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submitted 2 days ago by Maven@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

For example: Jaws crashed the shark population and Sideways changed the popularity of 2 different Wines.

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[-] Waldelfe@feddit.org 1 points 45 minutes ago* (last edited 42 minutes ago)

Goethe's book "The sorrows of young Werther" caused several suicides of people who emulated the protagonist.

The communicator in Star Trek was an important inspiration for the development of the cell phone and the creators stated that one of their motifs for developing a hand-held telephone was to have something like the Star Trek communicator.

[-] absGeekNZ 3 points 5 hours ago

The works of Aristotle; there is probably no more influential set of works that will ever exist.

The translation of his works, into "modern" European languages (Latin, French etc....) can be credibly argued was the beginning of the Renaissance; which lead to the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment.

The Islamic Golden Age also has roots in Aristotle's work, his and other ancient scholars writings were translated into Arabic; enriching the thought of the many great philosophers of Arabic world. Which (among other things) gave us the basis for modern mathematics.

[-] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 hours ago

Charles Darwin, On The Origin of Species.

[-] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 52 minutes ago

both good and bad, that one. Lots of good for understanding life on earth (us included), lots of bad for how humans started treating skin color.

[-] agent_nycto@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

Bugs Bunny changed so much of the world you have no idea. Changed the diet of rabbits because he was making fun of a celebrity. Changed an obscure biblical character into a name for an idiot.

Dr Seuss changed the English language almost as much as Shakespeare.

Also, Shakespeare.

BioShock Infinite accidentally, and indirectly, caused a massive advancement in the animation industry.

Kung Fu Panda changed China's movie industry.

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 hours ago

Silent Spring

Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States, and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world. The 1967 formation of the Environmental Defense Fund was the first major milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to "establish a citizen's right to a clean environment", and the arguments against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States, except in emergency cases.

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

[-] likebudda@reddthat.com 23 points 19 hours ago

The first weekend of Pokemon Go was the closest we ever got to world peace.

[-] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 17 points 18 hours ago

and then it was used to train the war machine.

[-] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 17 hours ago

Marx, Kant, all of Leibniz' writings. Leibniz needs to be honored more for how ahead of his time he was. Computing algorythms in the 17th century. Mathematics on universe? The last Polymath...

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Leibniz was for sure a bonafide genius, but my god was he a weird, foppish little Christian dandy

[-] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

Oooh yess and i love him! He is litterly like me (i read his letters and letters about him)

[-] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Marx is probably the single most important writer in all of history, and it’s honestly unlikely that he will ever be supplanted. The dude gave us the science for understanding how human societies function and how to resolve structural problems. What could be more important than that?

[-] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

The first code of laws of civilization?

[-] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

Except that historical materialism shows that civilizations and laws change based modes and relationships of production. So sure, the first set of laws were important, but Marxism allows us to analyze and optimally shape those laws. To me, that is a more important development.

[-] InterestingUsername@lemmy.ml 7 points 16 hours ago

A Grand Day Out saved the Wensleydale cheese company when they were on the brink of bankruptcy.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

"Not even Wendsleydale?"

[-] rustinmyeye@lemmy.ml 8 points 21 hours ago

PPAP because now everytime I have a pen, and I have apple, I say apple pen... and when I have a pen, and I have pineapple, its pineapple pen. Penpineappleapplepen

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I would argue that Rainman (1988) being a lot of people's first introduction to autism propped up the autistic savant trope

Hackers (1995) did not reflect reality at all, and entirely made up a look, sound and feel of hacker culture for the film. Tech press largely panned it as rediculous, unrealistic and innaccurate, but hacker culture actually morphed into something close to what was depicted in that film because it's honestly way cooler and way better than what the actual hacker culture was at the time

Others have already pointed out really good examples like Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle which spawned a lot of food safety laws, or Wargames (1983) basically prompting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Edit to add: I also remembered another very influenctial author at the turn of the century was Henry George who wrote a now under-discussed book called Progress and Poverty which is widely credited for triggering the beginning of the Progressive Era

In a similar vein, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species basically kicked off the entire field of biology with the scientific theory of evolution

[-] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 19 hours ago

Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was a hugely influential...

wait is that Maven?? (famous) maven???

I Will NOT REVEAL MY SECRETS TO YOU!!! GRRR YOU ARE MY ENEMY

[-] Maven@lemmy.zip 3 points 11 hours ago

I almost got away with it to if it weren't for my intense fame.

[-] rowansprig@leminal.space 10 points 1 day ago

The 95 Thesen by Martin Luther sparked the Protestant Reformation. That's an impact that cannot be understated.

[-] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 17 hours ago

It didnt start it. That has long been brewing. Lollards, waldensians, hussites, fracitellis, all came prior.

Matrin Luthers trials, were just the cherry ontop, the last drop. Supported by the duke of Saxony in the absolute disgusting mess of authority that was the HRE and the vast spread of his translation of the bible due to the printing press was what differed him from Wickliff, why he failed and Luther "succeeded". These are the things that made the reformation spread like a fire. Luther never wanted to split the church, he was still very pro church and nobility authority over the peasents (unlike Thomas Münzer). But the Rulers wanted more power and the people were done with the clerical order and read how they arent following what jesus was preaching.

The Borgias, Pope Alexander VI was on another level of corrupt and would have probably whiped his ass with the papal robes.

Sorry its early my ADHD meds are kicking in as im typing this and history is my autistic hyperfocus :)

[-] ViaGetty@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 hours ago

Thanks for the meds reminder and the history lesson! 💚

[-] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 hours ago

Haha no problem

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Surprised the Crying Indian American TV ad isn't in here. I have a giggle when I see someone on here outraged that they saw someone toss trash out their car window. That was SOP until the Crying Indian. I can't think of a PSA in my lifetime that made such a dramatic impact.

While not a piece of media exactly, reporting on the Tylenol Murders changed packaging almost overnight. Used to be you could pull anything off the shelf, open it and close it, no one would be the wiser. I remember as a kid suddenly encountering all the things suddenly having tamper-proof packaging. It was truly wild to my young brain.

[-] TaeKwonDoh@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

Fun fact: the guy who portrayed the native guy in those ads, Iron Eyes Cody, was Sicilian.

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Crying Indian is such an interesting nugget of history. Paid for by the plastics lobby who saw the writing on the wall of getting regulated for excessive trash. This same plastics lobby also coined the term "litter bug" and tried to get the world to forget that bottled drinks were sold in reusable bottles that would be deposited, washed, refilled and resealed. But also like you said, the standard procedure was to just toss your trash outside and not worry about it before this campaign, in part because nearly all packaging was biodegradable if not completely reusable until about a generation before this ad campaign (the Ford model T literally came with instructions to reuse the crate it shipped in to make the truck bed for example)

[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago

In the era of the model t, everything was hard to make and thus expensive. I can very much imagine that that crate it came in wasn't cheap, so reuse only makes sense.

In today's age everything is so dirt cheap that packaging is just automatic pretty garbage. I'm still waiting for laws to prohibit double, triple, or even quadruple packaging at least. That tube of tooth paste really doesn't need a carton box around it, and the tube itself could be aluminum again so that the entire damned thing can be recycled, but yeah, plastics are cheaper so here we are.

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 7 hours ago

You put it way better than I did about packaging before plastics! There's so many fascinating examples of things being reused back in the day because of the cost that would never happen today, and will need to start happening again if we want to avoid a societal level catastrophie

[-] NotAnOtter@lemmus.org 33 points 1 day ago

The Jungle was a book about the meat packing industry in 1906. It detailed horrific treatment of the animals and disgusting unsanitary treatment of the meat products.

It led to public outrage and caused the Meat Inspection Act to be passed in the same year. That Act laid the foundation for modern health inspections in food facilities.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago

Notably it was only the poor treatment of the food that pissed people off. Sinclair meant to create sympathy for exploited workers, but no one actually cared about that part.

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[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 day ago

Torah, Bible, and Quran, unfortunately.

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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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