What is a real life example of the Streisand Effect?
15.06.2025 11:15
There are a bunch of examples (many of them dating to before the term) involving censorship.
One of my favorites came from Britain in the 1980s. There was a whole subgenre of low-budget exploitation and horror films distributed by videocassette, which bypassed the normal channels for rating and classifying films in the UK due to a loophole.
These were very much underground, sold mainly by word-of-mouth and ads in specialty magazines and such, but most people had never heard of them. But they came to the attention of famed conservative activists Mary Whitehouse, who led a campaign to have anyone selling these films prosecuted. To that end, they compiled a list (initially of around 70 films, later expanded), which were dubbed the “video nasties”.
Naturally, this campaign became the best possible promotion for films that many people would otherwise never have heard of.
Now, if you were trying to sell low-budget movies based on horror, gore, and sexual content, could you come up with a better advertising phrase than “video nasties"? Whitehouse and her compatriots not only made the public aware of these films, and railed about how terribly sexy, frightening, filthy, and shocking they were, but also kindly compiled a list.