And That's Why We Drink - E162 A Gaga-Damn Delight and Sense of Crohdar

Episode Date: March 8, 2020

We're jumping ourselves right into some wormholes today because Em is covering the long awaited story of the Mandela Effect! Christine then covers the wildly dark and twisted tale of Corey Breininger. We also still haven't heard back from Lin-Manuel Miranda yet... and that's why we drink!Please consider supporting the companies that support us! Go to PrettyLitter.com and use promo code DRINK for 20% off your first order!Go to ZOLA.com/drink today and use promo code SAVE50 to get 50% off your save the dates!Go to HelloFresh.com/whywedrink10 and use code whywedrink10 for 10 free meals including free shipping!Go to Vistaprint.com and enter promo code DRINK for free shipping on all business cards, any style, any quantity!

Hello. It's a spooky day in the neighborhood. Oh. You hated that a lot more than I thought you would. I knew halfway through I hated it, and then it kept going and my hatred grew. I was like, oh, I want to leave. This is our musical improv show. This is because fucking Lin-Manuel Miranda won't get back to us. So we have to do it ourselves.

This is the knockoff Houdini. Welcome. Come on. Come on. Who done it? Houdini. Oh, there we go. That one I loved.

Who do you love? Houdini. I bet that could be something. You're right. I think there's something there. Good job, Christine. A one I loved. Who do you love? Houdini. I bet that could be something. You're right. I think there's something there. Good job, Christine. A little nugget. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to And That's Why We Drink. Why do you drink? Slash Houdini Broadway backstage. That's it, too. Houdini's green room. Behind the scenes. How am I?

Why do you drink? We haven't done that in a while. Oh. Threw me for a loop there. I've been doing a lot of old uh content we're putting it back on patreon and i'm like we used to do a whole different thing we did okay we'll bring it back we'll bring it why do i drink yeah why do i drink uh yeah the theme in the beginning of the this whole concept was we've always got a reason to drink we want

to complain it's the whole concept that was i guess that part we didn't stop no we definitely never stopped we just mask it differently now we just do it without reason why do i drink what is today hmm um i drink in a good way and a bad way that tomorrow i'm going to maine yes which i said in the last episode too um but i'm going to maine and i uh we're doing a show in maine and we're doing a show in vermont and i've never been to either so i'm going me neither in we're doing a show in Maine and we're doing a show in Vermont and I've never been to either. So I'm going in advance. I'm staying a couple days before and after so I can enjoy the areas.

Yeah. And the thing that I don't like about that is to travel across the country takes a whole day of travel. It's a lot. And we lose three hours coming from the West Coast. Right. So I am going to be traveling literally all day tomorrow yes and then even i will be traveling literally all day the following day so it's gonna be having a blast that day you'll be having you'll be sleeping in eating from ben and jerry's you'll be having a

good time i'm very excited yes lisa lampinelli's come in and she's gonna road trip with us yes she's she like arranged it she just was like here's our airbnb we have a hot tub i was like uh by the way guys i, I guess Lisa is... I'm glad you reminded me because I need to pack tonight. Oh, yeah. Apparently there's a hot tub. We'll invite you guys when we get there. Yeah, so I mean, I guess I drink for the same reason, but I'm excited because I've also

never been. And I love lobster. I know you don't, but we went over this. I do think Maine is beautiful. I do think Maine is beautiful. I do think Vermont is beautiful. I will say, the day after you guys are flying eventually back to LA, I'm going to Phoenix

or Tempe for Blaze's anniversary gift. He got me and him these tickets to Innings Music Festival where I'm going to see Rainbow Kitten Surprise. Oh my gosh, that's going to be so fun. Live! And Weezer and Death Cab. I'm so amped, guysitten Surprise. Oh my gosh, that's going to be so fun. Live! And Weezer and Death Cab. I'm so amped, guys.

How long are you there for? Like two nights. Oh, okay. Because it's just a two-day festival. We're only going for one of the days because the other day is DMB and that's really not my jam. I see. I see.

And so I'm really excited and I'm very thankful that Blaze got us the cool tickets where we get to, they take you around in a little golf cart to each of the stages wow like royalty meanwhile i'll be traveling back on a 767 and flying all the way back for 12 hours yeah 760 group one group a baby i don't know what group i'm in probably the back corner um anyway so that's why i drink why do you drink oh i just meant sorry i meant to throw mine in as the i'm really excited for the music festival oh and a positive and also also thankful because i will be drinking oh i do drink because i'm currently in the midst of a crone's flare

yeah um small mind some people have picked up on that somehow magically i don't know how because you look like garbage i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding oh my god you just want me to choke on my own i was I was kidding. Oh, my God. So skinny and beautiful. Shut up. So I posted, like, something. I don't even know. Somebody in close friends on Instagram, like, picked up on it.

I was like, I hope you're feeling better. I was like, huh? Maybe they have Crohn's? Maybe. I think maybe, like, I exude. Maybe it's like gaydar, where, like, if you have Crohn's, you're like, ooh, I see you. It's called Crodar. You're looking a little ragged today. Yeah. Yeah yeah it's really offensive when I'm just looking ragged and I'm like I'm feeling great but thank you. That's actually usually you coming in.

I walk in and I go oh what happened? Oh god what's wrong? But so I am in a Crohn's flare so I'm on I'm and it's very scary because it means my medication isn't working. They thought I had C. diff. I don't. So now they're like, oh, shit, your medication of nine and a half years stopped working. So and you said that usually at 10 years is when it stops working, right? Well, some people around like it's a mixed bag. A lot of people, it works for the rest of their lives.

So it's like fingers crossed. But then around 10 years, sometimes people start to realize they're so they're basically your body builds up an immunity to it in some people, mine it's a curse that your body's so strong i know well it just fought it off it's like oh we're not going to fight off all these other things but this one we don't want your body is really weak because it has crumbs but really strong and that it fought off one thing only and it's the way to prevent the one good the good for me thing um but yeah so anyway i'm trying i'll do new meds so if you see me and i look ragged or haggard haggard or poofy faced that's why so i'm sorry about that and my looks i'm so sorry about that uh but that's why i drink or slash don't drink really if i look poofy

face it's because i had a lot of gluten and carbs happily by the way i chose that and i'm okay with your body did not fight it off no in fact it embraced it a little too well um um but so that's that just uh just a shout out to anybody in the same boat i know there's a lot of you so i as i i say this to christine a lot but as an ignorant party of the of as a crone ally who does not understand what you go through i still cannot i can't imagine truly because i don't have the capacity to imagine it but also i don't know how you do it but i feel bad you're so supportive like you're the only one who really sits there and goes what does it feel like what is it like is it like that support or me just being like too fucking curious like is it like a knife or is it like i'm like i want the tmi like how bad

does it get what does your poop look like? I have asked that many times. This is getting really wild. We're best friends. Dr. M comes to play. Dr. M asks the patient what's going on. Tell me everything. Yeah, I just, I don't understand.

And I also like, I am very lucky in that I'm someone who naturally, I've really have gotten very few stomach aches in my entire life. So when I do get a stomach ache, even like the slightest one, I've never built up a tolerance. So I'm such a baby, like the slightest ping in my stomach and I'm down for the count for the rest of the day. And then Christine's like, oh, I've been having a flare up for five days. Anyway, let's go rally. And I'm like, what are you talking about i felt so bad because we went to um sacramento and san francisco which is when it started and i was like i'm not gonna tell em and eva because i don't want them to worry and so i guess nobody noticed so that's good you do a

really good job of hiding it i'm really good at um hiding my thoughts and feelings and emotions unless i'm on the podcast then I can't help myself and tell you everything if I think about having a stomach ache I really just want to go home and cry for five days like the fact that you just live in constant pain blows my mind I appreciate it and like it always it's kind of funny because I was telling M2 like it um it's weird because it's like your body at least mine like forgets what it's like because I've been in remission for so long and then all of a sudden I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, it's back. Like it's so familiar all of a sudden.

But when I don't have it, when I'm in remission, I can't imagine it. I'm like, I'm sure it's not that bad. When I was in high school, I had a really wild ulcer that put me in the hospital. That's right. So that's what it's like. But every stomachache feels like that. And like not because I need to get checked out but because i'm just that big of a baby i remember having the that ulcer and like i could talk about

it so dramatically i can talk about anything dramatically but i could talk about it like it's like it's the worst thing that's ever happened on earth and then you're like oh yeah i have like 10 of those every single day and i'm like what anyway it's it's it's one of those things where i was very lucky i'm i am very lucky and i was in remission for a long time and i found a medication that worked apparently not anymore so much but um you know a lot of people can never get into remission so props to you if that's the case and keep the good keep fighting the good fight anyway i'm so sorry to everyone you'd all deserve a hug unless you don't want one unless you don't want one everyone with crohn's deserves hug and anyone that we said uh even you or me or one of us said like

because it was ibd awareness day or something and we were like give somebody or you said give someone with ibd a hug and i was like but like don't actually touch them but don't just think about hugging them really hard so sorry let's do this oh wait i also want to add um we have a patron of the week thank you for always being on top of that i'm so sorry you really just carry the entire goddamn show no no no no i just always forget um this is uh our patron of the week is trey basa okay hi trey trey what a cool name is not the guy in um high school musical or am i making that up zach efron no but it wasn't one of the characters named trey troy troy okay who played by zach efron but i'm sick i'm gonna use that as

an excuse now for everything trey belton um okay uh trey thank you for you're cooler than zach efron rumor has it fun fact that trey songs lives that's the one i'm thinking of you're thinking of trey songs because i complain about him a lot because you do trey songs i don't know do you guys know who that is because i know who that is but i feel like it's sort of random reference he was not necessarily a one-hit wonder but maybe like a three-hit wonder or maybe like a three-hit half wonder is that rude probably if he's listening i'm so sorry i'm sure he's not but trey songs uh lives in my apartment that's right and not near the bed not in my like a's not but trey songs uh lives in my apartment that's right and not near the bed not in my like a specific one but in my complex he sings in the shower a lot

he does make a lot of fucking noise oh really and yeah or at least the people between us is that the one allison was telling me that like they seem to always be wrestling and i don't know there's a baby but the baby's the quietest one that's why I fucking drink okay I'm not gonna like obviously like triangulate my location here but I live in a complex there are multiple floors on the corner oh we're not gonna go there I was like I dare you do you think that I actually know you're where you live I'm so geographically challenged I have to like google map it every time um so uh Trey Songz lives on the top floor in the penthouse. And lives in the swankiest of all apartment buildings.

I don't live in the penthouse. I live in like a decent apartment. I have a pretty nice apartment. I love your apartment. But there's a floor between me and Trey Songz. And we actually just sent. So I've been recording them sinceuary every night because they're so goddamn loud and to a point where i've walked out of our apartment before i've been like i don't

know where i'm going but i cannot be in this apartment they're so stupid loud whoa i like to blame it on trey songs because that's cooler um but really it's just like a family of i don't know 15 000 people and they all like are part of a marching band with 10 babies and i love alice was like oh they have a baby and i went oh and she's like and it's the only one that doesn't the baby knows when quiet hours are so funny and like they are so goddamn loud and i've even i've turned into like mr heckles because i will literally throw the broom on the ceiling like i bang the broom on the ceiling all the time and it just makes them get louder i'm sure i piss them off i don't but so i've been filming them every night and apparently our landlord sent us an email by accident because oh i heard about this they sent us an email

backs and thinking that because we're the floor directly under the digits are the same right right right and so they sent an email meant for them to us saying like so you've been getting a lot of noise complaints from neighbors surrounding you i just wanted to remind you that like we have quiet hours you need to be respectful of that and i chimed in real quick and i was like actually we're the floor below but while we're on the subject here are 87 videos i have recorded of them being wildly loud tiktok account of every 90 second video of them well so i said they were being really loud i listed every single thing i'm a night owl so i was like at least until 3 30 in the morning they're doing this this this and this every 10 goddamn

minutes and you're awake so it's like you're not even trying to sleep you're just like it's so fucking loud yeah it's awful and so i said i have also recorded a lot of videos of this in case you need further evidence and she i thought she wasn't going to go for it. No. And their landlord was like, can you please send those videos? And I was like, happily, because Allison has been making fun of me for recording those videos, being like, what are you going to do with them? And then all of a sudden I get asked to use them.

Send them to the police, the FBI. I wish I could. I wish I could arrest those people. They're so fucking loud. Send them to the CIA. Anyway, Trey Songz lives in my apartment. Trey Songz apparently has 14 million followers on Twitter, which I did not realize was a thing. We're such assholes. Do you even know who that is? I'm going to send them to the CIA. Anyway, Trey Songz lives in my apartment. Trey Songz apparently has 14 million followers on Twitter, which I did not realize was a thing. We're such assholes.

Do you even know who that is? I'm sorry. I feel rude because I think I'm just not cool. So I was like, I know somebody. And then I was like, I don't know. I don't have a gauge for what's cool or not. But I will say also, apparently he had an album called Trey Day. Oh, shit.

Which is just the coolest thing I ever did here. Well, now every time my neighbors are loud, I'm just going to text you and be like, it's Trey Day. I feel like Mississippi Girl is just going crazy up there. It's Trey Night. Okay, that's great, Christine. You should just blast his album really loud. Although, I guess technically it is like not technically him, right?

But it's, I hope that- Because we're not slandering him. Oh, no. I mean, we are, but we're not meaning to. I would certainly like to for fun of it, but I never met him he seems oh he's very ripped so he has that going for him uh i hope that his floor is as loud as my ceiling is considering we're sandwiching this really awful family interesting yeah okay moving on to the actual show okay thank you trey for being a patreon supporter and not being as loud as my neighbors. The other Trey.

I could talk about them forever. You know what? Let's. I'm just kidding. Everyone just held their breath and was hitting the next button on Spotify. Everyone was like 15 seconds further. Do you know what I sometimes wonder? Actually, I wonder this constantly.

If people are like, no, no, no, let me show you this podcast. I love it. And they start listening and they're like, it's not always like this. Or maybe it is. They find it every time they try a new episode. People are like, no, no, no. Let me show you this podcast. I love it. And they start listening and they're like, it's not always like this. Or maybe it is. They find it every time they try a new episode. They're like, oh. Every episode they have to defend. Yeah.

Like, oh, I promise in 20,000 minutes it gets better. Okay. You know what? You guys said that you liked our banter. Why? Why? Here we go. Okay.

Moving on. Here is the actual story. Have you read my notes yet? Have you seen what I'm covering? No, I did not. Shocking. Shocking. Because I actually I'm not shocked because you would have verbally made a sound. Oh, really? Yes.

Okay, we'll see. I've been also staring and screaming at the camera so long that the ring light has actually I think, temporarily blinded me this time. Dope. Like not even as a joke. So I could not even if I wanted to see. Great. What is it? Now I'm curious. Last week, we talked about wanted to see. Great. What is it? Now I'm curious. Last week we talked about the Thunderbird. Right. And the Thunderbird, one of the theories is that it is what?

A big fucking giant bird? No, alligator. Wait, dinosaur. What is one of the theories of what it could be? Not a dinosaur. The thing that you ranted about. It's not Mandela effect. Yes.

You're kidding. Is that why you're being so weird about it? Yeah. I was like, I thought you'd want to talk about this and then you kept being like anyway shut it down christine well because you were also you were saying like i don't believe in the mandel and the mandela effect and i was like and then i said i'm about to talk about it to be fair i said i can't wait for you to cover it because um we'll have a lot to talk about so well you said something about how like you're not like a big believer in it and so i instantly was like bullshit because well yeah but i've always been

very open about that i've argued with my brother and people on reddit in my head i don't actually argue with people i was like well how far how dedicated are you i absolutely believe in the mandela effect oh this will be fun i know i think it's i all right get your boxing gloves out it's fun no i think it's uh fast. I think it's like deeply fascinating. Like I would love, I love talking about it. Yes. And also I do think that there is something psychological that creates, like, I mean, it seems to be a, like across the, across the globe, like everyone seems to have these

like misconceptions that are all understood communally. Like it's, there's gotta be something to it. And like willingly, I admit, I have like been in that same boat where I'm like,'s there's got to be something too and like willingly i admit i have like been in that same boat where i'm like no for sure i know that but i like aka last episode in the thunderbirds exactly so i'm i haven't even really gotten a chance to be like holy shit i'm so excited for you to cover this because i am amped okay great yes so um and this is a little more to me this is going to be fun it's going to be a little different than most of my stories so some people might hate that some people might enjoy it the reason it's different is because

half of my story is just going to be us playing the game yes oh fun guys come on let's play so everyone shout at your radios as if you think we can hear you i like how you say radio like we're on like oh sorry your phonograms phonograms i don't even know how to pronounce it okay your typewriter how does this work i don't know scream into the air and that's calling somebody we'll hear you um so the mandela effect i'm trying to actively say mandela effect because i used to say mandela effect and someone yelled to me that it's actually the mandala effect but it is the mandala effect yeah i remember this because one time we said it and you said Mandela and I went, you know, I got screamed at and then I felt stupid. No, it's about Nelson Mandela. Yes.

Everybody. I'm not telling you. I know that, you know, but whoever yelled at you. Yeah. Maybe they have their own Mandela effect. Maybe. They shamed me. And then and so now I've taught myself to say Mandela effect and I know it's wrong.

I don't know where. Someone in real life said it to me, though, because fucking trace songs he's saying it like mr mandela whoa nope okay whoa is that lady gaga you're best thing no the song bottoms up i trace songs oh i thought you were gonna sing you were gonna roast me without even having any goddamn information oh i thought we were going we should cover eventually an episode about like the um the similarities and songs where it's like the same the same chords yeah um i thought you were gonna say we should cover bad romance and i was like we absolutely should cover madame gaga madame gaga who by the way for those wondering what she's like uh if you want a little hollywood inside scoop oh lady Lady Gaga is a goddamn delight.

Have you met her? Goddamn light. Wow, that's good. Thank you. Sorry, the dogs are disagreeing with you. Or agreeing. They like her meat dress or whatever. I've only heard wonderful, wonderful, wonderful things about her.

Oh, I thought you met her, though. You have not met her. I have not personally met her. But when I worked at the prop house, someone told, a prop master who was working on american horror story with her came in cool and told me that one of the pas um on set uh came in crying one day because their house had been like broken into and someone stole everything oh my god and so she came in crying one of the makeup and hair people were like talking about it while they were doing like gaga's hair and i don't know if this is true but this is the story that i heard and i want to perpetuate it lady gaga gave her assistant her personal credit card and said go get her one of

everything and so by the time that pa got back home she had like an apple tv and a laptop and like all these things lady gaga i've been robbed too help me trace songs took all of my stuff help me he took my goddamn sleep because i'm definitely awake all night long that's lovely yeah so i don't know if that's true but i heard it from someone who like was working with her and like yeah i heard about it the day that it happened i will say like i've never heard anything bad about her which i feel like you tend to hear everything bad about everyone here. So that's its own, uh,

uh, yeah, true evidence, I guess. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. So the Mandela effect.

Also, I'm looking at you. I'm not looking at your nose. I promise. I just, I'm like very, you want to look at my baby Browns this time. I do.

I know. I want to gaze at them. My chiseled jaw full of ice cream and pudding. So sorry. Why did that make me laugh? I don't know. I always, test i like to test oh okay everyone's like please fucking get on with this so the mandela effect um if you did not listen to our last episode i kind of did a quick little spark notes on it we were talking about the thunderbird and how one of the ideas uh one of the most common stories and references of the thunderbird is that there

were two ranchers who shot something down and now there's this historical famous picture of six men holding up a thunderbird in front of a barn and it's like in sepia and everyone has seen it in one way or another or at least a lot of people have to a point where everyone swears that this picture exists and yet this picture never existed it only existed after everybody had talked about it in such detail that someone created a picture and then it affirmed what everyone had said they'd seen right and i remember this is actually one of the only ones i read on reddit and i was like no i know exactly that picture yeah and i was like oh shit i'm finally like sucked into this thing yeah so it basically a mandela effect is a a collective false memory so

everyone seems to remember something that definitely without a doubt happened you're convinced of it and then you find out that it's not true and you're like it's hard to even like shake yourself out of it you're like no this did happen yeah a thousand times so a lot of people actually also equate it to deja vu of being like i know this happened and you cannot be convinced otherwise it's happened before right exactly so the mandela effect or a mass memory discrepancy effect wow is uh somewhat recent it's all i mean it's always kind of been a thing but it was never coined as the Mandela Effect until 2008. Right. By a paranormal investigator. Really? Named Fiona Broom.

Well, that's a great name. It sounds fake. It's like Fiona Apple, but like the knockoff version. No, that's Fiona Orange. Oh, sorry. That's Fiona Pineapple. What are you talking about? So Fiona Broom was at a conference when the discussion turned to Nelson Mandela's death.

And this was in 2008. So this is the beginning of the actual coined phrase, Mandela. Okay. She was at a conference when the discussion turned to Nelson Mandela's death, and Fiona and others at the conference were like, no, no, no, like, Mandela died in prison in the 80s. Like, we know this. We remember televised eulogies.

We remember the funeral proceedings. Like, everybody knows that. We know what happened but found out at this conference that nelson mandela was freed from prison in 1990 and actually died in 2013 whoa so he was alive when they were talking about it yeah he was like i'm gonna be alive for five more years when she was like no he's dead he must have been so pissed when this was named after him he's like god i'm what else do you want me to do like i'm right here. For five years, he was like, well, I guess I created a psychological disorder.

You're welcome, Reddit, by the way. So Fiona later that night was like in shock and went turned to the chat rooms, of course. Of course. And was like, anyone else like remember him? Absolutely dying for sure. And so then realized that so many people across the world were like he's dead he died in prison in the 80s and nelson mandela's probably like what is going on why are my ears ringing yeah somewhere he's like getting all those google notification teams like suddenly he's trending on

google again i hope to think he also looked like google's himself like we do for sure like we clearly do as of last episode so it became the mandela effect and it went viral overnight it seems and neuroscientists psychologists physicists conspiracy theorists all started looking into it as of last episode. So it became the Mandela Effect and it went viral overnight, it seems. And neuroscientists, psychologists, physicists, conspiracy theorists all started looking into it, trying to figure out a reason for why this one thing alone started like threw people for a total loop.

And by 2014, there was actually a subreddit called Mandela Effect that is now the largest community on Reddit with more than 100- Wait, is it really? I think so, yeah. It's at least one of the largest community on Reddit with more than 100. Wait, is it really? I think so, yeah. It's at least one of the largest. It has 120,000 subscribers.

I think in 2014, in that year, it got 120. Got it, got it, got it. It blew up. Now it's probably not the biggest, but I think when it came out in 2014. I think the ATWD podcast one is a little bigger. Okay. No, the Mandela effect is them being like, is that even really a podcast? We remember a really lovely time when it didn't exist.

So it blew up. And since 2014, the Mandela Effect subreddit has existed. It's one of the biggest ones on Reddit. It's one of the first ones I joined when I joined Reddit. Arguably one of the biggest ones, or if not the biggest one. At least in my experience. It's the biggest one I'm a part of. if not the biggest one at least in my experience it's the biggest one i'm a part of um so people in here obviously discuss examples and theories and personal experiences of this mandela effect

happening to them right and there's so many theories um they're all kind of eerie or theory do you guys know that reference or is that also a mandela effect now i don't even know anymore maybe someone out there genuinely thinks we have a show called eerie in theory maybe we do is that the mandela effect oh shit let me look at my shirt oh no we're good we're still are we both oh no we're not i was wearing it and that's why i drank sweatshirt earlier i did notice that we're uh really on brand truly my entire closet is just my own clothes do you realize that we were talking about and trace songs is in there too but yeah we were talking about like last time last episode we were talking about googling ourselves in fact we were googling ourselves while wearing

shirts with our fucking names on them like how we are just what is wrong with us I don't know I'm so sorry I'm sorry everyone sorry let's go back to your thing okay okay um I was gonna try to come up with a reason I was psychologically oh, oh. Psychologically analyzing myself. I don't know. We could get back to that. That could be its own conversation. That's a great episode. Therapy 101 with us.

Oh, Lord. So there are so many theories from psychology to metaphysics, all these things. So here are just some of the most popular. So the first one is the CERN supercollider. In 2017, it was suggested that the Mandela effect is actually the result of a particle accelerator in Switzerland. Oh, yeah, I remember this thing.

That caused a rip in our reality. What year was that? 2017. What? So they think... Oh, that was the year our podcast started. Hold on. Wait a minute.

Holy shit. Oh, my God. I'm still sleeping in our class somewhere in Boston University. Your head's just on the desk. And then I wake up to this stranger named Christine next to me. Hey, that must be nice. I'm still fucking working in that class. I'd rather be sleeping.

I should have made better decisions. You definitely got the A in the class. I definitely got a lot of Zs in the class. You're such an idiot. That's excellent. That was on the spot, too. I was actually really into that one felt like that one should have stayed in my pocket a little longer should have it could have

landed differently and i liked it uh yeah so that argument to me doesn't make too much sense because if it happened in 2017 it means there was nine years where people still thought nelson mandela was dead and also really since the 80s and then in 2017 this happened. So it doesn't explain everything that happened before. Or maybe it did and then in 2017 everything. Like reality altered itself. Right now we think it's been. We're in a new timeline. We're in a new reality where this actually did happen in the end.

Right. Okay. Sure. So there's also on Reddit a lot of theories that come off of the CERN supercollider ripping a hole in our reality that led to Trump being president. Just so we know. A lot of shit happened in that 2016, 2017. They're like, in this world, Mandela's alive, but Trump's president. So anyway.

Which one? Which path do we choose? So another theory is the holodeck or the matrix theory. Sure. Which is a big theory. I wake up every the holodeck or the matrix theory. Sure. Which is a big theory. I wake up every day and wonder if it's true. Me too. Is that we are in an alternate or a virtual reality.

And the program or energy source that runs this reality we're in has a couple glitches. So it never got all the facts right. Literally glitches in the matrix, essentially. So these glitches cause the Mandela effects and also concepts like deja vu where it's like oh i remember something happening but it didn't happen or oh so nelson mandela's alive but he's supposed to be dead it's sort of like close to your own reality but like off a little bit it's almost like you like something is like split literally glitching it's like i know something's off i love how nelson mandela is like the the core focus of this glitch just like let's choose him but so wait is this different and you're probably gonna get into it but like parallel that's different oh we're gonna get into it okay never

mind so there's another theory a personal favorite because it's another thing i think about every single day is the time travel and butterfly effect theory which is that our collective oh i'm just like i didn't think about this one before is that our collective false memories are not false at all but time travelers are altering the past and we are now living in this altered timeline that they've created so they could have done it intentionally maybe the government wants us to believe something else happened or maybe it was totally incidentally that based so if you don't know what the butterfly effect is it's the theory that um you can do one tiny thing differently if you were to go back in

time or change time you could incidentally like kick a rock when you're like walking on the street and it had you not been there that rock was going to stay in one spot but if now that you've kicked that rock now someone's car might drive over it and then they get in a car crash and like so the whole timeline changes because of ripple there's a ripple effect of one small tiny little thing you didn't even notice and it's based on like butterfly like a flap of the flap of the wings the tiniest thing can like yeah shift yes um and so i never thought about it so they think if maybe time travelers are doing some are on some other task, they incidentally did one thing that made a ripple effect. And now this is like some weird altered timeline that they never like fully closed out of. You know, what's interesting, too, is like if if which I believe like, listen, I'm with you.

I think time travel, it could very well be reality. But I think it is. But like if time travel were a reality i would think that they would be so careful to like not shift anything i would imagine you need at least 10 years in like a strict academy yeah like of like you cannot do any of these things and my thought is like if you were go back and these mandela effect things are so small that my thought is like maybe it was just the tiniest little thing that caused like and that's why it's so that's why it's almost so like it doesn't affect our real lives in a major way because

it was such a small accidental hit accidentally killed or avoided killing yeah yeah it's like something that's so far removed from us that it's not important enough for us to really investigate why we feel that way right but because maybe it's just like a quick little oops and a time travel quest yeah yeah uh it could also be a location theory where um this all just comes from shifts in vile vortexes or vile vortices and so uh basically areas around the world that have consistent magnetic and gravitational anomalies um there's one in the bermuda triangle one there's in the north and south poles there's megaliths in um africa and

on easter island interestingly ivan t sanderson the guy involved with the minnesota ice man and he had something to say about the thunderbirds in the last episode uh he coined the term vile vortex motherfucker has something to say about everything he's like all up in my business vile vortex like we'll cover it eventually vile v-i-l-e oh i was thinking vile like a vile like a container but like vile like evil it's something it's on my notes for the word that i just don't know sorry i will refer to this in the future don't worry great but uh not in this not not today but i have vial Vortex as a topic. Not today, Ivan. Not today.

Nice try. Unless we're time traveling. Who could say? But so they think that maybe there's just anomalies that like either cross over each other and cause glitches or anything like that. There could also be the multiverse theory, which I'm a big believer of. Me too. which I'm a big believer of. Me too.

It's a quantum physics theory that potentially there are an infinite amount of universes that all exist at the exact same time, aka parallel universes. And there are some, the ones that are closest to our universe are so similar, but there could be only like one microscopic difference that even we don't really notice. Right. But they all over time, if you build them all out, are totally. Like infinite, infinitely go on like there could be a totally the exact same world except like bat chair is green like it's like and the idea i think is like if say you turn left instead of right then it splits off into its own

different choice every choice you make same similar to both but like it's always it's always growing right and so every single thing that happens is like building new parallel and i think there's like other things where people believe you can shift through them by accident. If you are like in a traumatic crash or something, I've read stories where people think they shift. Accidentally jump into a reality next door. And they're like, I swear to God, my cat didn't even look like it was a different color. Like shit like that where it's like something's off. If you look, there's a lot of multiverse experiences that people will post in, like, Glitch in the Matrix subreddit. Where they'll be like, I, my favorite one is someone, I might actually cover it at some point because it was so good and so detailed.

But this guy swears that he was, like, 26, married with kids. This one disturbs me to no end. And then one day he, like, and he, like, had a job with, like, it was either finance or science or computer engineering engineering and he had like he remembers everything the date how he met his wife like all the dates they went on meeting her family like i mean he remembered his entire fucking life and then one day he like woke up or was in a car crash and he was like 14 again with all the information that he had learned up until what he thought was current time and so he ended up starting getting like all these like really good grades and like his computer classes because he was he was a computer engineer he was 14 again and he went through like a really deep depression because he was like i had a whole life and all

of a sudden i went backwards and now i have to yeah and he tried to like find his wife who was like also 14 at this time but like didn't know where to find her like it was like it was but it was it's a creepy read like if it's not real if it's either way it's terrifying it's really scary and like the thought honestly haunts me so he thinks he kind of just like jumped into like an alternate reality or something by accident where he's hasn't aged yet or he like went back in time or something oh anyway the multiverse theory and how it is involved with the mandela effect is that um mandela effects are collective false memories are real but in a parallel universe nearby it's actually true so the only thing

different in that world might be this one fact and sometimes when those worlds accidentally cross over then all of a sudden your that information got retained in our minds from another world that and then we remember it as different we kind of vaguely remember something that we weren't supposed to know because it's not part of this world then there's the just concept of suggestibility that people have a tendency to believe other people's memories and so under social pressure when you're trying to recall something um you your brain is just has a tendency to try to fill in information when it doesn't really know the full picture. Right.

And so when misinformation is introduced as real, like if I came up with half of a story and I'm like, remember that? Remember that? Remember that? You're kind of pressured to remember it. I'm like, sure. And wasn't there a thing? And create it in your head.

Right. And so your brain tries to link it into existing memories. And so you're kind of- This is my personal belief about effects. I will say, like, just my hand, the suggestibility theory. This is my closest understanding of what I think it is. I mean, it's also it's probably from a psychological standpoint. It makes full sense.

Have you seen a study? I mean, I'm sure you have. You studied psych, but like the study where they had a couple actors and then like an actual test subject in a room and they showed like two lines or two squares or something they were like which one's bigger and everyone in the room said the smaller line was bigger and then the final guy just points at it he's like yeah me too because he didn't want to be like and it's the same one and they it was totally planted several it's like clearly not the right answer but so many other people said it that he just went with it it's like a social it's like a peer pressure study like you don't want to be out anyway i know it's kind of different but no no but it's i mean that's exactly the point of like

you're just if you're doing positive reinforcement on false information then people under social pressure are going to follow it and there's so many studies that like witnesses get details wrong colors of cars how fast they were going and it's so easy to suggest like it's like if you ask about a car crash witnesses at a car crash you say how fast was the car speeding they're more likely to say it was a higher rate if you say how fast was the car driving like not saying it like trigger words like they were like literally phrases trigger words at the time yeah suggesting indifferent anyway yeah yeah no i mean the just so interesting to me the way that a story is framed, right, easily influences someone's decision making. And every time you tell a story, you're just rewriting it, like you post it somewhere, in one second, hundreds of people can have read it and then rewritten it in their own brains to then tell a new version of it to someone else.

So I'm going to get into that in a second. Fascinating. Okay. So there's also the theory or the concept of reconsolidation and confabulation. So like I said, your brain just tries to fill in missing pieces um to give its like best guess of a whole memory that being said there is the interesting thought of like i guess the best way to phrase it is when you when your neurons are encoding information and trying to figure out where it's going to store itself there could be like a filing cabinet with a lot of like-minded things

next to each other where now if you retain a different piece of information if it's filed somewhere in the same filing cabinet now they've combined themselves so if you think there's been a lot of studies where not i wouldn't say a lot of studies but there's been enough where it's been proven that a weird amount of people instantly think Alexander Hamilton is a president or a former president. Right. And it's like, for I would say the the general population doesn't really think about history all the time. And it's easy to if you had a filing cabinet of history and historical figures and people involved in either the founding fathers or the presidency, like stuff I learned in high school, all of that kind of goes in the same spot. So when your brain was learning about Alexander Hamilton

and then also learning about founding fathers and the constitution and oh, that kind of fits in with history and politics and presidents. And like Ben Franklin, everyone thinks he's a president. Exactly. So like even Ben Franklin. So if you think about those,

if you always think about those two topics at the same time or in the same way, eventually you think about it long enough for your neurons to build like a strong enough connection to the same, to like combine them. So interesting. And like our brains love patterns. Like that's how we function in reality. So like it would make sense that it would be like, yep, that's easy. Yeah.

So like-minded things often get stored together and become their own memory. Wow. So I wonder if that's why Nelson Mandela, it was conflated with like death and like violence and people were like, oh yeah, I don't know if that's too much of a stretch, but. I mean, who knows? The human mind is bananas. It's so crazy.

So now. Noodles. We're just, I guess I'll finish out like the information first before we play the game. But like I said earlier, now with the advent of the internet and ai technology and like just the evolution of human communication like now you're talking to hundreds of people at one time and like telling your stories to hundreds of people at one time there are like photoshoppers and deep fakes and what's a deep fake so it's basically kind of you can overlay like there's one really good deep fake that's going around right now of Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland, Iron Man and Spider-Man, overlaid on top of Marty McFly and Doc Brown. And so it looks like Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland were like the stars of Back to the Future.

Oh. Like they like found a way to like put their faces on those bodies. And so they have a whole scene of them like it looks like they're acting. Oh, like video. Yeah. Oh, wow they like found a way to like put their faces on those bodies. And so they have a whole scene of them. Like it looks like they're acting like video. Yeah. Oh, wow. OK. So it's like the fact that people are the fact that there's Internet and stories can be spread so much easier now and things can go viral so often and people are getting so good at altering and doctoring information.

It's so much easier for false realities and false memories to be created. So it's kind of a negative implication of the Mandela effect that as technology increases and or as it grows and gets better, there is an argument for like, well, then the Mandela effect is going to get more and more dangerous because you can just create. Oh, like people with the wrong intentions can like yeah put seeds in your mind oh oh no you can just like tell anyone anything and if it gets viral and enough people believe it remember coney 2012 or whatever no it was kind of

one of those things probably one of the first versions of this yes it was sort of like that and then it turns out it was all bullshit and everyone looked like an idiot because it was like well i mean so as as technology improves the argument is that more people are going to be able to from the comfort of their own couch, create a false memory out of thin air for people to believe, thus creating false history, thus creating false reality. Fake news. And thus, which is already happening in the form of fake news. Which is already happening in the form of fake news. So according to one poll by Stephen Frenda at Cal State, people are more likely to believe. And this is kind of this is one poll, but it's also it makes a lot. It's a very common sense argument that people are more likely to believe in information, even if it's a blatant misinformation, if it fits their worldview.

Aha. Yeah, sure. even if it's a blatant misinformation, if it fits their worldview. Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. So example, if you're a liberal or conservative and you see a doctored picture in favor of your views, you're less likely to kind of investigate what like the validity of it. That makes sense. So as deep fakes and people who are doctoring information or videos or pictures or like that whole like Facebook scam, we're like like genuine false information was being put out there and people were feeding into it and then like voting because like anyway yeah yeah yeah so as it becomes more advanced that's scary exhibit a um falsehoods

will become more and more difficult to decipher and so now philosophers are like when what is the universal truth then because if everything is potentially a false memory at some point because you can't there's no laws preventing this fascinating thought if there's if there's no one stopping it from happening and everyone has the ability to do it like tomorrow there could be five really big pieces of information that are false and everyone's going to believe it if you believe it does that make it like if everyone believes something is true like yeah is that now the truth it gets really uh metaphysical and philosophical very quickly because at some point if there's so many fake pieces of information under a collective false understanding it could

lead to the collapse of reality fun so that being said let's try to actually make it fun and here are some examples so we play games instead. We distract you. So I have a huge list here, but I'm just going to pick through some of them. Okay. Does Curious George have a tail? No. He does not have a tail. Oh, yay.

But a lot of people think he does because he's a monkey. But also I could picture it either way, you know? Like, I don't think so, but he could. He could. It does feel like he kind of does. You feel like he should. Okay, here's another's another here's a very good example which i did not put on this list but the episode of the office when everyone's like does stanley have a mustache yes oh my god exactly nobody can figure it out it's like no he definitely has a mustache it's

like no he does not and then they like try to draw it and like figure out nobody can remember and they sit right next to him it's it's that's exactly yeah that's about it you could picture it either way um so a common one is that the show sex in the city is sex and the city although everyone thinks it's sex in the city oh yeah so it is and it's sex and i never really watched this i feel like i shouldn't participate in that one but um that's interesting too and there's the one about um conversation with a vampire versus the vampire but like then part of me is like oh interview interview sorry interview yeah the the movie with brad pitt and tom cruise it's an interview with the vampire but those i

those i like kind of nitpick because it's like well people are saying it so quickly with the and if if so many people say it and don't like and read it real fast don't think about it it's like natural language to kind of slur your words to get through something fast. So here, we'll try something else. Okay. A common, another common one is that the Flintstones, which I, I also was blown away by, which I shouldn't have been because it makes total sense, but it's spelled Flintstones. And I always thought it was just the Flintstones.

No, it's the other way. Everyone thinks it's Flintstones, but it's Flintstones. No, it'sintstones are you sure i just looked this up you're kidding no it's i correct people on this all the time really i you want to look it up no i mean if i'm wrong i'm wrong well it makes sense because flint like of course i know but that's why i thought everybody thought that's what it was no i always thought it was flintstones and i was blown away by the fact that it's the flintstones Another one is Double Stuff Oreos. That's the S-T-U-F. It's one F, not two Fs.

Oh my god, you're right. Oh my god, you're right. Okay, wow, now I'm really thrown for a loop. Okay, now you're right, you're right. I'm freaking out, because that really is a big one that I was convinced was Flintstones, and then everyone was saying it wrong, or spelling it wrong. Another one is Whiteout is spelt without the H. Yeah.

W I T E out. Another is a Chick-fil-A. Everyone seems to not know how to spell Chick-fil-A or they all think it's one way. And then you find out that it's C H I C K fillet. Right. I always think it's C H I C. I always think it was C H I K. Cause I know there was a K in there, because I remember the cows always spelling it.

Oh. And I was like, they're spelling it wrong. No one can figure out that it's a C and a K. Oscar Mayer. A lot of people don't know that it's Oscar M-A-Y-E-R instead of M-E-Y-E-R. Febreze only has one E. Do people think? See, some of them I'm like, oh, but I knew that, but I think it's.

I had no idea about Febreze. That one fucked me up. Really? F-E-B-R-E-Z- but i knew that but i think it's i had no idea about febreze that one fucked me up really well because it'd be our easy well you would think it's breeze like breeze like i don't know i guess yeah okay we're gonna find maybe i just never thought of it as a word yeah fine well flintstones has already thrown me for a loop another common one is berenstain bears okay this one i actually have a big thing to talk about. Oh, okay. First of all, Berenstain, it's spelled like S-T-E-I-N, not S-T-A. No, no, it's the other way. It's spelled Berenstain Bears, even though you pronounce it Berenstein Bears. Let's see. I bet you're right.

Berenstain Bears. Right. So it's spelled with an A. Yeah. I always thought it was the Berenstain. I thought they were Jewish. Yeah. And that's one of the biggest ones.

So it's like one of the biggest Mandela effects. People freak out the biggest people freak i freaked out i was like what the hell but here's my thing okay first of all it was in the 90s everyone on our i've on our age millennials on reddit being like you know mandela we were children you pronounced it berenstein bears so like you probably didn't look at a full word like berenstein and like yes you would think also the reason I, this one didn't even like phase me is because when I was little, like I was learning English. And so I would like read each letter. And I remember asking my mom, like, why is it pronounced Berenstein whereas there's an A? And she's like, I don't know. That's just how people say it. And it's

like one of my clear memories. So now I'm like, I think people just, because I remember when I was little, it being with an A. I always thought it was Berensteinain. I know because that's how you say it and it makes sense. That one I remember very clearly from being a kid that it was spelled quote unquote wrong in my head. So another common one is that the 90s movie Shazam starred Sinbad but there was no movie called Shazam and Sinbad did not act in it. There was a movie called Kazam starring Shaq.

But I don't know about this. Oh, I was convinced for years. Shazam. So weird. I can understand because Shaq and Shazam. You combine them by accident. Kazam. Yeah.

OK, I see. But I was convinced. That's a big one that I've heard people. I don't I don't really know about either of those. So I'm not. Also, Smokey the Bear is not named Smokey. The bear is named Smokey Bear. Oh, apparently in the risky business scene of tom cruise sliding across the floor he's not wearing ray-ban glasses which i always think he does is not yeah he's not wearing them and

when he's sliding through what is he oh he's just not wearing he's not wearing sunglasses but i always assume he's wearing glasses me too c-3po is not entirely gold um darth vader never said luke i am your father um at the end of the song we are the champions there is no of the world no oh this one was debunked though i just read this oh because there's a live version oh i'm almost positive there's a live version where they do say it i'm maybe i'm making that up but i've i read that somewhere and it could just be bullshit but i did read that there's a live version where they do say it i'm maybe i'm making that up but i've i read that somewhere and it could just be bullshit but i did read that there's a live version but i don't know if that's true that one also threw me for a loop because i for sure have heard that although yeah i mean maybe someone was at the live show and really made

sure everyone else knew about it i mean then that could be bullshit too because then why would i know that you know or why would i have thought that? Looney Tunes is not spelled. The Tunes is not spelled T-O-O-N-S. I knew this one. This is T-U-N-E-S. Fruit Loops is spelled F-R-O-O-T, not fruit. The Monopoly Man does not have a monocle. This one's fun.

And I think it's because people conflate them with Mr. Peanut. I think so, too. That's my theory on that one. There's no hyphen in Kit Kat bars. Now, this one actually threw me big time because these are some of the ones if you go on the subreddit, like to everybody else, I'm sure you know, but like people write out the logos like both ways. Yeah. And so you can sometimes you'll look at both and be like, I literally don't know which one it is or it looks like this one or you're wrong. Hannibal Lecter never said hello, Clarice.

Pikachu's tail does not have a black tip. This one I knew, especially because I'm currently in my Pokemon card phase. But a lot of people think that he has a black tip on his tail. Gandalf never shouted, run, you fools, in Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring. He said, fly, you fools. Okay. Which a lot of people don't believe. I didn't know that one. A lot of people think that there are 51 or 52 states in the U.S.

I don't know how people. I mean, I probably think that because I'm bad at geography, but not because it's a Mandela effect. Apparently, some people are convinced. What do you mean? They're like, I don't know. Like, I think they're confused with like states and territories or something. Right. Like maybe D.C. they're considering a state.

Maybe. But some people swear to whoever they believe. Okay. Well, they just didn't pay attention in geography class um i feel like it doesn't necessarily work unless like a massive number right believe it or maybe they're just finding their own group of maybe that's a whole other theory too that maybe you just find like-minded people to like perpetuate your thoughts fruit of the loom never had a basket behind it in its logo okay wait which like i

always thought it did. And that's such a weirdly specific thing, right? I always thought there was, like, a wooden, like, a wicker basket behind it. It does not have that. Like, you can picture it. Yeah. Weird. It's Cheez-It, not Cheez-Its.

The evil queen in Snow White never said mirror, mirror on the wall. She said magic mirror on the wall. Neil Armstrong died in 2012, and everyone seemed to just not notice everyone's still blown away when you say no he's dead yeah I actually just went to the Apollo 11 thing and I remember googling it before because I was embarrassed I was like I don't even know yeah and I had to google it um and then Mother Teresa was canonized in 2016 although so many people swear it was in the 90s and think she was a saint that whole time yeah wow she was just called the saint but it happened in 2016 um lindbergh's baby which you've covered this before apparently there's a huge mandela effect nobody remembers that the baby was found

dead everyone thinks it was just a cold case uh remember i said in the thing i was like oh i didn't even know that this is how it ended i thought it was an unsolved mystery i said that in the fucking thing i didn't even know it was a mandela so many people like just totally don't even remember i believe that too in i love lucy ricky never said you have some splaining to do he would say the word splain but the phrase was never said by him during her oscar speech sally field never said you like me you really like me she said i can't deny the fact that you like me right now you like me huh and then cruella deville i always spelled i always thought her last name was spelled d-e-v-i-l-l-e but it literally is spelled like devil really uh-huh oh i would have guessed your way too and then my personal favorite which really threw me was that

chartreuse apparently everyone that i've ever talked to and me included test me what color is chartreuse green okay i don't know why you know all these wait what what is it everyone that i know is gonna be wrong thinks it's magenta i always thought it was pink really always oh i don't know i thought i was gonna be wrong i was i found that out today when i was doing these notes i was like what do you mean's fucking green. It's like a really neon green. It's definitely magenta. Oh, my God. What?

OK, this one I didn't know. I will take it to my grave. OK, I will say I think I'll die on this on this. There's no way. OK, it's fucking pink. It's clearly not. OK, I think I think part of it is like I literally did not speak English. I was six.

So I think a lot of this i learned later and it was like i learned it differently may i mean that makes sense i i was blown to pieces so if it was just me i'm very happy with that but i'm like i'm confused about the 51 or 52 states or territories i don't know why people what if we think what if we think there are 50 and they're actually 52 no well then i'm glad i've blown your mind. That can't be right. I will die knowing that chartreuse is pink and I cannot be convinced. I want to do. I didn't. I did not know that was a.

I didn't know that. Someone out there also thought it was green, probably. And they're right. But I definitely think most of us thought it was pink or magenta. Really? OK, we should do a poll. I'm so curious. Write in.

Let us know. I'm so curious. This is like just the wild i think it's fascinating because it's like the nelson mandel thing like i thought he was dead like i thought he had died in prison i didn't know many of those i knew a few of them i knew like fruit loops and things like that but they have some good ones too where it's like like i took a quiz and i got it all wrong like they do like logos i'm not saying i'm not like affected by these like most of them i get wrong too Like, they do, like, logos. I'm not saying I'm not, like, affected by these.

Like, most of them I get wrong, too. I'm just saying, like, the ones that are logos where they're like, is this the Volkswagen logo or is this the Volkswagen logo? And you're like, no, it's definitely this. Yeah. And it's wrong. Slight differences are very tricky. It's creepy. It's really creepy. The only one I knew for sure was apparently a lot of people think that Jif peanut butter is called Jiffy, but it's Jif.

But I knew that. I knew that one for sure. I wonder if that's because of skippy yeah i think they mix it with skippy right okay well that goes back to your like drawers thing right like where you have like um you conflate like yeah yeah similar ideas you probably just peanut butter is all in one filing cabinet i just feel like so fascinated by this there was one that was like ford or something that i got wrong because I drive a Ford and I was like, I know what the fucking logo looks like. And I was completely wrong. There's like a swirl. In the F?

Yeah. There's like a swirl or there's not a swirl. I don't even know anymore. And people are like convinced it's one or the other. I don't know. Anyway. Well, there's another one right there. It's just fascinating.

I spent like hours on that. I remember trying to convince my brother so desperately that was real. spent hours on that subreddit there is oh by the way just to like hype it up again there is a subreddit it's so fast called mandala mandala effect fuck i like really messed my own brain up i keep calling it mandala that wasn't you that was whoever corrected you incorrectly i don't know who it was anymore but i just know i hate you whoever did that to me oh my god anyway that's the mandela effect one of my favorite topics ever i never thought about butterfly effect too with it yeah well because you have to first believe in government conspiracies and then believe in time travel existing and then believe in the butterfly effect sure yeah it's

quite a quite a wormhole you have to jump yourself into oh yeah i'm more convinced now that i'm wrong i think i just tell myself it's all psychology so i don't break my own brain i think it scares me i tell myself it's absolutely everything but psychology but also psychology but like i i'm desperate to believe in time travel so i've just decided it must be oh yeah i mean i believe and alternate realities and you've already convinced me about time travel. I also believe in parallel universes for sure. Oh, yeah. You should definitely cover the multiverse someday.

That'd be a big topic, though. There's a reason why I have not done that. I can't even imagine. Yeah. Let me just tell you about every single potential theory in every single potential universe in 30 minutes or less. Oh, my God. Okay. Yeah.

Talk about breaking your goddamn brain all right now i have a story for you that's like much probably less interesting i'm sorry everybody great it's we'll use the mandela effect and pretend that it was a great story yeah no i mean it's a good story it's a disturbing story and sad but it's not you know cool and fun excellent sorry everybody i always bring down the mood okay this is the story so this was suggested by uh rach todd 21 on my close friends thank you this is the story of cory breininger breininger sorry in advance it's pretty sad okay great november 1998 judith fowtee marries Robert Brininger, and they move to a large trailer home in Mark Center, Ohio, which is in Defiance County. Yay.

I love it so far. I just think that's a cool name. Defiance County? Mm-hmm. That's pretty dope. And each of them bring with them into their new marriage a child from a previous marriage. So Judith has a daughter, and Robert has a five-year-old named cory so robert he works at a local steel mill and he supports or sorry he works long hours to support his family and he only is like two or three days off a month so he's like

constantly at work and when he's home he's usually sleeping um he puts in earplugs and just like goes to sleep and then judith cares for the kids um he and judith have a baby at this point so now there are three kids in the home and uh cory's biological mother ultimately reasons her parental rights so in 2001 judith adopts cory as her own kid so now got it they're the parents of all three of them got it collectively if that makes sense so according to several witnesses cory was quiet withdrawn uh he never seemed to smile much or enjoy life or anything um oh boy yeah but others including his aunt describe him as unruly always in time out judith referred to her referred to him as her problem child um and so it's kind of mixed as far as like what people thought of him uh robert made plans so at one point robert was like you know what i

haven't spent time with my son and we used to be so close and i want to when he was 10 years old and he's like i want to like rekindle our bond and so he takes some time off work to spend quality time with his kid and uh he intends to teach cory how to hunt and he's like an avid hunter robert is himself so he's like i want to this is our bonding yeah activity family you know uniting that's what we do camaraderie camaraderie with guns so they plan this whole thing he's gonna like take his kid to a safety course and um they're gonna go hunting on november 2nd robert takes cory into the backyard and they start practicing on his grandfather's shotgun um it's like a very by all accounts like

bonding moment and they have a good time and cory gets to even shoot the gun once or twice thanks to his dad so that was november 2nd then on november 3rd the following day uh cory gets home from school and judith his mom uh takes the other two kids to a garage sale at her mother's house and lets cory inside and, we'll be back later. Great. Okay. This sounds like evil stepmom and the evil stepsisters. And it's like, we're going to go junking and you can sit here.

You sweep the chimney or whatever you do. Just clean the cinders. Clean all the cinders, Corey. Aw. Cinder Corey. Cinder Corey. Oh, boy. Uh-oh.

cinder cory cinder cory oh boy oh so uh he's home with robert his dad and the judith and the two girls go to her her mom's house to uh to a garage sale so about an hour later after they leave a 9-1-1 dispatcher receives a frantic call from a little boy oh fuck it's cory and i will say too this town has 400 people or it did at this point so it is a tiny ass town yeah um he so cory has called 9-1-1 he tells the operator that he accidentally shot his father and he starts screaming i was giving him the gun i didn't know that it was loaded and i will say too like the snapped episode on this they play like the 911 oh no and it's it's very distressing um so i want to warn you if you watch that but so he calls he's in hysterics he says i and the dispatcher says is he breathing sweetie and he's like no he's not breathing and so

obviously they immediately send um the sheriff's office goes down there uh sheriff's investigator cliff vandermark is um continuing character through the story got it he shows up um he's the first to arrive on scene and he finds uh he finds cory outside on the porch just like sobbing hysterically he's like show me where your dad is cory brings him inside and indeed um robert has been shot in the head oh my god gunshot wound and is dead so vander mark takes cory back outside he's like inconsolable but he's like tell me what happened um and so cory says he accidentally he brought the gun into the bedroom to talk to him about their hunting trip that was coming up and gun safety and their class they were going to take a training class before they went hunting so judith arrives back home from her

mother's like 20 months later she's in hysterics being like what the hell what happened um she immediately asked the sheriff's investigators if she can take cory away she's like i don't think he needs to be here anymore they're like yeah take him um to his grandmother's house so she drives him there the sheriff's office takes like a little bit of evidence from the scene uh they take a few photos but obviously robert's death is treated as an accident and on the bed they found a couple gun safety pamphlets where his body was found, which obviously corroborated the fact that they were talking about gun safety and like that was why the gun was out. Now, there are a couple deputies who find two aspects of the scene a little bit off, like they're a little bit suspicious. they're a little bit suspicious uh so robert was found laying like in a very comfortable reclined position with earplugs in as though he were sleeping and they were like if he was having

a conversation why were his headphones on yeah he had like earplugs that he slept in during the day because he worked so much um and so they were like wouldn't you have taken out his earplugs if he were talking to his son about gun safety it just it was like a weird um sure a weird detail and he was kind of laying down under the covers as if he was asleep so it was just a strange uh setup of the body i guess but the death was ruled accidental officially um despite some contradictions and obviously like cory is in hysterics. He's 10 years old. Like, they are not thinking, oh, he murdered his father. Right, right, right. This doesn't add up, you know.

And so the next day, Judith, who's now a widow, she begins paperwork at the insurance office and collects a $500,000 life insurance policy. And not long after that, she takes the kids, including Corey, and she moves out of town. She's like, I don't want to be here anymore. I guess really small town. She's like like i'm done with this place sure so now we're gonna fast forward nine years okay that's cory is 19 cory is yes wow i know my math i was like how did you know that god damn it i'm an idiot okay i got a big old brain it's bigger than mine is full of arithmetic knowledge oh my god arithmetic wow um okay so nine years later spring 2012 judith and the children have moved quite a bit um after robert's death eventually judith had married for the fourth time

becoming judith hawkey and cory he becomes even more withdrawn um than people had thought when he was a kid he's just like slow which doesn't make i mean it makes total sense like obviously this is a traumatic incident um they cut off so his mom judith cuts off contact with um robert's family and like robert's family was like we get it like his mom was like i understood you know i didn't want to be picking old wounds um she was remarried she didn't you know want to bring it back up but uh cory is having trouble at home so he his junior year of high school he had moved out of his mother's home and moved into a friend's house because he was just unhappy at home. There were a lot of rumors throughout his school about him having shot his dad. He just couldn't escape the rumors and all that.

So he had a really hard time. And his senior year was especially hard. One story is pretty wild so during shop class there were these kids arguing about like how bad they had it at home being like you don't even like i have it this bad my mom does this whatever and apparently he had been really quiet and then from the back of the room just said you have no idea and they turned there one of them was like okay yeah what like prove it what is your story and um he just responds quietly have you ever been tied down and beaten oh shit and obviously his teacher is like sorry what like

you know i heard that uh yeah hello you gotta say something about that now yeah let's address this please and so his teacher kind of tries to talk to him and he's like no no like it's all fine whatever like i'm over it yada yada so the's like, I couldn't get any more out of him. And he just was withdrawn and refused to talk about it. So like a little few months later, he ran into his old gym teacher, like another teacher of his, who kind of started talking to him. And he, he had been really close to this teacher. And I guess she was like, kind of a mentor to him, and they got into a deep discussion. And eventually she just kind of said to him, I know it's not the truth about what happened to your dad. And apparently at this point he just like full on like breaks down.

Well, yeah, someone finally like acknowledges him. Exactly. Wow. And like he had never, he's like, I didn't expect it. It was just like suddenly it was like somebody had flipped a switch and i just like broke down and um he tells her what really happened on that early november afternoon in 2003 so the teacher immediately contacted authorities um when she hears what cory has to say she's like shit we need to get the police involved and the next morning when he gets to school cory is called down to the school office where vander mark who's a guy who nine years before had been the first on the scene right

is waiting in the office he's now a lieutenant with the defiance county sheriff's oh wow and he's waiting to sorry i'm like chugging my tea no no the people watching are just watching me go to town on this i did that earlier the ice was so loud sorry sorry keep going at least he's a lieutenant now yes and he's the one who had talked to him like at the port on the porch nine years earlier and had comforted him. And now he's like, OK, we hear there's more to this story. Right. So he pretty much right away admits to the lieutenant that like it was not the way that

he had framed it when he was 10. He says, I actually shot my dad on purpose. And so at this point they're like oh shit like okay you need to tell us more like uh you know they bring him in and they're like it was it the abuse that led you to kill you've been hinting at this abuse this whole time but then he reveals something equally shocking which was it wasn't my dad who beat me it was my mom and they're like what the hell is going on here so at first he reveals some details of the abuse like he's you know he says he was beaten um regularly from the age of seven onward uh he

had to wear turtlenecks and long sleeves his mom made him wear to like cover up the bruises and the scars um judith would withhold meals if he didn't do his chores he was beaten with a belt he was burned with a lighter he was oh my god underwater in the bath like really traumatic oh my gosh horrific stuff um he tells investigators it was judith not his father as they had like initially assumed when he was kind of hinting at and i think that's why the first teacher didn't really do much because he thought oh like his father had already died like this isn't an active right abuse it was framed like oh my dad was the one abusing me but it's over now exactly right exactly and so um he says his father actually had no idea about the abuse he worked so often was rarely home and judith never disciplined him in front of

robert um so they asked like okay did she do does she do this to the other kids because there are two younger kids in the house now and he says oh no they're her children but i was adopted and so she never wow touched her own children that way but he was treated differently um he says he feared her so much uh that he never told anyone about it and she threatened him obviously i mean this classic case like uh you know he's seven years old he doesn't know any better where to turn um and then cory uh drops the ultimate bombshell which is they were like why did you kill your father and he's like she made me do it yikes oh yeah oh cory yeah and they're like hold up what because like this has

just never even occurred to anybody at this point even if he had done it intentionally it was never like you know they thought maybe it was something a 10 year old had come up with not like that his mother had made him do it he says judith forced and coerced him into shooting his father according to cory judith had planned the whole thing out she like coached him on what to say to 9-1-1 when he called 9-1-1 um she had put the gun in the laundry room told him where it was had him bring pamphlets into the room about gun safety to put on the bed before the police arrived like had trained him to do all this and they were like well i mean how did she can like why why did she convince you to do this how did she convince you to do this and he says she's so fucked up he says she had told him that his dad had brain cancer and that he, it's like beyond

fucked up and that he was in a lot of pain and that he was helping him, helping his dad. Oh my God. Like putting him out of his misery. Exactly. Fuck. Oh my God. Yeah. And she said.

Oh my God. I hope the ending to this is that she's like, is currently burning in hell. Is this not the most like twisted the worst that you've i know sorry this one's rough i was really sad when your story ended cory if you're listening i am so sorry yeah yeah oh my gosh if you need a friend please talk to us let us know we'll hang out oh my god yikes uh so he said judith had told him his dad wanted someone to end it for him and had asked for this fuck oh my god so like literally so much fucking twisted manipulation that he thought his own dad wanted him to shoot him christine i know it's like the wildest shit it's just so beyond

comprehension that a per of like what a vile person that you could do this to a child who's like your adopted child your child um so anyway judith told cory because cory's like well why can't he do it or why can't someone else do it and she says robert couldn't do him do it himself because then the insurance wouldn't pay out and his dad wanted to be able to take care of the family after his death so he couldn't you know die by suicide because etc etc so cory was the only one who could pull this off i wonder what his uh well i guess they weren't his step siblings they were his adoptive siblings right right i um i wonder what they thought the story was like did the mom confide in them like this is what he thinks or do you think the mom took this like essentially to her grave or plan this like essentially to her

grave or plan to take it to her grave and the siblings also thought it was a total accident my thought is because they were several years younger that like they probably yeah i keep thinking they're like teenagers and they all were like oh you know hanging out together knowing that this poor child was going to have to deal with this no yeah i'm pretty sure he was the oldest by several years okay got it got it got it yeah so i yeah my guess is that she would have just not told anybody yeah um wow okay sorry yeah no no uh this is a good point i didn't really think about that um but yeah so apparently that's what she had told him and um after telling lieutenant vandermark and investigators who are probably like what the actual fuck like this is it's such a we thought we had solved this or handled this right years ago um so after telling him what really happened

he just like solemnly looked at them and said am i going to jail which was like the one fear that he had like held on sure and i'm sure she fucking told him like you will like die in jail if you say a word you know i mean obviously she threatened the hell out of him uh and scared the shit out of him so uh they were like listen we don't know what's going to happen at this point but like thank you for whatever like we'll we'll work on this um and he saw an investigator later remarked that he um the fact that he was still so controlled by judith that he thought like still that this is my fault i'm going to jail even though like he had just admitted that like i mean he was 10 but somehow he still thinks like this is my fault which is just must be so eating you alive sure so um lieutenant vandermark and investigators spend like a year basically collecting evidence to corroborate the story and

like take her to court um so teachers they find teachers who remember like the long sleeves when it wasn't appropriate and like uh the turtlenecks and pants on hot days and um one elementary school teacher had actually kept a picture cory drew where he depicted his own face covered in bruises just stuff like that where over the years it like pieced together to make a little more sense if you think about it like he was already going through trauma so i'm sure it could be explained as like oh he's had this horrific thing happen where he accidentally killed his dad i mean also like a big component of being in an abusive relationship whether it's like romantic or parental and child like parent child like it's just that slow gradual manipulation where everything it's like it's to a point where everything they do

they've already convinced you that part of it kind of makes sense so like yeah if he was going through years of you know gradual gradually increasing trauma eventually being told like you need to shoot your dad probably wasn't so fucking bananas that's right i mean you're right because it was going on for years before that exactly and his dad didn't even know and so like just the yeah exactly wow yeah holy shit so she clearly had like a vice grip on him and i mean obviously why wouldn't you as the mother of a also a 10 year old and it's like if you don't put him out of your misery then you're making your dad suffer yes exactly he wants you to be the only person that doesn't hurt you that you love so deeply like wants this yeah if you don't do it then you're you're you know being disrespectful and rude and and ruining and taking away his one last wish oh and he obviously never had cancer

either so like just the whole bullshit of the lies i didn't even want to ask that twisted oh it was all made up um so friends and family recall that judith would never leave cory alone in a room with everyone with anyone like his grandmother was interviewed in the snapped thing and she's like it hadn't even occurred to me at this point that i had never spent a second alone with him once jude entered the picture because she was too scared obviously to like right he would say something exactly which just just traumatic i can't even imagine um his grandmother speculates this was both to control him and make sure, obviously, he didn't say anything. On March 7, 2013, finally, Judith was arrested on the charge of murder nearly a decade after Robert's death. Corey, however, was not.

And at the time, they actually weren't sure because they were like, I don't know if this maybe there's some criminal element to, like, not telling. But in the end, they were like, even though he pulled the trigger because of his age at the time of the shooting, the mitigating factors of abuse, coercion, like no criminal charge was warranted. So thankfully, thank God, I didn't end up getting arrested for this. So on March 28th, 2013, Judith's trial began. And Corey actually was like, very obviously terrified to do this but he took the stand wow that's really brave yeah exactly as a witness for the prosecution um he said he couldn't look at judith during the trial uh he tried but he just couldn't do it sure um prosecutors basically brought up like a financial motive for the murder because in addition to life insurance social

security death benefits made the payout close to a million dollars so like right away she was the beneficiary of a million bucks essentially um it was brought up that so like even after all this like literally the only thing was money and she ruined two lives like so deeply for that um so it was brought up that she began all the fire to file all the paperwork like less than 24 hours i think it was like 12 that she began all the fire to file all the paperwork like less than 24 hours i think it was like 12 hours after her husband died which is not necessarily always obviously like uh incriminating but in this case you know she was very gung-ho about it yeah um and it makes for a good motive so uh prosecutors also brought in witnesses to corroborate the child

abuse which was like a separate charge obviously, including psychologists and doctors who spoke to Corey and physically examined him. He still had scars. So there was like literally physical evidence of this. The defense attacked Corey's credibility. They alleged that he was lying about the abuse the whole time. whole time um they theorize so this is like pretty this is their uh version of events is that cory shot his father because he and judith were intending to send him to military school because he was a quote problem child oh my god and that he like didn't want to go didn't want to go and was fighting them on it to a point that he snapped and shot his own dad i can't imagine and i mean

this obviously this is not a an isolated case but like i can't imagine having to go to trial period knowing you're not guilty already like also having gone through abuse your entire life and so to even take the stand is so fucking courageous right just for someone to just absolutely try to tear your entire whatever is left of your reputation apart oh yeah like and just like berate you and make you like shame you into even trying to stand up for yourself and you were a child and you're like i was horrifically abused like horrifically abused and manipulated and then they're like you're full of you're lying and you're trying i mean it's just horrific yeah i can't imagine like to go on

the witness stand must have been terrifying um and so then they also suggested that cory was just angry that judith didn't share the million dollar payout money and that's why he was now accusing her of this what the fuck okay what the fuck so after so the jury deliberated for two hours and like cory said when they came back his heart just sank because he was like that was two hours like they probably don't believe anything that i said um however the jury came back with the cat with a verdict of guilty on the charge of insurance fraud guilty on four charges of endangering the welfare of a child and finally guilty on the charge of aggravated murder oh wow so guilty on all counts within two hours which is like pretty cool yeah incredible. Incredible. Incredibly fast. So the judge sentenced Judith to life without parole in prison.

And Corey was very relieved. He said, like, this is the first time he didn't feel like he had to look over his shoulder everywhere he went. Yeah. Wasn't living in fear anymore. Unfortunately, that only lasted for a few years because Judith appealed so many times for a new trial that in 2016, she was finally granted her appeal based on lack of evidence that this had actually happened. And because apparently three witnesses in the original trial, they determined to could have potentially tainted the outcome of the trial. So they were like, this is like a they're overturning it. And the verdict was appealed.

So then in 2019, they slated a new trial for that March. But Judith, instead of going to trial again, took a plea deal in exchange for 10 years in prison, including the five she already served. So five years more. And her defense attorneys are like very, very gung ho about stressing that the plea does not admit her guilt, only that the prosecutors could have enough evidence to convict. So they wanted to just take the plea deal and move on, even though she wasn't guilty. Judith, to this day, claims she is innocent and she, if all goes as planned, should be released in 2024. So like four years from now, very soon. Well, Corey, if you're listening or if someone you know

listens to this please pass this message along i fucking believe you absolutely that is bullshit i'm so sorry for everything that's happened horrific i mean and he was saying like in the show in the episode that like when the police were like oh we believe you it was like the most shocking you know what i mean it was just like they believe me like he never thought you know and then his first thought is i'm going to jail which is just the saddest thing so it's like they believe me oh fuck they believe me right exactly yeah i mean he must have been in just turmoil for all those years i can't even fathom but like as for him um he's doing okay he is moving on with his life. Apparently, he has goals of attending law school and wants to be an advocate for child abuse victims. And also, like, a weird note is that, so his, I mean, speak of, like, weird psychological things, but his mom's family, like, believed he was abused.

But they told themselves or they believe outwardly, outspokenly, that somebody else was abusing him not his mother and they never cared to find that out so they think like he won't admit who it is or something i don't know they said they believe it happened before judith entered the picture someone else had abused him and he just won't admit to it or he thinks it was her because uh his grandmother i think oh no his aunt his aunt who called him the problem child or whatever. She was saying she was interviewed and she was saying, yeah, well, the psychologist said, like, it was real. Like, he was really abused. He wasn't making it up, which leads me to think someone else was doing this to him.

And I'm like, how twisted must your logic be? Also, I feel like he's definitely been honest about a whole lot lately. Like, I feel like he's definitely been honest about a whole lot lately like exactly like if something else were there i feel like the second i opened my mouth about the truth on that i would not be able to stop telling the truth yeah yeah and all the psychologists who interviewed him were like yeah this is all very legitimate like he's not making this up he's very traumatized um this all happened to him and he's saying it was his mother and it leads led him to you know kill his father.

Wow. And so that was just was a weird thing. And I wonder if that's just like your brain protecting like your your world view. You know, like, oh, no, no, no. Sure. He was abused. It's horrible. But it was not her.

Right. Right. Right. Right. So she claims she's innocent. Apparently, when she was taken out of the like when she was originally sentenced to life in prison, security was taking her out and she tried to like lunge and grab him. And everyone was like, well, that adds to the. That doesn't help her.

Right. It's not a good look if you're trying to remain innocent, quote unquote. So, right. Like I said, Corey has the goal of being an advocate for child abuse victims, which is awesome. And also, obviously, side note, if you or someone you know is a victim of abuse or you think even maybe possibly it could be not necessarily physical. If you see something, say something. Right. Not necessarily physical.

Could be mental, emotional, whatever. You can reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24-7 at 1-800-799-7233 that is the very traumatic and twisty turny story of cory brininger wow i hope you're okay i do too cory oh my gosh you deserve the whole fucking world i hope you become the most famous most rich wealthiest most powerful lawyer in the whole wide world oh yeah you deserve it for sure it's just horrific it's just horrific and to be like they were like more did is this happening to the other kids and he's like oh no they're her real children it's like wow how twisted he deserves a lot of love yes and we are sending it his way yes so that's it was definitely i mean absolutely fucked up but what a story what a

story i mean definitely a lot of twists and turns on that one yours was a fun half today it usually is let's go back to the fact that like curious george doesn't have a tail i'm still thrown about that because the more i think about it the more i'm like i don't know i think i had a book with his tail anatomically he should have a tail right yeah right i think i do monkeys have tails is this another one doesn't have a tail it right? Yeah, right? I think. Do monkeys have tails? Is this another one? If it doesn't have a tail, it's not a monkey. If it has... Oh, is that a thing?

Well, it's a VeggieTales song. Oh. If it doesn't have a tail, it's not a monkey. If it doesn't have a tail, it's not a monkey. It's an ape. So, is he an ape? No. If he doesn't have a tail, he's an ape.

I thought he was a monkey. Oh, oh. No, if he doesn't have a tail, he's a monkey, right? If it doesn't have a tail, it's not a monkey. Oh, it's not a monkey. If it doesn't have a tail he's a monkey right if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey if it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey it's an ape so it's an ape so curious george hmm curious george i'm curious about you hit us up in the comments below let us know cg um so uh on that note sorry this is a good story. I don't know how to finish this.

You do it this time. What? We never know how to finish this. Thank you for listening, I guess. If you would like to learn more about us for some ungodly reason, please go to and that's why we drink dot com. Pretty much every piece of information you need about us is there. Or Google M Schultz. Select any of the pre-approved fill-in suggestions because there are some wild ones.

Or look up Christine schieffer husband or christine schieffer m schultz which seem to be the only care people think people care about uh thank you guys for listening um i don't know when this one comes out but if we do have a show coming to your town and there are still tickets please please come i'm telling you that the show is super duper worth it you're gonna have a blast yeah and we're not we're doing something different hopefully next next time if there's another tour. So this is like the one chance to see it. Yes. Can't wait to give you all an update on Maine and Vermont because I've never been and I'm very excited.

I'm excited, too. Thank you, everyone, for listening. And that's why we drink. At least we came up with that ending.