Eldon has a question and I’ve been unable to answer it. I thought this
might be a good time to tap the collective intelligence of the internet
and post it here:
For example: “I had never heard of this band, XYZ. Today I read about them in the paper, and then my
friends told me about them. Then I saw a poster for them…”
Another example: “I’d never heard of the book ABC, but today everywhere I went I saw it for sale and
people seemed ot have it”
Yet another example: “I only recently heard the word ‘blog’ for the
first time, but I’ve heard it in so many conversations this week.”
He’s looking for the term that describes this phenomenon: learning
about something and then suddenly seeing instances of it everywhere. I
vaguely remember hearing that there was such a word. Any ideas?
11 replies on “Perhaps You Can Help”
It’s not quite selective perception, though that’s related. Don’t have time to hunt through this list, but I think that’s definitely a cognitive bias:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/List_of_cognitive_biases
–bridget
it’s a glitch in the matrix
I think the part of your brain responsible for this is called the reticular activating system.
Eric (with the help of Google)
I was actually trying to figure out if there was a name for this phenomenon a couple of weeks ago. The closest thing I came up with was the “lattice of coincidence” from Repo Man.
I call it the Hundredth Monkey Syndrome.
The theory being that when 100 monkeys do something, other monkeys all start doing the same thing.
It almost makes you not feel guilty about buying that Britney Spears CD.
Could the word be, “marketing?”
The other word that leaps to mind despite seeming not quite correct is synchronicity.
I know the phenomenon well, it’s what landed me in Austin, TX in 1994.
Synchronicity it is, followed by happenstance for those who don’t think Jung.
I’d lobby for a coinage like “obliquity,” combining “oblivious” with “ubiquity.”
“viral meme” perhaps?
Mmm… “johnny-come-lately syndrome”?
Close: it’s “plate of shrimp”, which is Miller’s example of the latticework of coincidence in _Repo_Man_. Back in the day, my friends & I would exclaim “Plate of shrimp!” whenever this happened.