May 17, 2001

11:11 AM

Subliminable messages on CNN?If you crane your head just right and pretend the S was on the same line, and look at CNN's ties to the liberal media, and -- Oh, forget it.
posted by jragon (14 comments total)

Oh, I get it. Cons. It's a stretch but I like it. Subliminable...heh.
posted by borgle at 11:16 AM on May 17, 2001

Hrm, I was thinking "Soggy"
posted by atfrost at 11:17 AM on May 17, 2001

CNN's ties to the liberal media? Is CNN not media itself? What are you talking about? CNN staffers eat hors d'oeuvres at gatherings that attract reporters from fellow media from which the Fox Network and the Washington Times are excluded? They go to the same press conferences, what?
posted by raysmj at 11:25 AM on May 17, 2001

It was a vague joke, poorly tying together Bush's famous "subliminable" flub, as well as a fair dose of conspiracy theory ribbing.

I apologize.
posted by jragon at 11:42 AM on May 17, 2001

Nice try, but my favorite subliminal was the black Pepsi cans from about 10 years ago that had the word "sex" on them when you stacked two on top of each other.
posted by ljromanoff at 11:48 AM on May 17, 2001

There was a recent story about how during the Clinton administration White House tv sets were tuned to CNN because of their alleged pro-Clinton stance. This administration (fittingly) has now switched them to Fox News Channel.
posted by owillis at 11:59 AM on May 17, 2001

squint hard enough, and you can see 'subliminals' everywhere.

it's called 'filling in the blanks', and we as imaginative humans do it all the time.

just some of us know better to believe in most conspiracies.

wait, gotta go, the aluminum foil fell out of my baseball cap.
posted by jcterminal at 12:00 PM on May 17, 2001

Hah. That's almost as good a stretch as the utterly ridiculous uproar about the Bush Rats ad. I loved how none of the people talking about subliminal messages mentioned that the ad had the word "bureaucrats" bouncing around on screen when the "rats" showed up.
posted by jammer at 12:35 PM on May 17, 2001

What are you talking about?

1, 2, 3, 4.

The first four sources I looked at all mentioned the word "bureaucrats"--usually in the first or second paragraph.
posted by jpoulos at 1:02 PM on May 17, 2001

Gah, OK, so I mis-spoke, jpoulos. I think what I meant, if not what I said, was that everyone focused on "Oh look! They're calling us 'rats'!" without looking at the greater context.

It was just silly, only unintentionally so, unlike the topic of this thread. :)
posted by jammer at 1:19 PM on May 17, 2001

Jammer, did you even look at the ad?
posted by amanda at 4:57 PM on May 17, 2001

Amanda, do you really believe anyone was subliminally affected by this ad? Do you really believe subliminal advertising even works, even though it's been proven time and time again that it does not?
posted by aaron at 5:57 PM on May 17, 2001

It was not subliminal. It was clearly visible if you watched the ad closely. I don't believe it was actually intentional, but I know damn well, and you should too, aaron, that the guys who made it were laughing their asses off.

Judging from the reaction on FR, which began discussing the story the moment Drudge broke it, they thought it was the funniest thing since Groucho talked three puns ahead of Margaret DuMont. In other words, they saw it, they approved, and they thought one had been pulled over on the Dems. Quite a few agreed with the characterization, naturally.

Then, when the Democrats started objecting to the ad, all of a sudden it was "what ad? don't see no ad 'round here ... how bout you Jed? what are them city slickers talking 'bout? what is that ten-dollar word they're usin', anyway?"

While it may have been called subliminal by some of its critics, it does not meet the definition. Its effect was clearly liminal. While again, I do not believe it was specifically intentionally created to have the RATS effect, I believe that its release was a kind of political troll. How could the savvy media people in the campaign have failed to see that? Are we supposed to believe they're dumb?
posted by dhartung at 9:41 PM on May 17, 2001

I will never forget when the sods in my African American studies class brought in a Snapple jar, to show the racist subliminal message in the background of the logo (slave ships).



hmm..or just MAYBE it was the Boston Tea Party.
posted by glenwood at 12:02 PM on May 18, 2001