This seems to be fucking up the most people And C3P0 never had a silver leg from star wars. From my reality at least..
This video probably explains it best from my understanding. If you are not familiar with ET contact or channeled messages/information then its best not to judge but just listen to the information presented.
People love flipping off the mainstream. Having mainstream opinions is boring, let's face it .. more and more people are believing in stupid shit .. especially these days on the internet. Whether they think the Earth is flat, or that being gay is a choice, or that the holocaust wasn't real .. no amount of reasoning is going to convince them otherwise. People like to argue, and tell you that you're wrong -- it brings meaning into their existence.
Gah! The Mandela Effect. It's a hoax people. It all traces back to one person, Fiona Broome. She started propagating this theory and coined the phrase, "Mandela Effect," back in 2010. And subsequently decided to write a book about it. Is it any wonder it's in her interest to make sure people buy into the supposed phenomena? This is her site, where it all began. Mandela Effect – Alternate Memories – Alternate Realities
She did not only coin the term, she invented the phenomena. Human memories are not great. We often fill in the gaps with false memories. What makes this all laughable by any standard is you have a supposed phenomena that conveniently covers up it's shortcomings by saying the past is being altered. So you create an environment with zero hard evidence, where there can in actuality be no evidence. Only people's faulty memories to go by.
You're right a much more likely explanation is that the past is being altered. But one of many many articles on memory out there. Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts
It's not anything I stand by with conviction, bad collective memory is more than possible. I do believe in multiple worlds theory though and the idea of a world changing or coming together with something else in multiplex of infinite potential possibility is entertaining. I don't think the past is being altered, consciously or not.
Memory confabulation mixed with social reinforcement. By creating the dialog, Fiona Broome has stoked the fire. If you get a bunch of people talking about it and reinforce the idea, they start implanting false memories into one another, then reinforce the mistaken memory by all agreeing on it.
Its not that its more likely, but if some people think its plausible, let them collect the data (if any can be collected?) It might not be that the past was altered, or even that we shifted realities or whatnot, but that psychological tampering is manipulating people, or peoples psyche are manipulating reality. We tend to think of time as linear and that the past can influence the present and future but the present and future cannot influence the past. It seems a reasonable assumption, but is it wholly justifiable?
You are also not the only person reading my responses. So I'm not tailoring them specifically for you. What would be the point of psychological engineering concerning popular entertainment such as Star Wars or the Berenstain Bears?
I think most of the examples in OP are tenuous at best, but perhaps some entity or group is experimenting with phenomenon unknown to the public.
Maybe measuring extent to which memories are falsifiable on a social scale. Collective MK Ultra type deal. I dunno.
That makes a lot more sense than Fiona Broome's take on the phenomena. However it would require going back and altering all the physical objects such as dusty children's books in people basements. Hence the reason I believe Broome decided it's multiverse issue. Much more tidy way to explain how all these Berenstain bears books were altered. It's not the books, it's the universe!