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submitted 19 hours ago by charokol@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

For example [vaguely]: writer creates a character who behaves like X, despite nobody actually behaving like X in real life. Then characters behaving like X become a wide-ranging trope. People in the real world begin to think it’s normal to behave like X, and subsequently start actually behaving like X themselves.

Any actual examples of this phenomenon happening?

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[-] m_f@discuss.online 9 points 4 hours ago

The Godfather basically invented the modern idea of gangsters as sophisticated:

Gangsters reportedly responded enthusiastically to the film. Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the former underboss in the Gambino crime family, said: "I left the movie stunned ... I mean, I floated out of the theater. Maybe it was fiction, but for me, then, that was our life. It was incredible. I remember talking to a multitude of guys, made guys, who felt the same way." According to Anthony Fiato, after seeing the film, Patriarca crime family members Paulie Intiso and Nicky Giso altered their speech patterns to imitate that of Vito Corleone. Intiso was known to swear frequently and use poor grammar, but after seeing the movie, he began to improve his speech and philosophize more. In 2025, The Times reported that recruits to the Sicilian Mafia in Italy are now urged by mafia bosses to watch The Godfather so they can learn the trade and because mafia bosses fear that new recruits "lack a code of honour".

[-] Jerb322@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago

Does guys thinking that they can fight after watching Rocky or Mortal Kombat count?

[-] DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth 6 points 12 hours ago
[-] yesman@lemmy.world 21 points 18 hours ago

Maybe I'm just a prude, but from my perspective, anal sex was no were near as popular before internet porn. My friends never talked about that. It never occurred to me to try it. Until somewhere around the turn of the century, and now it's everywhere.

[-] IWW4@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago
[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 9 points 9 hours ago

https://ithy.com/article/anal-sex-origin-6hhdemse

Tap for TL;DRIt's been popular for thousands of years. You can even see it in the Kama Sutra. Then, in three mediaeval era, it was "sinful" and taboo due to various popular religions; mostly in western regions. Then, "recently" (early 1900's), we decided it might be ok again.

[-] darklamer@feddit.org 11 points 12 hours ago

Sorry, but I'm also old enough to remember the world before wide-spread use of the internet and anal sex was popular already then.

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

What age were you when it struck you as something worth trying and you started to talk to your friends about it? It feels like you are attributing the change to the wrong thing tbh.

[-] AskewLord@piefed.social 17 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

because it feels great, and people like it. people weren't doing it because it was taboo before it was normalized by porn and sex educators.

you know what wasn't also as popular before the internet and now is wildly popular? avocados.

and lots of people now can't imagine life without avocados and anal sex.

[-] EntheoNaut@lemmy.ml 9 points 14 hours ago

Been around since the 70s and both anal and avocados have been popular and held in high regard my entire life.

Nothing has changed for either.

[-] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 hours ago

Bacon was the cheap part of the pig before the internet

[-] couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip 4 points 15 hours ago
[-] greenbit@lemmy.zip 6 points 5 hours ago

If avocado seed not meant for anus, why anus-meant shaped

[-] guy@piefed.social 5 points 14 hours ago

Yeah, I wouldn't touch an avocado with a stick

[-] Triumph@fedia.io 4 points 14 hours ago

Seriously, I did not come here to read about avocados.

[-] ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world -2 points 13 hours ago

Anilingus boomed after that Jhene Aiko song, lol. Western culture is overly sexual (expansive in superficiality, deep in hedonism, nothing new: Red light district in the Netherlands, Berlin is like the Mecca for hellish hedonism including a lot of poop play, etc etc.), by their standards the rest of the world is prudish and stuck-up. 🤷‍♂️

[-] neutronbumblebee@mander.xyz 9 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

It's more common for people to misread fiction and pick the worst bits to promote as the future. For example people who read Acceleranto (https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html) and develop not post capitalist innovation but slop factories in space or 1985 and develop social scores based on who the omnipresent cameras see you talking to.

[-] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 hours ago

Snowcrash is also an example with the metaverse idea

[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago

Hey mate, chuck an ! In front of the [ to make markdown do what you want it to do.

[-] Maestro@fedia.io 3 points 15 hours ago

You got an off-by-one error there mate

[-] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 16 points 18 hours ago
[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 8 points 18 hours ago

A British writer named Nick Cohn wrote a story in 1976 for New York magazine. He'd gone to a couple of local discos and made up most of the story. The article became the movie 'Saturday Night Fever,' and the rest is history.

Punk rock started in America, with people who were sick of the overproduced music they heard. A Brit named Malcolm McLaren heard the phrase and 'invented' the Sex Pistols band out of his own imagination.

Going back further, the riot that told America they were about to be invaded by motorcycle demons was another example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollister_riot

[-] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Punk rock started in America, with people who were sick of the overproduced music they heard.

Kind of... it was originally used by music critics as a long after-the-fact term for 60s garage-band and surf-rock music, which had a low barrier to entry and a significant DIY element. The 70s musicians who built on those styles were generally much more knowing about their esthetic, and the diversity of styles within the mid-to-late-70s punk-rock genre was wide. Just within the NY scene, you had art-rockers like Television and Patti Smith, retro-garage acts like the Ramones, bands like Suicide incorporating electronic elements, and (soon after) power-pop like Blondie, and the girl-group, dance music and novelty-influenced B52s. And some of those had quite sophisticated production and good musicianship, though sometimes with arftul touches to make it seem raw.

It's also worth noting that the critics were sometimes wrongly ascribing noble-savage qualities to bands that actually had some serious complexity to their music such as the MC5.

A Brit named Malcolm McLaren heard the phrase and ‘invented’ the Sex Pistols band out of his own imagination

He'd also had some prior involvement with the New York Dolls. It's easy to overestimate McLaren's significance in the Sex Pistols, apart from their look and McLaren's undeniable ability to manipulate tabloid outrage. There was already a fashion scene in London that McLaren was able to tap into, and the musicians who could actually play had mainly come up through pub-rock. McLaren's primary strengths were as a trend-chaser and hype merchant. But as his subsequent career showed, he was never a visionary. John Lydon was better at coming up with new ideas than McLaren was, and Lydon was by no means a genius.

[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 1 points 2 hours ago

You focused on the trees and lost the forest.

OP's question was about people actin a particular way that originally seemed 'unrealistic.'

Whatever the actual music was, it was McLaren et al that got people wearing purple mohawks and using safety pins for jewelry.

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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