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26th Feb 2022

The latest Mandela Effect has people going crazy over the term “bucket list”

Ellen Fitzpatrick

Another sleepless night thinking of this.

Ah the Mandela Effect, something that has rattled our brains for years as things we always believed to be true, aren’t at all.

If you have no idea what this is, you’re about to be spooked.

The Mandela Effect is when a large majority of people believe something to be true or that something happened when in truth it never did.

It’s named after Nelson Mandela, who many people remembered passing away in prison in the 80s and remember news reports of this happening when he actually died in 2013.

Another big example is the quote “Luke, I am your father” from Star Wars, when the quote is really: “No, I am your father.”

There are dozens of these, but the latest has people on TikTok going crazy.

@sam_d0ll Someone help I’m scared #fyp #funny #mandelaeffect #storytime ♬ Scary stories, horror footage, halloween sati – RYOpianoforte

The term “bucket list” seems to have been in our lives for as long as we can remember, but it turns out the phrase was created in 2007 when the film The Bucket List hit our screens.

There is no historical evidence that the term was used before then, despite most of us believing it must have come from the mid 1900s or even earlier.

One TikTok user @sam_d0ll can’t seem to get over this, and from the looks of her comments, most other people can’t either.

Asking her followers for their opinion, she revealed that both her parents agreed that it must have come from an earlier time, with them never having even heard of the Mandela Effect to influence them.

The whole thing first popped up on Reddit, with the TikTok later going viral, with user PrinceNelson asking: “It was coined for the 2007 film The Bucket List, not the other way around. The only reference one can find of the phrase being used before 2007 (according to Google) is in a book, however it’s used in the authors bio which was updated in 2011.

“I could have sworn I’ve heard this phrase my whole life. There is however zero evidence that can back this up. Crazy!”

Many people pointed out that bucket lists have always existed pre 2007, but this specific name for them was only coined when the film was released, which may be the cause of confusion.