Subliminal messages in youtube videos?

It occurred to me the other day, while watching a video on youtube, how it might be possible to subliminally reach millions of people while circumventing the normal broadcasting restrictions on such activities.

I'm no expert so I thought I'd throw the idea out there to you guys to assertain whether this is a realistic problem or even if its possible at all.

If people/agencies with sinister agendas have had the idea then I think it may be at least something to think about. This is mere speculation at this point, I have nothing to back up this idea and it could very well be my paranoia kicking in.

peace.

Oh, yes...Definitely!

Seriously though, if this is being done they're probably audio-only messages. The framerate on youtube is probably too low for the cliche "fullscreen of text for a single frame" type of message to go unnoticed. You could use Neuro linguistic programming, but that would mostly require videos to be created for specific messages. It would be difficult to broadly insert NLP methods into videos being produced by people at large.

If NLP is what you're looking for, that definitely does happen in the news media, for example:

Media Sleight of Hand: Sean Hannity and Subliminals 1 of 3
Media Sleight of Hand: Sean Hannity and Subliminals 2 of 3
Media Sleight of Hand: Sean Hannity and Subliminals 3 of 3

But as you can see from the methods involved, it would be impractical to insert this sort of manipulation into videos at large.

But again, we still have audio. It might be practical to imbed auditory messages into videos without it being noticed.


[edit on 31-10-2008 by LordBucket]

reply to post by LordBucket


LOL! that first video had me in stitches, good stuff.

Thanks for the info. It does seem after reading what you provided that it would be quite difficult to achieve a fully influential but undetectable message in a youtube video for various reasons, but not impossible. I guess someone with a very specific target audience along with a very specific message may have the incentive to go through with it, but it does seem unlikely.

As you point out though, auditary messaging may be a lot easier. It does worry me that, in an age where digital media is litterally all over the internet, someone, somewhere may use this to their advantage.

thanks again for the info, i'll keep digging!