why are they actively manifesting the worst possible scenarios?

On the internet corner that is underground subliminals.

Content warning: This article contains mentions of eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, and sexual assault. Please refrain from reading if you are distressed by these topics.

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Last week, a friend shared the link to a YouTube video titled “Get cancer ASAP” and asked me, “Dude, WTF.” A few days prior I had introduced her to the practice of meditating using subliminal audio. As she started searching for them on YouTube, she came across this particular video — the worst nightmare of the subliminal community.

Subliminals are a lesser-known tool used for affirmation and manifestation purposes. The idea of it is simple — instead of repeating an affirmation aloud or writing it on paper, you hide it under a song or a soothing sound and listen to it on the go.

Some believe that this is more effective than other manifestation tools like scripting or visualisation. Since you do not actively hear the affirmations, they can bypass your sceptic conscious self and directly affect your gullible subconscious self, bringing you better results.

Subliminals draw from the power of suggestion and cannot dramatically change your DNA or physical features but some isolated studies have shown them to boost users’ self-confidence and motivation to pursue their goals.

If you search “subliminals” on YouTube you will find hundreds of thousands of videos curated for specific benefits like clear skin, healthy hair, dream job, good grades, ideal partner, and good luck.

Image courtesy: @iwantitigotitsubliminals via YouTube

Now if you are a non-believer, I totally get it. But don’t stop reading because of that. Today’s newsletter is not about the law of attraction or how you can manifest your ideal life by saying “I am healthy, wealthy, and beautiful” a million times. It is about the insidious underbelly of YouTube's subliminal creators — underground subliminals creators, more popularly known as ug creators.

Underground subliminal creators make subliminal audios to help you manifest the worst possible scenarios you can ever imagine. As the name suggests, they are not widely accepted in the subliminal community but do have their own smaller communities where you can find tips on how to manifest a stalker, an eating disorder, or even sexual assault.

Some users claim that ug subliminals “work better” because of the use of exaggerated affirmations. For instance, in a subliminal meant to lose weight and achieve your dream body, they add affirmations like “I feel repulsed at the sight of food” or “I am losing weight every time I breathe” to help you reach your goal faster.

Even though this might seem pretty harmless at first, especially when you are discontent with life and looking for a quick fix, they can have harmful after-effects.

“I remember using a study obsession ug subliminal for a month, where I thought the benefits were just exaggerated and my mind could handle them but no I ended up studying 16 to 20 hours every day. I became obsessed to the point where I didn't want to do anything besides studying — not even leave my house or eat,” an anonymous user shared on r/subliminal. “This went on until my exam and afterwards I got depressed for months because I didn't have anything to study for and the benefits were literally ‘get miserable and depressed when you don't study’.”

Most popular underground subliminals on YouTube have hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments congratulating each other on their results. This is a comment on a video for manifesting getting raped:

Disclaimer: I don’t think you can get cancer from listening to a subliminal but the people who use it definitely think so and I think it is worth exploring why.

Saner people in the subliminal community (including yours truly) have voiced their concerns on the existence of underground subliminals that claim to help you manifest depression, psychosis, and other mental illnesses. The answer we usually get is that we simply won’t understand. That’s true. I don’t understand.

After all, the foundation of manifestation is built on the idea of becoming your best self and creating a life that you are proud of, right? How can depression be somebody’s ideal state of living? I was curious. So I went searching and I found some answers for why people are manifesting the worst possible scenarios.

For instance, rape fantasies. In a culture that shames women’s sexual desires, they are caught between wanting to experience sexual pleasure and feeling guilty about their desire. Fantasising about being coerced or forced into sexual contact absolves them of this society-induced guilt while experiencing pleasure.

Another explanation given by people using underground subliminals is that they are already suffering from mental illnesses and they want to make it worse so somebody takes them seriously. It is a cry for attention. I assume that people using subliminals to get cardiac arrest are those who suffer from suicidal thoughts and are looking for ways to absolve themselves of the guilt associated with killing themselves.

My heart goes out to them. These are people who need real medical attention. And advising these people to just stay away from such content is pointless. These users aren’t in the right state of mind to make an educated decision for themselves. They are helpless. They don’t see another way out. So they try to cope in the ways accessible to them and a free 3-minute video on YouTube is inarguably the most accessible way of coping.

The real culprits here are the creators of underground subliminals. They are capitalising on their viewers’ pain and agony for clout and money.

Note: Most subliminal creators aren’t monetised through the YouTube Partner Program. This is because they usually don’t have the copyright to the songs or other audios used to mask the affirmations. They usually monetise their content by selling other affiliate products to their subscribers or through subscriber-model platforms like Patreon.

These creators also remove any comments calling them out and warning others to not use these subliminals. So the only way to go about it is to report these accounts and hope that YouTube takes them down. But the larger subliminal community including the well-meaning members have reached a consensus not to do this.

In early 2023, YouTube started cracking down on the accounts of subliminal creators because they didn’t meet YouTube’s community guidelines. Some of the widely-respected creators lost their accounts because of this crackdown (RIP Rosemary subliminals, you will be missed). Due to this, most creators with a large following have stopped posting on YouTube and moved to paywalled platforms like Patreon.

A large section of subliminal users believe that this is because people started mass-reporting underground subliminals causing the YouTube algorithm to associate the word “subliminal” with breaking community guidelines and eventually leading to the mass crackdown.

A more possible scenario would be that a begrudged user who didn’t get results from a creator’s subliminals reported their account. Most of these creators have audio to help people lose weight and YouTube flags it as promoting eating disorders, which in a way it is. So when a user reports them, their accounts get taken down.

Previously, there was an unwritten rule that underground subliminal creators would add the keyword “ug subliminal” to their video titles so people who aren’t actively looking for them can stay away. But since the YouTube crackdown, creators have started removing the word “subliminal” from their descriptions altogether making it very difficult for the untrained eye to identify an underground subliminal.

The subliminal community should stop normalising ug creators. It is not “you do you” when the well-being of the community members is at stake. Report them whenever you come across them. YouTube does a great job of actually taking down problematic content when it comes to subliminals. A little too great if you ask me but that is the only option available currently.

If you are new to using subliminals, make sure that you trust the creators. Trustable creators provide the list of affirmations used and you can verify them. Even better if you make your own subliminal audio. The process is fairly simple and you can find guides all over the internet.

At the end of the day, subliminals are just tools to help your spiritual practices and should be used as such only. Your dream life doesn’t come to you just because you listened to an audio or wrote down an affirmation a hundred times over. It comes when you take intentional steps towards creating the life you want. It is a complete mindset and lifestyle shift. Don’t fall prey to modern get-rich-quick schemes — get-lucky-quick schemes.