Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect
Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect
[Cueball is standing between Ponytail and Megan talking to them.] Cueball: I always thought of Brussels sprouts as terrible, but they're actually really good! I can't believe I let everyone mislead me!
[In a frame-less panel Megan replies. Below her is a footnote with a citation to back up her statement.] Megan: It's not just you! Farmers developed a less-bitter cultivar like 15 years ago. * * npr.org/773457637
[Back to all three as Megan continues to explain while holding her arms away from her.] Megan: Now the whole world is having this revelation, one person at a time. It's like a real Mandela effect. We secretly switched to the parallel universe where Brussels sprouts taste good. Cueball: Cool.
[Ponytail lifts a finger as Cueball and Megan turns to look at her.] Ponytail: Also, licorice is good now. Cueball: Whoa, really? Megan: This is a trap. Ponytail: And those silica gel packets that say "Do not eat"? Delicious. Cueball: I knew it.

Brussels sprouts are a leafy vegetable from the cabbage family which were cultivated in Brussels, in what is now Belgium, in the 13th century, giving them their name.  Many adults and children dislike Brussels sprouts , perhaps because of their bitterness.
Cueball was one of these people who thought he had a dislike for Brussels sprouts, but after trying them recently he had a change of heart and likes them now.  He feels "misled" by the public dislike for Brussels sprouts. Megan chimes in and  notes that it is not just him. Farmers started to develop a newer cultivar of Brussels sprouts in the 1990s (as opposed to the 15 years ago referenced in the comic), which taste less bitter than the "original" cultivar of Brussels sprouts that Cueball grew up eating. (A source is provided in the comic as a foot note to Megan's statement. This would be the first of two comics in a row with this type of reference given, the second coming in 2242: Ground vs Air .)
It seems that others have also started to like Brussels sprouts, which Megan calls a real Mandela Effect , hence the title Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect . Megan explains that now the whole world have a "false" shared memory of Brussels sprouts tasting bad, and it is like we have all switched to the parallel universe where they taste good. This idea was earlier used in 1268: Alternate Universe regarding the weird idea of eating lobsters.
False memories may arise via suggestibility, activation of associated information, the incorporation of misinformation, and source misattribution, and they can be shared , sometimes widely, when one of these triggers happens to many people in a population.
The Mandela Effect, however, is a pseudoscience explanation for a false memory shared by multiple people. It proposes that the false memory is actually real, but the people who share it somehow experienced it in a parallel world, or that reality somehow around them changed in some way, while their memories remained intact. This is why Megan calls this a real Mandela effect, because in this situation it is the world we live in that has actually changed, not our memories that are wrong. Now the Brussels sprouts taste different than we remembered, it is not our memories that are wrong.
In the last panel, Ponytail then tricks Cueball into thinking that licorice , another widely disliked food , is good tasting. At this point Megan realizes that this must be a trap. Unlike Brussels sprouts, the taste of licorice has not changed noticeably, so people who hated the taste before are likely to still find it unpleasant.
That Ponytail is up to no good is shown to be true when she additionally claims that silica gel packets are actually edible and taste delicious. This is very false! Silica gel packets are typically used as a desiccant, to keep electronics and other moisture sensitive items dry.  They are typically marked " Do Not Eat " to warn people that they are not edible. Although not toxic, and even allowed in some form in food , silica gel has a sand-like texture and no flavor or nutritional value, can cause irritation if digested in the raw form, and the packets may contain potentially toxic additives .
Cueball, having been prepped by both his own experience and Megan's facts are totally ready to believe Ponytail, even to the extent that he seems to feel cheated by the makers of silica gel packets, who he must now think has written Do Not Eat just to keep that delicious gel for themselves. Hopefully Megan can convince him not to find and eat them. Ponytail is often not nice to Cueball, although in other comics it is more like she talks him down, see Code Quality , not directly trying to harm him.
The title text suggests that "Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect" is a music band, who once were the opening act for the presumably better known band "Correct Horse Battery Staple". This latter group is a reference to 936: Password Strength . It hints at the " good name for a musical band " trope, which Randall before tried to replace by a dot tumblr dot com trope in 1025: Tumblr . Indirectly, he also suggests that Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect would be a great long password that is now easy to remember (as long as you remember there is an S at the end of Brussels (at least in English, but not in Dutch, which is one of the official languages of Brussels/Belgium)).
For a comic about awkwardly named bands, see 119: Worst Band Name Ever .
[Cueball is standing between Ponytail and Megan talking to them.] Cueball: I always thought of Brussels sprouts as terrible, but they're actually really good! I can't believe I let everyone mislead me!
[In a frame-less panel Megan replies. Below her is a footnote with a citation to back up her statement.] Megan: It's not just you! Farmers developed a less-bitter cultivar like 15 years ago. * * npr.org/773457637
[Back to all three as Megan continues to explain while holding her arms away from her.] Megan: Now the whole world is having this revelation, one person at a time. It's like a real Mandela effect. We secretly switched to the parallel universe where Brussels sprouts taste good. Cueball: Cool.
[Ponytail lifts a finger as Cueball and Megan turns to look at her.] Ponytail: Also, licorice is good now. Cueball: Whoa, really? Megan: This is a trap. Ponytail: And those silica gel packets that say "Do not eat"? Delicious. Cueball: I knew it.
