There is actual information on the internet amid the drivel and some of it challenges our basic conception of how media works. The idea is that something happens in real life, and then it is conveyed through media. From 30,000 year old cave paintings to AI modified images, we assume that the message and the medium are antecedent to the act. Except that the message IS the medium, and there are a surfeit of examples where the media created its own reflection in real life and then people perpetuated it as ritual or tradition. In other words, the media message came first and real life second.

Peer pressure c. 1000 BC

I was just reading on History Facts about how the practice of kneeling on one knee (ahem, the left please) became a tradition in marriage proposals. While kneeling to a superior power or religious entity (ahem, the right please) goes back to Alexander the Great and infused the feudal era, the modern marriage proposal actually derives from … the movies. Specifically, silent movies, since the economy of kneeling action meant you didn’t need to waste dialogue cards on the act. Yes, kneeling was an aspect of courtly (often Platonic) love, but the specific association with marriage proposals postdates film.

A more recent example is illustrative. In the 2015 James Bond film Spectre, the titular character’s opening sequence happens within Mexico City’s Day of the Dead parade. Except there never had been one. Then the Mexican government launched an actual Day of the Dead parade – inspired by the movie – in 2016. In the decade since it has become a huge tourist attraction. The scene was also a nod to the Junkanoo scene in Nassau Thunderball (1965), but of course Junkanoo already existed.

Twenty years ago, the book The Da Vinci Code inspired mass tourism to various sites in France, Scotland and Rome to the extent that places like Saint-Sulpice Church had to post signs countering the book’s conspiracy theories. Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland got 38,000 visitors a year before the book, 80,000 a year after and 176,000 after the film came out. It still gets 140,000 visitors a year, with over half citing the book and film as the reason.

Twenty two years ago the movie Sideways caused California vintners to rip up their Merlot vines and replace them with Pinot Noir due to the character’s preference. I still prefer Pinot Noir, so that film definitely changed my behavior.

It took over a century for someone to finally create a real 221B Baker Street in London, now a museum to the most portrayed literary character of all time, who has statues on multiple continents. Kinda like Hercules or Athena Nike.

Just do it.

Everyone has heard of Leonardo da Vinci and many museums have one or more of his paintings from the Italian Renaissance. Which is the most famous? If you said “Mona Lisa” then welcome to the world after 1911. 1911 was the year the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. Its image was plastered on newspapers throughout the world until its recovery in 1913, elevating it from one of many Leonardos to OG status, which it did not have before 1911.

I mean this one’s pretty good. Ermine is pretty good too.