Mind control absolutely exists.
There are any number of complex theories and methods one could use in this space to prove that true, but I will choose to focus on the basic forms. Take the simple example of "music." If a girl at a club has had a few drinks and hears a catchy song, her mind tells her to dance, and she usually does. If a stoner has had a few puffs and puts on a track with a laid-back groove, his mind tells him that he is getting very sleepy. If a flower child drops some acid and listens to prog-rock or trip-hop, his mind tells him that certain pictures and colors exist that actually do not. This is mind control. (Some might argue that this is simply "mind manipulation," and that true "mind control" can only exist if a certain individual can literally use their mind to control the thoughts of others. This is, at the very least, nitpicking.)
The concept goes a little deeper when analyzed through the lens of film. Taxi Driver convinced Ed Hinckley to shoot the president. Fight Club moved large groups of people to start "copycat" Project Mayhem organizations (although with, of course, much more realistic results). Jaws kickstarted a worldwide fear of sharks, leading to Animal Planet's highly-publicized "Shark Week" and the shark itself eventually getting tagged as an "endangered species" due to extreme over-hunting. Seemingly innocent films like The Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Rings became famous for wholly unintentional reasons (in each of these cases, "Dude, we gotta get high to this shit, man"). And so forth.
However, beyond these two methods comes the truest form of mind control, and the one that has arguably resulted in the most serious consequences throughout the years: manipulation through literature.
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One of my friends is absolutely beautiful...or, at least, I've seen her at a state of absolute beauty. She has gorgeous blue eyes, tan brown skin, flowing brown hair, and some of the prettiest features I've ever seen in a woman's face. I've seen modeling pictures of her from several years ago, and she looks like a fucking ten (out of five). On paper, she has everything that any man would ever look for in a woman. It's unfortunate that those criteria don't include "a personality," but shit; if she did have a wonderful personality, she'd be the most attractive person on the fucking planet. Bar none.
This is where (at least, in my speculation) literature enters the picture.
This woman's favorite author is Chuck Klosterman, notorious always-depressed contrarian hipster/"philosopher for dummies." And I actually like the guy; in fact, I'm a huge fan of a lot of his essays, and definitely enjoy his takes on Star Wars ("Empire Strikes Back previewed Generation X"), the 1980s Lakers-Celtics rivalry ("Celtics = old school Republicans, Lakers = late-'60s Democrats"), and Advancement Theory (when an artist does something that is the opposite of unpredictable and also the opposite of unpredictable, they have done something genius). I'll even be referencing a lot of these essays in my own writing, and plan on my next one to even involve a "philosophical" question of his from the book "Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs." But here's the thing: I respect the guy's writing, but I wouldn't say I'm in love with it. Sure, I love certain parts, but generally it just seems too depressing; one of his books chronicles a road trip of his around America looking for famous places where rock stars died ("Killing Yourself To Live") that should have been fucking incredible...if he wasn't sulking the entire time over being lovesick. In that book, he also admits that the entirety of his most famous work ("SD&CP") was written when he was also lovesick. As you can imagine, he can very easily start to sound like a whiny douche in a lot of places throughout both books. This is why, although I definitely enjoy portions of his brainstorms throughout both works, I wouldn't call myself a Klosterman Disciple. Of course, since his writing is extremely relatable to the average American (since he's writing about everyday situations and pop culture in a slightly deep way), I can imagine that it would be easy for someone to get sucked in by him.
Unfortunately, my girl friend did. (Or, at least, I think she did; again, this all speculative.)
My female friend has pierced her nose at least three times. She rarely wears makeup. She recently cut her hair down to shoulder length. She seemingly deliberately wears the least revealing (i.e., least attractive) clothes she can find. On top of that, she also apparently tries to make her Facebook profile picture the least attractive picture she can find. The only things she ever talks about are how little money she has and how little luck she has with men. Although I could very, very easily imagine her being a "party girl" (at least, based on what I've seen and heard about her past life), it seems as if she's trying to go "alternative." And although we're friends, whenever I speak to her I get the general impression that she's attempting to disagree with everything I say and/or one-up me at every turn because she has to be smarter and "righter" than me about everything.
This is a Klosterman Disciple in a nutshell.
Again...I may be reading too much into this (no pun intended). Maybe she was always like that, and is just now choosing to go full indie chick. Maybe she's naturally condescending; fuck, most women are. Maybe she never was a "party girl," and just looked and acted extremely like one once upon a time (according to various sources, anyway). Maybe she honestly does find those clothes and those Facebook pictures attractive, in which case her choices to utilize them would be less "pretentious" and more "extremely misguided."
Or maybe she views Klosterman like Chapman viewed Sallinger. In which case, a) Chris Martin had better start wearing Kevlar in public, and b) we've lost another one to literature mind control.
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So why does literature take such a strong hold over the people who read it? Here's my theory.
In the case of music at a club, you're around a hundred other people when you're hearing the song; it does dictate your actions to a point, but if absolutely nobody else was dancing to the music then you probably wouldn't either. It's just as much of a sociological thing as it is a psychological thing. It's a little different in the case of a movie, because you take it in on more of a personal level (what with the silent theater and the dark atmosphere). But immediately after the movie ends, you're probably discussing it with a friend or family member (and possibly multiple friends and family members), because movie viewing is almost completely a social exercise at this point. The film is all yours for about two seconds...and then the credits roll, and now it's everybody's. Again, sociology intersecting with psychology.
Literature is different because (unless you're in a book club, an entity which I don't actually believe exists because the heaviness of the cliche would end up crushing everyone in the room) it's just you and the author. You take everything in at your own pace, and dissect it in your own fashion. There's nobody around you while you're taking in that affects your opinion of it, and nobody to immediately discuss it three seconds after you finish reading it. Moreover, it also wasn't some conscious decision of a social group to pick out this book; it was something you chose, because you enjoyed the topic and probably wanted to be affected by it. I've never thought of reading a book as a bizarre form of self-fulfilling prophecy before, but there you go.
Does this mean that every anti-war novel will turn you into a '60s anti-Vietnam hippie, or that every apocolpaytic novel will turn you into the guy from Take Shelter? No. But it's a hell of a lot more likely that, if you do undergo a personal transformation due to culture, the inspiration will likely be "that book you just read."
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