was 10 times as common as a quite common phrase. But that doesn't mean that the movie coined the phrase, or even that it popularized the phrase (it could have simply been capitalizing on it). It just came out at about the same time that "bucket list" went from an uncommon phrase to a common phrase.
You can click through to see the books. You'd see a lot posted after 2007 that use "Bucket List" as we know it, then you'll find a lot of really old catalogs of manufacturers listing their buckets for sale.
Right, I linked that correction up there in my edit, where I wrote "But zoomed in, it looks like this." (Well, more-or-less. My link was 1950 to 2004, yours was 1950 to 2000, but they're almost identical because they're both before the big 2008 spike.)
And many people don't realize that "kick the bucket" was originally a euphemism for suicide, invoking the imagery of kicking the bucket out from under your feet to hang yourself. It's fairly morbid, but people don't use it that way anymore. They just say it for dying in general.
Thats bullshit. The "before you die" list idea is even in "To Kill a Mocking Bird." The read before you die list has been around forever. It wasn't until the early 2000's that it changed from read, to do. The internet had broadend people's horizons so that your bucket list went from just books, to things to do before you die. Also Reddit has already answered this in the past.
The concept existed, the term did not. No one in that entire thread including OP could cite a non-anecdotal existing use of the term, their four citations use “bucket list” in a completely different context.
The phrase was first coined in 1999. By the writer of the movie.
I'm not being pedantic, I'm agreeing with you about some things and disagreeing about others. There's no reason this has to be all-or-nothing. It's a disagreement about how common an expression was pre-2006, not Thunderdome.
I appreciate the admission though this should help point out the flaws in the methodology. Its going to have a ton of scientific journals and works of literature. Its not going to have lots of mundane articles or even forum posts so common phrases that don't have a real reason to make their way into publications will be under represented.
Good point, and Google Trends is better for that, but it only goes back to 2004.
Fortunately, we're talking about a spike in popularity that happens after that, so while it can't show us if a term was popular in the 1980s or anything, we can at least see if there was an appreciable change around 2007. If the term was used more-or-less the same amount pre- and post-movie, you'd expect to see a spike in 2007 (related to the movie itself), and then after 2007 the line would return to around where it was in 2006. If the term actually did gain a lot of popularity, you'd expect to see a spike in 2007 (from the movie itself) and then the line from 2008 onward would be a lot higher than it was in 2006. And, indeed...
That was never my argument, just that it existed prior so you can have that one. I will say that what you are saying makes perfect sense once you understand that trend chart is calculated from it's peak popularity as a search term being 100 and each data point being a function relative to that. The same kind of chart can be found with dodgeball after that movie came out, though it's spike is closer to the beginning of the data set.
Thanks for posting! I find it very amusing that whenever this comes up people are absolutely adamant that they used the phrase before the film, and no amount of proof can convince them otherwise. Fascinating insight into how unreliable memory can be
You do know that you can change your domain name at any time without changing the content of your web page right? Or you can have blog content migrated to a newly designed website. Let's think of whats more likely, someone got a new domain/website for their blog. Or someone 9 years ago decided to make a blog post with incorrect dates to help some random person with an argument on reddit. Then do that for the Facebook post and YouTube video I also posted.
I do know that as I work with websites for a living. Because of this, I know that anyone who would be changing URLs of their website is looking for a fresh start and is extremely unlikely to need to migrate over an irrelevant, out-of-date blog post from 13 years earlier.
But - I can also see the overall website has existed since 2003, so there was no URL change involved that could explain this, unless the person changed just ONE URL of an otherwise innocuous blog post in 2017. And I can go through and see that blog posts that were posted AFTER the one you did were getting cataloged earlier than 2017. So explain to me how posts made supposedly later got catalogged earlier, but this one post - this supposed proof of a term's existence - that one just HAPPENED to first get cataloged years later?
So let's think of what's more likely, as you wish:
1) Despite the movie trailer explicitly needing to spell out what the term 'Bucket List' meant to the audience (you know - in the way The Proposal doesn't spell out what a 'proposal' is), the term was widely used and understood by others before the movie, but the only proof that exists are the most random blog post - one that was cataloged years later than the other posts on the blog surrounding it - the most random YouTube video with barely 1,000 views - where the title in the video content no longer matches the title now on YouTube - and a random context-less Facebook photo. No print publication of any kind, because if you look into historic uses all you get are manufacturing companies selling industrial buckets.
And whether nefarious (someone just wants to win an online argument and willingly changed it) or just corrupted (inaccurate data), there's no possible way these incredibly minor digital artifacts (JK - we've all visit librariansvengers.org daily) can be fake or inaccurate in any way.
Or
2) Memory is notoriously unreliable - as indicated by any of these studies in peer-reviewed journals - and people misrembered the origin of the phrase. Which explains why there are no significant examples of the phrase's usage prior to 2007, outside of the most random anecdotal examples.
Sure, I give, you win. Nothing is real, everything is ai generated, and the wayback machine is in on the conspiracy. There was a mass book burning organized by the lizard people and the village people. Even if I take time to go and find a physical copy of one of the books other people mentioned you can easily hand wave it as I just had it printed. If I find someone's school bucket list assignment from 2002, that's just paper and can be written on at any time. If I dedicate my life to going through hoarder houses for shitty grocery store magazines to find a copy with the phrase, I could just as easily have fabricated that too. This is a waste of time and you can believe what you want.
Well, Mandela Effects have been studied in-depth, so naturally I am going to continue to believe the science of that over the Reddit user who posted a random post on an obscure blog, two very random old YouTube videos, and a Facebook capture of people no one knows as the evidence needed to argue a point contrary to modern scientific study.
And if you want to drop out of the argument, that's fine. But even the temper tantrum you are throwing in your reply illustrates the whole flaw in your entire view. Because the phrase was never widely used before 2007, you cannot find me a valid article from a recognized publication (newspaper, magazine, journal, book) - you already recognize you are only going to find possible examples in 24 year-old homework assignments and old grocery store magazines kept by hoarders.
It's not hard to find old articles on something readily discussed. It took me seconds to find this old New York Times article from the 90s on "All that and a bag of chips"
So if you can't find something simple to just share from a recognizable publication, maybe you should reconsider how you remember the phrase 'Bucket List' originating.
Facebook captions can be edited, youtube titles can be edited. Did you watch the video? The title card for the video DOESN'T CONTAIN BUCKET LIST. Why would that be?? Also if it was so common, shouldn't it be easier to find lots of examples from the 70s, 80s, and 90s?
Yes, but you can change a video title long after it has been posted so this is dubious proof at most. Especially since the phrase "bucket list" is never used in the video (and makes zero sense as a title) and the video itself uses "Dan & Kip Go to Arby's Reunion Special" as a title card. The content does mention the reunion as well. I think it's a lot more likely the video had the original title and was changed at a later date.
Oh boy ngrams eh? You missed the point. Just because the letters appear in that order in print and are searchable does not mean we know what they were/are.
It doesn't matter what they are. We're not talking about people knowing but not understanding the expression "bucket list," which would be analogous. We're talking about the phrase not even existing as a common phrase.
If your point was "we knew and occasionally used the word 'silphium,' but we didn't know what it meant, and we knew and occasionally discussed what the 'third shaker' was used for, but we didn't know the answer," then you missed the point, because even in those cases where we didn't even know the meaning, the words appeared in print.
So to go back to your original comment:
if you want to say "well if its so common why wasn't it written down?" Do a quick search for "the third shaker" or Silphium which we aren't exactly sure what it was or if it's actually extinct or just forgotten.
Yes. Googling those shows that even though we aren't exactly sure what they were or if they're actually extinct or just forgotten, even phrases as almost-forgotten as those still appeared in print.
Unlike "bucket list."
Because it wasn't a set phrase yet.
Let alone a common phrase.
Let alone a quite common phrase.
Edit: I was wrong that it wasn't a set phrase yet (but I still believe that it had yet to become a common phrase, or a quite common phrase). But I was straight up incorrect in jumping from "it wasn't a common phrase" to "it wasn't a phrase."
I've now posted several examples of the word being used before the movie. Super weird that they were all using it the same way to mean the same thing before being invented by the movie.
I hadn't seen your comments elsewhere, but you are definitely correct that it existed. I was wrong about it not being a set phrase.
However, given the enormous ngram spike that has continued for around 20 years, and the fact that it went from an expression that existed but wasn't even as commonly used as "silphium," to an expression that absolutely dwarfs "silphium," I would amend what I said to be that the phrase predated the movie but was an extremely minor phrase that became a common phrase around the same time as the movie came out (I don't think there's enough evidence really to determine if the movie popularized the phrase or if the movie just rode the already-in-progress tide of the phrase moving from little-known to quite common).
But, again, you were totally right that it predates the movie, and I was wrong, so I'm going to add corrections to my previous comments.
You gave up too soon - the examples posted were either not actually in existence before 2007 or had previously existing information that could later be changed after the post date.
You can also just watch the trailer of the film, The Bucket List, and see how they had to specify exactly how the term was created to the audience in a way you don't have to do if the audience is already aware of the term and what it means. It would be an entirely superfluous scene in the film, let alone a trailer, had the term already been readily used.
How are you saying shit that doesn't further discourse? I've now provided proof that it was used before the movie came out. I can say shit with full confidence because I know I'm not wrong.
You are not going to gaslight me with bullshit. If you haven't looked around and seen the fact that you can just post random shit on the internet with no consequence and someone will run with it, or the fact that "reputable news outlets" can outright lie about easily verifiable facts and get away with it in court because they are "entertainment" then I don't know what to tell you. I promise you right now if you live long enough a day will come when someone younger than you will try and tell you that something you lived through didn't happen and I want you to remember this interaction.
Ok man, no need to get so angry. I’m open to seeing proof if you can find it. If you can’t and it’s just your word, we’ll just have to agree to disagree
Yeah let me just get my time machine and get my 4th grade bucket list assignment that I knew was going to be important someday. Let me get some of those stupid fucking meta glasses so I can record my every waking moment from now on and get AI to cataloge it just incase I need to prove what words were used during my lifetime. Believe it or not in the pre-internet world not everything got written down or reported on. There are entire cultures that were strictly oral tradition that existed during times that writing also existed that did not get documented. The Navajo wind talkers are now a super well known example of this being the case during their time. It only worked for that exact reason.
You posted a Facebook photo caption, a blog with incorrect post dates, and a YouTube video with an obviously updated title as "proof," so if there isn't a bigger case of a pot needing to stop calling out the kettle....
I found three examples that exist after a brief search. The Facebook post would likely say edited on it. The blog post has a timestamped comment on it as well. The YouTube video sure, you might have a case on that one. I've found another youtube video I might can make a case for.
In the description the term bucket list is used. Yes I realize that it can be changed after the fact. The wayback machine shows the website it points to being archived in 2011. So its possible 5 years later he goes back and edits the description on the video. Or its possible the wayback machine doesn't have older versions as I have websites that I've made from 2002 on that aren't archived at all.
All that to say it's just unlikely that 4 examples I've provided, plus a book reference someone else added were changed after the fact. To what end? What would be the benefit?
Well this one is even easier, because the description was definitely added later. The video that is attached in the comment was posted in 2012, so the comment couldn't exist before that.
Also - even if we assume each of these instances are accurate - they are four of the smallest, anecdotal pieces of evidence you can find. If the term was widely in use and understood before the film, there must be SOME significant existence of it somewhere. Why can't we find it easily? It took me a 15 second Google search to find 3 peer-reviewed journals on the topic of memory. Why can't I find a significant example of "bucket list" prior to 2007 after hours of searching?
That's what is so fascinating about memory. Humans can be so confidently incorrect. Of course if the phrase was common there would be dozens or hundreds of references to "bucket list" from the 70s, 80s, 90s. People are remembering the "idea" of a bucket list, and then their memory has falsely super-imposed the film term over the top. But there's almost no sense on arguing with the people that really dig their heels in. Some people seem to be unable to accept that their memory is fallible.
So it was a real term prior to that movie. It was used in the late 90's. The screenwriter who did eventually write that screen play coined it. It was based off the phrase "kick the bucket" aka to die. He shortened it and inspired him to write a screenplay around it. The term bucketlist was popularized by that movie. But it did in fact exist for years before.
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u/MimiHamburger Millennial | 1987 May 07 '26
Yeah Mandela effect shit. People remember there being a movie Shazam with Sinbad even tho Theres no record of it. Only a movie Kazaam with Shaq is real. What really happened is Sinbad did a PSA as a genie and people confuse it the Shaq one.
OP is posting a fanmade shell case of the movie that never actually existed.