MarioWiki:Proposals

Add brainwashing to the list of Frequently misused terms
I think a personal pet peeve of mine has come to me, and that's the frequent usage of brainwashing as an umbrella term for mind control. In many works of fiction, it's not too rare to see mind control be a driving plot point. However, it's something completely impossible in real life. Brainwashing, on the other hand, is something possible in real life. I don't want to get into the real-life nature of brainwashing, but to put it bluntly; people can get brainwashed not by silly, fictional mind control chips but by propaganda and/or abuse. Brainwashing is especially true for cults.

However, it's prevalent for the term "brainwashing" to apply to any attempt at science fiction mind control and possession. I can't list many examples; you've probably seen multiple instances where mind control is labeled as brainwashing, even in Super Mario games such as Super Paper Mario. One of the lines in the game state, "See, they've already sworn eternal allegiance to Count Bleck, 'K? And now you need to, so I'll just go ahead and pencil you in for a 10 o'clock brainwashing." I'll go more in-depth about this later, but 'it's an inaccurate comparison because brainwashing works through manipulation, and the victim has to agree'' to it to become brainwashed. Mind control involves taking control of someone else's mind, which they have no control over.' What decided me do this is seeing the Tricky the Triceratops article mention he was "brainwashed" by Wizpig when the game manual states the bosses are in his control (unless some other material does'' state brainwashing). I mean, is it accurate to state that Shadow Queen is brainwashing Peach? Not really; she is just possessing her body. And for the record, we try significantly to avoid bad umbrella terms. The biggest are "beta" and "sub-species." With beta, we had an issue of people referring to an old version of a game as this, without any proof it's a beta build and just as a horrible term to describe any pre-release concept, including concept art. Sub-species were incorrectly used to describe variants of different enemies and were entirely speculative in many instances. The arguments that these terms work fine the way they are wholly ignore the fact that we are spreading misinformation here.

So if you couldn't tell for some reason, this proposal aims to put brainwashing in as one of those frequently misused terms in the Good writing section on the wiki. That way, users don't blanketly use the term to describe any term of mind control as brainwashing. Now I should clarify that this only refers to instances that don't state it's brainwashing. As brought up with the Super Paper Mario example, brainwashing is used as an umbrella term in that game as a synonym for mind control. If that is indeed the case, it's also valid to label it as brainwashing since the game is using that term. This is to avoid it when that term isn't used and perhaps any time brainwashing is brought up in these games as a term, it could be stated that it's actually mind control to not confuse readers, but that could be an awkward solution so putting in the misused terms is probably good enough.

Proposer: Deadline: July 6, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Support

 * 1) Per proposal
 * 2) As someone who has lazily used the term brainwashing as an umbrella term, I find this to be a useful suggestion. Per proposal.
 * 3) let's stop being brainwashed into incorrectly using "brainwash".
 * 4) - As someone who has hypnotized herself in real life before for the heck of it and studied effects of mental-altering processes, I think we should indeed be more accurate to this subject.
 * 5) There are clear differences between these terms that should be addressed. Per proposal.
 * 6) - Yeahhh, unless the game itself expressly calls it brainwashing (see: SPM), we should probably not be throwing that word around willy-nilly, especially if more accurate alternatives exist.
 * 7) - Well, if the word "brainwashing" is being used incorrectly, then the Wiki should make sure that people don't use it just to mean "mind control".

Comments
Should cases of hypnosis also be included? It's often used as a synonym for mind control in media as well, even though it's very different from brainwashing or mind control alike in real life. 13:00, June 22, 2023 (EDT)

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