term for phenomenon of learning something new then hearing it everywhere

Gah! I racked my brains, my google-fu, Dope archives, and my wikimancy last night trying to find this, but it’s kind of an odd thing to express via a search engine, much simpler to explain to humans.

It’s the phenomenon of learning or acquiring something new, and then it seems like you are exposed to it everywhere. Sometimes referred to as ‘Red Car Syndrome’ as in you buy a (seemingly unique) red BrandX car, and then see them everywhere in parking lots and on highway.

The term is loosely related to synchonicity and (even more loosely) to serendipity. Most people think the new-to-you term/concept/object has been around you constantly before, and you just didn’t notice because it was unfamiliar and/or had no meaning for you. Others take it as an omen or that the universe or FSM is trying to tell them something.

Help?

The worst part is knowing once I’m told the term, I’ll then hear/see it everywhere… :smack:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=437290&highlight=confirmation

I didn’t re-read the thread, but last time we discussed it my vote was for a version of confirmation bias.

I always thought just good old synchronicity but there is a special SDMB brand. I often feel silly because someone will start a thread about “ancient egyptian para-psychological beliefs” and I will have to jump in to the thread to say, “by coincidence 2 days ago I was stuck in an elevator with the world’s foremost expert on ancient egyptian para-psychological beliefs and he told me that …”

It is so regular an event that I have mentioned it several times in posts.

Thanks, it definitely is very closely related to confirmation bias, and certainly is some form of cognitive bias. It seems kind of related to Von Restorff/isolation effect- especially serial position effect, specifically recency.

Framing…implicit memory…conceptual/perceptual priming! Damn that’s getting close. I know I’ve heard a very specific term, perhaps a little more of a pyschological term than an obviosly coined term like ‘diegogarcity’, although since I can’t remember it, it may well be coined.

Thanks for the feedback and link to the other thread; I found all the above springing off from confirmation basis.

The Bulletin Board column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press used to call it “Bader-Meinhoff Syndrome”, because the first time someone wrote in about it they had just read about the Bader-Meinhoff Gang and then suddenly saw mentions of them all over the place.

That, as with almost everything on Bulletin Board, is not to be taken as official nomenclature…

I first saw the phrase “the van is always at the corner” in a Straight Dope column. Suddenly I started seeing the phrase everywhere. Creeeeepy.

Raised awareness? I was at my friend’s Thanksgiving party, and he goes, “Do you know who that is?”. I say no, and he says “Oh, that’s Nancy Silverton”. She just sold La Brea Bakery for $70 million. I had never heard of Nancy Silverton nor La Brea Bakery, but now I see her name all over the place. I’m a foodie too, albeit a frugal one, so I can understand why I had never heard of her.

Not to diss the ol’ Hometown Paper, but the BMG did sorta become suddenly famous. Kinda like suddenly seeing Paris Hilton everywhere, but without the bombs.

Oh? At work we’d call her a “gapper,” someone merely wealthy but not loaded, but we’d be happy to help her channel some of that money into a really nice home theater. :smiley:

Um, that would be Paris Hilton WITH bombs, wouldn’t it? (remembering “House of Wax”) No, I was right the first time.

Diegogarcity anyone?

Aldiboronti, the coiner, also inhabits the SDMB. Hey, aldi, come on down and take a bow!

BTW, on the same day in 9th grade, I was asked by two different teachers what the definition of redundant was! To this day, I’m unsure whether the teachers were in collusion or it was just diegogarcity. Now if three had asked, I’d have had no doubts.

Wikipedia article on the “Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon”

DamnInteresting.com article on the “Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon”
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon • Damn Interesting

Well, I was close…

LOLCATism?

Thanks, jj. I think that was indeed the term.

Since I heard the term before I was familiar with the BMG (hey, didn’t they do Intel commercials?!), I think I assumed the names were German psychologists/psychiatrists/scientists that the syndrome had been named after, and that it was a proper name. Ignorance fought.

I did enjoy the affirmation in the articles linked above that recency is involved.

Thanks, everyone, for the input and info.

I thought it was the plate o’ shrimp phenomenon.

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Those DamnInteresting guys need to consider getting a new logo. I opened some pages from there in new tabs, and now I keep closing them because I think their favicon is the Firefox “server not found” error message.

:smack:

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