History Main / SubliminalSeduction

* Play the demonic gurgles made by the final boss of ''VideoGame/{{Doom}} II'' backwards and you'll hear "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero." The part of the boss that must be hit to kill it is John's head on a stake as can be seen with the no clipping cheat. This was also done in the Id/Ravensoft collaboration ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}''; the vocalisations of the Disciples of D'Sparil, and of D'Sparil himself, are all reversed English phrases such as "Destroy the Heretic".

** On his solo album ''Amused To Death'', Waters includes a backwards message as a TakeThat to Creator/StanleyKubrick who wouldn't let him use a sample from ''2001''.

* Music/{{Queen}} was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_One_Bites_the_Dust#Alleged_backward_masking accused of pro-marijuana backmasking]] by [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalist preachers]] in "''Another One Bites the Dust''".

* One of the old chestnuts for MoralGuardians going on about backwards messages in songs is the title phrase in Music/{{Queen}}'s "Another One Bites the Dust" reversing to a not-very-convincing [[DrugsAreGood "It's fun to smoke marijuana"]] (or, alternately, the oddly-phrased "decide to smoke marijuana"). But it's been pointed out that it also sounds like [[DrugsAreBad "it's hard to smoke marijuana"]].

[[folder:Film]]

* In the middle of the [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment BLAM-ish]] hallucination sequence in ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHeadDoAmerica'', Beavis briefly starts talking backwards. When reversed, it turns out he's actually saying "I recommend that everyone go to college and study hard".

** Episode "Blood" implied that those people compelled to kill were sent subliminal messages, though it's possible they had just hallucinated them because of the drugs that were used in the community.
** Episode "Wetwired" dealt with subliminal messaging on cable television driving people to murder. Mulder finds that he is immune to this subliminal messaging because he is red/green colorblind, and the messaging is heavily reliant on that. Scully, on the other hand, is temporarily brainwashed, convinced that Mulder is one of the men who abducted her and has been lying to her from the beginning. This almost ends tragically as she pulls a gun on him in her mother's home. Scully insists that Mulder never trusted her, and Mulder replies with "You are the ''only'' one I trust." The episode is disturbing, since it is about the furthest extreme that Mulder and Scully stray from ThePowerOfTrust in the entire series. ''That's'' how powerful Subliminal Seduction is.

* The theme songs to ''VideoGame/{{Kingdom Hearts|I}}'' and its [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII sequel]] are both supposed to have backwards messages, but only the second song, "Sanctuary", does it intentionally. The lyrics say "I need more affection than you know, I need true emotions, I need more affection than you know, so many ups and downs." The reference, at least, to "true emotions" probably refers to [[PinocchioSyndrome the antagonists of the game.]] See [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBYtA4tZyjM here]] for reference. Notably, the forward line, "My heart's a battleground," when played backward is "I hate emotion," demonstrating the internal conflict with "I need true emotions."

* There's an entire genre of youtube videos based around using subliminal messages to facilitate the use of The Law of Attraction.[[note]]Basically, a pseudo-scientific belief that thoughts have frequencies and whatever you're fixated on will cause similar frequencies to be attracted to you. For example, if you believe that you're going to have a bad day, you'll put yourself in a bad mood and you actually will have a bad day. However, the Law of Attraction takes this incredibly basic notion of self-fulfilling prophecy to an extreme and posits that humans are effectively reality warping on a daily basis without realizing it, and that if this power can learn to be controlled you can make all your dreams come true[[/note]] These sorts of videos are purported to be able to do everything from make you more confident, to make your boobs bigger, to make you a bright blue, immortal, eternally youthful anthro femboy wolf who's good at everything, can grant wishes, and has omnikinesis ([[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer no really, that was an actual video someone made]]).

** Someone on ''Series/The700Club'' actually tried to prove this back in the early 80s by playing a tape of the hymn "Behold the Lamb" backwards and seemingly getting the words "Lamb of Glory".

** Parodied in "Dreamscaperers": the scene where Li'l Gideon summons Bill Cipher has Gideon chanting ominous-sounding gibberish right before Bill appears. Played backwards, the gibberish... Gideon repeatedly saying the phrase [[ShapedLikeItself "backwards message"]].

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'''s main theme, the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23hJeaLotEw Ballad of the Goddess]]," is the series' RecurringRiff "Zelda's Lullaby" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKgljOPCbso in reverse]]. Similarly, the theme of the Big Bad's second phase [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl_6NHVKxyE in reverse sounds akin to Ganondorf's]]. [[spoiler:[[{{Foreshadowing}} There's a very good reason for both cases.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has you playing certain songs backwards to do different things (the Song of Time Reversed slows down the progression of time by half; and the Double Song of Time pushed half of a day forward in time). The {{Creepypasta}} ''WebVideo/BenDrowned'' features a reversed Song of Healing nicknamed the "Song of Unhealing".

* Played with by the S3RL song "Back Track". The entire song is backwards. Reversing it turns up the song talking about how you backmasked it, and the techno segments turn out to be the breakdown of "Little Kandi Raver".

* ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' manages to use an odd variation of this as {{Foreshadowing}}. All of the music tracks in the single-player campaign (which were composed by the villains in-universe) have faint female singing at one point or another. When [[https://youtu.be/spyA9gaKdh4 played backwards]], these turn out to be [[spoiler:Callie's]] vocals from different songs in [[VideoGame/{{Splatoon}} the first game]].

** "Walrus", the HiddenTrack from ''Houses of the Molé'' includes a loop of backwards speech that translates to "Paul is no longer with us". Aside from a possible reference to supposed Beatles backmasking, they were referring to former member Paul Barker: ''Houses of the Molé'' was the first album the band released after he left.

Back in the early days of recorded media, a scourge was alleged to be making its way through movie theaters. Researchers claimed to have proof that a visual image, spliced into the film for an undetectable fraction of a second, would nevertheless lodge itself into the viewer's mind. The victims, told for instance 'You're hungry', would then be compelled to go out and buy more popcorn. This quickly expanded in the popular imagination to "[[{{Brainwashed}} compelled to do whatever they tell you to]]," no matter how bizarre or expensive the compulsion, viewers wouldn't be able to help themselves.

** [[spoiler: The reason Bruce thought of Tommy Elliot when he needed surgery, even though he hadn't seen him in years, was because of a hidden program in the Batcomputer which randomly flashed Tommy's image every time he used it.]]

* Staying through the credits for ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' gets you a few final seconds of audio, with the main characters who survived the movie still begging for help, followed by a quick burst of backmask. Dedicated viewers managed to record the sound and play it backwards within a day of the film's release. The final message of the movie? [[spoiler: "It's still alive!"]] Similarly there is a still image from the original ''Film/KingKong1933'' flashed briefly during the helicopter scene. For the record, WordOfGod says [[spoiler:the monster is dead]].

** The horror movie takes the urban legend about Satanic messages hidden in music and runs with it. The movie is ''about'' a heavy metal star who was into black magic (and died in the middle of a magical ritual) who put a backmasked summoning spell on his next-to-be-released album. The hero, a put-upon headbanger (played by the guy who played Skippy in ''Series/FamilyTies''), gets the only prerelease copy of the album. Playing the album backward in short bursts gives the nerd headbanger advice for defeating the jocks and preps at his school who torment him, but the album keeps wanting to be played backwards in its entirety -- and when he does, the dead metal star is summoned in demon form ''from Skippy's stereo speakers'' and runs amok. The plot is a little tongue in cheek rather than pure NewMediaAreEvil--the radio DJ is played by [[Music/{{KISS}} Gene Simmons]] and Music/OzzyOsbourne cameos as an anti-metal evangelist.

* In ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' (Unrated Version), during the quick cuts of the action during the fight scene between the mercs and the prison wardens on Crematoria, you will see a quick shot of only the female merc's (clothed) breasts as she turns - for no apparent reason. You cannot see her face or hands or weapons - just breasts.

* This is the preferred method of [[spoiler: fraud university hired therapist Allie Parker's "psychological profiling"]] in Ray P.Muniz's Sci-Fi novel ''Literature/TheImpairment''. To briefly elaborate [[spoiler: instead of assisting her patients and helping them overcome their problems, she makes them devote their every day lives to the problems by a manner of hypnosis induced both by a "trigger phrase" or words and [[MindControlDevice an]] [[HypnoTrinket item]] of value or solace to them, all to slowly drive them to join up with her cohorts. She does this to both main protagonist Kyle Griffin and his friend Mark Rivera]].

* ''Wolf In White Van'' by [[Music/TheMountainGoats John Darnielle]] is named after a supposed backwards message in the song "Six Sixty Six" by christian folk singer Larry Norman. At one point the main character listens to a radio program discussing subliminal messages in rock music and the TitleDrop occurs in that context - the host admits he has no idea what it means, but insists that it sounds ominous and therefore must be something satanic.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode 'The Sound of Drums' [[spoiler: features the Master persuading the population of the United Kingdom to vote for him as Prime Minister with a subliminal message carried over a mobile phone network, and then in 'Last of the Time Lords' uses it to dull any thoughts of resistance to his regime.]] Later, [[spoiler: her]] theme actually does contain backmasked lyrics. Played forward, they sound like nonsensical chanting. Played backward, they contain spoilers, such as a mention of hearing drums.

** "The Broken Record" plays with this; a young boy named Tod [=McNulty=] who is frequently put-down by his verbally abusive and overbearing father starts getting into an alt-rock band called the Pitbull Surfers who are accused of putting subliminal messages into their music. When Tod's personality starts changing to be closer to that of his heroes - including standing up to his father - his father begins to become obsessed with the subliminal messages that are seemingly corrupting his son, leading to him storming into a music shop and playing one of their records backwards to prove it to the main characters. Much to his mortification and horror, however, what is heard when the album is played backwards is a repeating litany of his bullying and verbal cruelty to Tod.

* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Backwards", one long backmasked monologue actually turns into: "You are a stupid, square-headed bald git, aren't you? I'm pointing at you, I'm pointing at you! But I'm not actually addressing you - I'm addressing the one prat in the country who's bothered to get hold of this recording, turn it round and actually work out the rubbish that I'm saying! What a poor, sad life he's got!" Today, the comment about the ''"one prat in the country"'' is definitely a relic of the episode's original air date (being from Series 3, this would be only a year or two into the 1990s). Back then, with home computers being woefully unequipped for any kind of audio manipulation and even something as currently rudimentary as an ''operating system'' only just starting to cross into the realm of widely affordable (with Windows 3.1), the act of recording the audio on the PC and flipping it around was near enough impossible for anyone short of an actual audio engineer.
* Having fallen out with the Channel 4's director and never knowing how far is too far, Creator/ChrisMorris inserted a single-frame image into his news-special satire ''Series/BrassEye'' that said "[[BitingTheHandHumor Grade]] is a [[spoiler: [[CountryMatters cunt]]]]."

* Parodied in one episode of ''Series/RaisingHope''; [[CloudCuckoolander Frank]] put together a slideshow of Jimmy and Sabrina for their anniversary, only for several images of [[FanDisservice him in a tanktop labeled "Sexy"]] to keep popping up- at first quickly, but then for several more seconds- at which point he comments "those were supposed to go by a lot faster". No one else seems to really care, though.

** The Music/MindlessSelfIndulgence song "Backmask" is a blatant poke at subliminal messages. When played forwards, the lyrics tell the listener to "go kill yourself", "don't forget the guns - you're gonna need 'em to destroy", et cetera; played backwards, a large section consists of a pleasant female voice telling the listener to be a good person, e.g. "Don't stay out too late", "Get dressed for church".

** Music/IronMaiden's album ''Piece of Mind'' contains, between the songs "The Trooper" and "Still Life", a backwards recording of Nicko [=McBrain=] doing his impression of UsefulNotes/IdiAmin: "What ho, said the thing with the three bonce, don't meddle with things you don't understand." The band put this in the album on purpose to {{Troll}} the MoralGuardians who accused them of being Satanists because of [[Music/TheNumberOfTheBeast "The Number of the Beast"]].

* The trope is referenced in the lyrics of Joan Baez' 1992 song ''Play Me Backwards'' (with respect to the alleged Satanic backmasking of songs- but it's not actually talking about that, more some form of ritual abuse or abuse in a religious setting: the point is you don't ''have'' to play the song backwards to get its meaning.)

* For how cryptic they are, [[spoiler: ''[[ReclusiveArtist (DOLCH)]]'']] did this: On their release ''III: Songs of Happiness...Words of Praise'', the "Opening Speech" track mentions for the listener to check the sixth track once they get to it. "Track Six" is scary, [[spoiler:but by reversing the audio, you get the band saying "[[{{Troll}} Congratulations, You've played a track backwards."]] Followed by [[DeadpanSnarker audience clapping]]]]. {{Parodied}} At it's finest from a mysterious band.

** In "Stimulate", a song in which Eminem says he's not actually trying to bury evil influence in his lyrics and just wants to make people happy, the outro is Eminem softly singing backwards. Flipped, he sings, "''I'm not here to save you - I'm only here for the ride. [[{{MST3K Mantra}} So let me entertain you, and everything will be fine.]]''"

** In "Evil Twin", he says he puts in evil messages both forwards and backwards in his songs so parents don't know which way to play them to get mad at them. He then inserts a bunch of lyrics in which he flips back and forward with AntiRoleModel behaviour and backmasked swearing - "''!rekcufrehtoM (Kill your parents!)''"

* In the days of [[BuccaneerBroadcaster pirate radio ships]] off the UK in the mid 1960s, DJ Creator/KennyEverett of Radio London produced a promo containing an "old Chinese proverb" - actually his own voice backwards. Any fans who taped the promo and played it backwards would have heard him say "I love [Radio] Caroline" - a plug for their rival station. Many years later, Kenny did something similar while working on London's Capital Radio; in this case the backmasked speech said "Up [rival DJ] Radio/TonyBlackburn's kilt with a blowlamp".

* In ''VideoGame/{{Exmortis}} 2'', there's a CB radio, on which two stations are active. One contains people screaming before the channel goes dead, while the other continuously relays a message being spoken backwards. If reversed, it turns out to be [[spoiler: [[BigBad Vlaew]] proclaiming warnings like, "Your destruction at the hands of Exmortis is inevitable", or "Pitiful pawns of the Earth realm, you have been chosen for extinction."]]

** [=GLaDOS=] also does this intentionally in the second game, where a sped-up version of her "explanation" for a test chamber turns out instead to be a passage from Moby Dick. [[spoiler: There's a reason why it's not about the test, later in the game.]]
* Anytime you try to open the front door in ''VideoGame/TheViridianRoom'', a generator sound and a low, deep voice starts talking backwards. Reversing it reveals "You dive into unbelievably deep darkness" and something else involving [[spoiler: the man who committed suicide in this room over the loss of his girlfriend.]]

** On Alpha Earth, the Betty Crocker company seems to have put[[spoiler:OBEY]]subliminal messaging in everything with the brand name - and considering it's[[spoiler:CEASE REPRODUCTION]]a multi-global corporation, it's got a lot of merchandise.

** In the ''VideoGame/FiftyCentBloodOnTheSand'' [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/616-50-Cent-Blood-on-the-Sand review]] - by inserting short clips into the animation that vanish before you can properly read them. The specific image in the review is of Yahtzee with his arm around a black guy, with the message "not racist." pointing at Yahtzee with an arrow.

** Parodied in an episode which focuses on Bart joining a BoyBand that gets caught up in the US Navy's evil scheme to corrupt the minds of the youth into supporting and joining the Navy through subliminal messages in the band's lyrics ("[[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Yvan eht nioj! Yvan eht nioj!]]" - not really the message played backwards, but the message written backwards and the result sung phonetically). Upon being confronted with this, the officer in charge explains that it's part of a three-pronged approach to increase enlistment.

** Music/PaulMcCartney claims that playing his song "Maybe I'm Amazed" backwards reveals a "really ripping" lentil soup recipe. The song itself plays at the end of the episode--a version that indeed has a lentil soup recipe backward-masked into it (and it's not bad). "Oh, and by the way, I'm alive."

** In "Adventures on Telly, Part III", the dogs (riding the deflated Earth) zoom past an asteroid with a sign. Bad Bob claims the sign reads "You are now entering a black hole, please drive carefully", while Wendy says it is "Dogs must be kept on a leash." You have to freeze frame to see what it really says. [[spoiler: "Neither of those two"]]

** The issue was brought up directly in the episode "Boyz Crazy", where Robbie finds a song on a CD that, when played backwards, turns out to say "you are now under my control, your mind is mine". He uses it on Wendy and she breaks up with him when she finds out - [[SkewedPriorities because mind control message or no, it wasn't his own music like he said it was]].

** The most significant backwards message is in the final episode where right before [[spoiler: being defeated, Bill says, "A-X-O-L-O-T-L, my time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return!"]]

SubliminalAdvertising is what happens when marketers try to use subliminal messages to sell products anyway, either seriously or as a parody.\\

** "The Poet And The Pendulum," the first track on Music/{{Nightwish}}'s ''Dark Passion Play'', opens with backmasked verses from the end of the song.

'''Mr. Beefy''': Oh, no...'' [Chuckles]''\\
'''Nicky''': Music/{{Chicago}}...'' [Plays the record normally, up to a certain point, where he starts spinning the record backwards]''\\

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': In the English dub of "The Whistle Stop", there's a secret message in James' muffled shouting; played backwards, it's Eric Stuart shouting [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZlIcJbbm08 "Leo Burnett and 4Kids are the devil!"]] Eventually 4Kids admitted to, ironically, creating the Leo Burnett part as a jokey shout-out to his use of subliminal messaging. The 4Kids part was a more straightforward TakeThat; Creator/EricStuart had just been cheated out of advertising royalties.

** They mentioned backmasking in "So Far, So Bad". The song describes the band's fictional MagnumOpus (which we'll never hear because TheMan is suppressing it), and among its other features, "If you ever tried to play it backwards, it told the kids to stay in school."

** Some have noted that reversing the hook from "My Name Is" sounds like Eminem is saying "It is Slim! (chk-chk) It's Eminem, (wow!) it's Eminem (ha!) it's Eminem (yeah!)" This is a coincidence, though.

** Music/{{Eminem}}, as one of [[TheNewRockAndRoll the most moral-panicked-about musicians ever]] during the backmasking panic, of course made fun of this a couple of times:
*** In "Stimulate", a song in which Eminem says he's not actually trying to bury evil influence in his lyrics and just wants to make people happy, the outro is Eminem softly singing backwards. Flipped, he sings, "''I'm not here to save you - I'm only here for the ride. [[{{MST3K Mantra}} So let me entertain you, and everything will be fine.]]''"
*** In "Evil Twin", he says he puts in evil messages both forwards and backwards in his songs so parents don't know which way to play them to get mad at them. He then inserts a bunch of lyrics in which he flips back and forward with AntiRoleModel behaviour and backmasked swearing - "''!rekcufrehtoM (Kill your parents!)''"