For example: Jaws crashed the shark population and Sideways changed the popularity of 2 different Wines.
The first weekend of Pokemon Go was the closest we ever got to world peace.
and then it was used to train the war machine.
Bugs Bunny changed so much of the world you have no idea. Changed the diet of rabbits because he was making fun of a celebrity. Changed an obscure biblical character into a name for an idiot.
Dr Seuss changed the English language almost as much as Shakespeare.
Also, Shakespeare.
BioShock Infinite accidentally, and indirectly, caused a massive advancement in the animation industry.
Kung Fu Panda changed China’s movie industry.
Bugs Bunny took over the soviet Union after lenins death and all that followed. Lets not forget that episode “bugs bunny and the soviet Genosits!” Bugs Bunny wearing a Stalin Costume
Goethe’s book “The sorrows of young Werther” caused several suicides of people who emulated the protagonist.
The communicator in Star Trek was an important inspiration for the development of the cell phone and the creators stated that one of their motifs for developing a hand-held telephone was to have something like the Star Trek communicator.
Charles Darwin, On The Origin of Species.
both good and bad, that one. Lots of good for understanding life on earth (us included), lots of bad for how humans started treating skin color.
Origin of species wasn’t published until 1859…
A good couple hundred years after the Atlantic slave trade started. People were already using skin color as a basis for atrocities. The first formal racial classification of people was done in 1684.
Marx, Kant, all of Leibniz’ writings. Leibniz needs to be honored more for how ahead of his time he was. Computing algorythms in the 17th century. Mathematics on universe? The last Polymath…
Leibniz was for sure a bonafide genius, but my god was he a weird, foppish little Christian dandy
Oooh yess and i love him! He is litterly like me (i read his letters and letters about him)
Marx is probably the single most important writer in all of history, and it’s honestly unlikely that he will ever be supplanted. The dude gave us the science for understanding how human societies function and how to resolve structural problems. What could be more important than that?
The first code of laws of civilization?
Except that historical materialism shows that civilizations and laws change based modes and relationships of production. So sure, the first set of laws were important, but Marxism allows us to analyze and optimally shape those laws. To me, that is a more important development.
No, yeah, you’re right. I see your point and you’re right :)
Final Destination caused an entire generation of drivers to abjectly refuse to take up any space within a quarter mile behind a log truck.
For anybody wanting to watch the movie so they understand this meme, don’t actually watch Final Destination, because the log scene is not in there. I know this because I watched the whole movie waiting to see it, and never saw it.
The log scene is in Final Destination 2.
That series is so irritating. Basically kids haunted by the ghost of Rube Goldberg.
Final Destination 2 also had the best final kill of the entire franchise. Most of the movie is not great, but the open and close are two of my favorite moments in a cinema.
Honestly I got a lot more of that from IdiotsInCars on reddit
That youtube channel is a great way to learn what stupid mistakes drivers commonly make, to know what to look for/avoid.
I’ve never seen the Final Destination movies, but the one with the tanning bed scene came out when I was in high school.
…Interestingly enough, that was right around when the cliquey “cool” girls stopped going to tanning salons in the winter.
Refuse to? Buddy, I’m hunting for them. I don’t have to do this anymore and my family gets a big payout. Sign me up.
Might I recommend any given highway in and around Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula.
On my way!
Bad news, the scene was CGI’d because logs don’t bounce like that.
Ya just gotta ruin my dreams, eh? /s
I’ve heard that bricks are much more effective IRL.
I swear this is just an online meme and people are larping about it being a genuine fear.
Never seen the movies but I 100% would change lanes to avoid driving behind a log truck. I do it for other trucks, too, if they’re carrying what look like barely-strapped-down loads.
I never even considered that this wouldn’t be a common fear lol.
I can tell you it’s true for at least one person.
I still do this for this exact reason.
The Jungle was a book about the meat packing industry in 1906. It detailed horrific treatment of the animals and disgusting unsanitary treatment of the meat products.
It led to public outrage and caused the Meat Inspection Act to be passed in the same year. That Act laid the foundation for modern health inspections in food facilities.
Notably it was only the poor treatment of the food that pissed people off. Sinclair meant to create sympathy for exploited workers, but no one actually cared about that part.
And Fast Food Nation turned me off meat for 6 months.
First thing that came to mind is Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which led to, among other things, the creation of the FDA.
That wasn’t his goal though; he’s quoted as saying: “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
I know, the whole book is about how America is a giant con to get immigrants to come over so they can be exploited for profit then left to die with they can no longer work 12 hour shifts, meanwhile they get to watch their kids get poisoned by companies, ran over by commercial trucks and robbed of any dignity or chance they deserve.
Instead people read it and were like ‘omg some filthy polacks finger could be in my sausage, that’s disgusting!’
Theres still on average about 2 amputations per week across the US meat packaging industry. People are still getting maimed and killed doing a job that pays shit. You just don’t eat as much of them as you used to…
Theres still on average about 2 amputations per week across the US meat packaging industry. People are still getting maimed and killed doing a job that pays shit. You just don’t eat as much of them as you used to…
Damn, shrinkflation hitting everything
There was a minor news story about a decade ago about Tyson getting caught employing minors on the meat packing floor.
I would argue that Rainman (1988) being a lot of people’s first introduction to autism propped up the autistic savant trope
Hackers (1995) did not reflect reality at all, and entirely made up a look, sound and feel of hacker culture for the film. Tech press largely panned it as rediculous, unrealistic and innaccurate, but hacker culture actually morphed into something close to what was depicted in that film because it’s honestly way cooler and way better than what the actual hacker culture was at the time
Others have already pointed out really good examples like Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle which spawned a lot of food safety laws, or Wargames (1983) basically prompting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Edit to add: I also remembered another very influenctial author at the turn of the century was Henry George who wrote a now under-discussed book called Progress and Poverty which is widely credited for triggering the beginning of the Progressive Era
In a similar vein, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species basically kicked off the entire field of biology with the scientific theory of evolution
Somwhow, no one has mentioned Lord of the Rings, which basically invented modern fantasy.
This. You might have never read or seen LotR, but your idea of medieval fantasy is essentially LotR, I love a quote by Terry Pratchett:
J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.
GNU Terry Pratchett
your idea of medieval fantasie is essentially LotR
I mean yeah, because Tolking also just drew from his local fables and sagas. European Volktales are all about dwarfs, elves, creatues in the mountains, corruption, evil forces and lords, magic objects, wizards and brave knights, a royal house in trouble.
Just look at the Nibellung Tale. A pre christian gemanic tale
That’s a great quote, thank you!
GNU Sir pTerry.
GNU Terry Pratchett
It’s a foundational work, but I’d argue that modern fantasy is more of a synthesis of LOTR and Conan the Barbarian.
Star Trek introduced a lot of the first concepts of what we currently use as every day technology, it had a first hand tangible impact on the lives of pretty much every human alive today.
Hey I love star trek as much as the next guy but this is a bit of an overstatement.
They didn’t invent anything, it’s just a portrayal of what the future might look like.
Some of it is very obvious and not much of a prediction: like a hand held device with sensors - but they did get the form factor and use cases completely wrong.
Most of it is obviously remains fictional, like transporters.
Sorry if you want to say trek predicted the future you have to ignore the majority of the show which they got completely wrong.
Nowhere did I say they invented anything nor predicted the future. Learn some reading comprehension.
Oh sorry, it’s just that you seemed to be saying that star trek changed the world by introducing the first concepts of tech we used today.
It did. Do you not understand the difference between invention and first concept? I never gave them credit for everything, but it’s indisputable that the cell phone was inspired directly by Star Trek communicators, that is according to the inventor of the first cell phone, as well as the concept of multi-funtion interface devices which is exactly what you’re likely holding in your hand at this very moment which is also a cell phone.
Feel free to die on that hill, but what I’m saying is an objective fact.
LOL.
There’s some “objective facts” in that guys memoirs aparently:
As Martin Cooper reveals in his new memoir Cutting the Cord: The Creator of the Cell Phone Speaks Out, cellular technology was actually being developed in the late ’50s and through the ’60s. By the time Star Trek debuted in 1966, Cooper and his team at Motorola were practically in the home stretch; in 1973, they debuted the first-ever handheld mobile telephone, the brick-like DynaTAC. Cooper himself made the first cell phone call on October 17, 1973—to his chief competitor at AT&T, with whom he’d been in a bit of a cellular space race, as revealed in the book
The article goes on to explain coopers role in the star trek myth.
Very obviously, handheld devices were inevitable and predictable in the 60s when ToS was written. That was my original point.
See, it’s this kind of shit, this is exactly why people can’t fucking stand contrarians. Jesus fucking christ, get a life.
Geordi is also why I became an engineer.
Hell yeah.
deleted by creator
A Grand Day Out saved the Wensleydale cheese company when they were on the brink of bankruptcy.
“Not even Wendsleydale?”
The works of Aristotle; there is probably no more influential set of works that will ever exist.
The translation of his works, into “modern” European languages (Latin, French etc…) can be credibly argued was the beginning of the Renaissance; which lead to the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment.
The Islamic Golden Age also has roots in Aristotle’s work, his and other ancient scholars writings were translated into Arabic; enriching the thought of the many great philosophers of Arabic world. Which (among other things) gave us the basis for modern mathematics.
Jurassic Park caused a lot more kids to be interested in growing up to be paleantologists. Ironically, they went on to prove some of the science in the movie wrong
Surprised the Crying Indian American TV ad isn’t in here. I have a giggle when I see someone on here outraged that they saw someone toss trash out their car window. That was SOP until the Crying Indian. I can’t think of a PSA in my lifetime that made such a dramatic impact.
While not a piece of media exactly, reporting on the Tylenol Murders changed packaging almost overnight. Used to be you could pull anything off the shelf, open it and close it, no one would be the wiser. I remember as a kid suddenly encountering all the things suddenly having tamper-proof packaging. It was truly wild to my young brain.
Crying Indian is such an interesting nugget of history. Paid for by the plastics lobby who saw the writing on the wall of getting regulated for excessive trash. This same plastics lobby also coined the term “litter bug” and tried to get the world to forget that bottled drinks were sold in reusable bottles that would be deposited, washed, refilled and resealed. But also like you said, the standard procedure was to just toss your trash outside and not worry about it before this campaign, in part because nearly all packaging was biodegradable if not completely reusable until about a generation before this ad campaign (the Ford model T literally came with instructions to reuse the crate it shipped in to make the truck bed for example)
Hadn’t thought of that bit! Yeah, plastics and styrofoam probably surged in packaging when I was a kid. Going to the store with mom was certainly a different experience. We even returned bottles for change.
In the era of the model t, everything was hard to make and thus expensive. I can very much imagine that that crate it came in wasn’t cheap, so reuse only makes sense.
In today’s age everything is so dirt cheap that packaging is just automatic pretty garbage. I’m still waiting for laws to prohibit double, triple, or even quadruple packaging at least. That tube of tooth paste really doesn’t need a carton box around it, and the tube itself could be aluminum again so that the entire damned thing can be recycled, but yeah, plastics are cheaper so here we are.
Didn’t realize how bad plastic truly was until working at Lowe’s for a bit. My god, every product layered in no less than 2 and often 5 or 6 layers of plastic. Even working the outdoor area, where you wouldn’t expect too much, I was tossing out a dumpster a day.
You put it way better than I did about packaging before plastics! There’s so many fascinating examples of things being reused back in the day because of the cost that would never happen today, and will need to start happening again if we want to avoid a societal level catastrophie
Fun fact: the guy who portrayed the native guy in those ads, Iron Eyes Cody, was Sicilian.
