12 Times Real Life Played Out Like "The Truman Show"

In case you missed it, The Truman Show was a movie where Truman Burbank’s whole life was the subject of a TV show. While this would normally just mean he’d have cameras following him around all his life, this show’s producers went even further and constructed a fake town for him to spend his whole life in.

As Truman slowly grew to realize, his friends and family were all actors and his entire life was a lie. 

Even if you have seen the movie, you might not be aware that a similar delusion exists in real life. As Joel Gold from New York’s Bellevue Hospital describes, people with this syndrome “believe their family, friends, and co-workers are all reading from scripts and their home, workplace, and hospital are all sets. They believe they are being filmed for the whole world to see.”

The phenomenon has been observed both in those who seek the spotlight and those who fear i,t but there’s some debate as to whether this delusion is genuine or if it’s closer to an act.

Yet this fear of living in a TV show can be a little easier to understand than some of us may realize. If we happen to see certain things at a vulnerable time in our lives, we may be convinced that the world around us isn’t real. At the very least, we may feel inclined to believe that our every move is closely being watched.

If it’s still hard to picture how someone could think this way, these 12 examples may help piece it together.

COMMENT and let us know if you ever saw something that made you wonder if you were being pranked.

1. Customers didn’t like eBay’s new background, so they subtly rolled it out anyway. 

Back when the website had a yellow background, the company wanted to change it to white. Users didn’t like this change at all, so eBay went back to yellow after a flood of angry emails.At least, that’s what it looked like. Instead, they constantly changed the background to a slightly paler shade of yellow over the course of several months. The background was white by the time they were finished, but the change happened so gradually that nobody noticed.

2. Some garden suppliers glue fake flowers to their cacti.

This gives the impression that the flower blooms for longer than usual. Since it takes so long for cacti to grow, it could potentially take years before the customer notices. 

3. The bookshelves in this coffee shop aren’t real.

If this were The Truman Show, there’d be a dramatic music sting as he tried to touch them.

4. A Houston airport decreased its guests’ complaints with a little trickery.

Customers were complaining about the long wait times at the baggage claim even after airport executives brought the wait down to eight minutes. So instead, they moved around the arrival gates and luggage carousels so it took flyers six times longer to reach the claim.Since they were so busy walking, people didn’t notice that it took just as long for the bags to arrive as it had before.

Yet there are even more subtle ways for businesses to make you forget you’re waiting for something.