While I was bored one day I went onto Wikipedia through StumbleUpon, and I found a page about BMP. I'd never heard of this before, but as soon as I read over what it was, I realized it happens to me ALL the time! I always thought it was the weirdest thing ever when I learned something totally random, then I kept on seeing it popping up in my everyday life.
Wikipedia's definition of the BMP is "The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it." The phenomenon was originally first stated by someone reading the Pioneer Press, a newspaper in my home state of Minnesota, in 1986. It got it's name when she was telling about a terrorist group known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. She first heard about the gang, and then soon after, heard about them again and again. Therefore she coined it as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. To this day, any stories in the newspaper that relate to this phenomenon are put under the heading "Baader Meinhof Phenomenon."
Some theories about the BMP suggest that your brain creates a bias towards this odd fact you have just learned, and you're brain is actually looking for more places to see this odd fact. The brain WANTS to learn more about this odd fact it has just learned.
Now, just think of all of the times you have learned something completely out of the blue, that had no relevance to your daily life, and how many times you heard that same thing in the next twenty-four hours. Now you know there is a psychological term for this, and it is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Also see if you happen to hear anything more about this phenomenon in the next twenty-four hours, especially if you think this article is something you never expected to learn about before!
Thanks for reading!
