If you have been paying attention to trends recently then you may know about the trend of the butterfly effect. Usually staring someone saying something along the lines of “I picked up his pencils little did I know (Butterfly effect).” But what is the butterfly effect?
The butterfly effect is a theory that small actions people make have a much greater impact and effect on something then we’d realize at the time. The theory is said to have come from a man named Edward Lorezn. In 1963 he had been running a weather simulation experiment. For one of the parameters he had set from 6 decimal places to 3 decimal places. For 2 months later his experiment had gone in a completely different direction compared to if he had set it to the right decimal. He had described this event as the Butterfly Effect. He even went as far to compare the simulation results to like a butterfly’s wings spawning a distant tornado.
From a basic stand point, the butterfly effect is the idea that every movement, every choice, every word even changes how the future events will turn out. Whether major or minor small choices matter sometimes even more than ‘big ones’ according to this theory. For example, A butterfly flies to a flower by a crosswalk. A kid sees the butterfly and stands in the middle of the road to look at it. As she’s standing there a car is driving down the road and see’s the girl in the middle of the street so they swerve. In this example because the butterfly was there the girl got distracted and a car ended up swerving. This whole incident could have been avoided if the butterfly didn’t land there, if the girl decided to go on the sidewalk and then look at the butterfly or if the car was looking ahead enough to see the little girl.
But how does the butterfly effect connect with Media? Well the butterfly effect is used in almost every movie ever. Movies are often set in a format where the whole movie is possible because of one small decision the character had made in the beginning. Obviously not all movies go that way but often they do. In this case I want to draw attention to the rom-com aspect of the effect.
About every rom-com is set up on this butterfly effect standard. Some examples include, but are not limited to, Confessions of a Shopaholic, 13 Going on 30, and La La Land. To understand the effect there are a few questions. Like what would happen if Rebecca never saw that green scarf? What if Jenna was never given the packet of Wishing Dust? What if Mia ended up getting the acting job?
One of the most circumstantial moves that can heavily count for the butterfly effect. This movie would be 27 Dresses. This movie has a bunch of small things that lead to the events later in the movie. For example, if Kevin had decided to only focus on the bride he wouldn’t have noticed Jane at all. If one of the girls hadn’t pushed Jane she would never have had a conversation with Kevin and Kevin would have never gotten a hold of Jane’s journal. If Tess never looked at George they probably wouldn’t have ended up talking to each other. And if Jane didn’t read Malcomes Magazine about Marriage, would Tess even accept Kevins offer? And if Jane’s Aunt’s dress never ripped, who would Jane be?
Every movie is fundamentally meant to be if anything else changed then everything would be different. In fact, everything in life can be constructed and described as the butterfly effect. If you start talking about a topic with your friend you may realize just how little actions got you there.
For example, I was listening to an old playlist and came across a song I liked. So I searched it up and found a new playlist on spotify that apparently had songs with the same feeling. I played it and didn’t like the song and instead of stopping listening to the playlist I just skipped it and the next song that played was “City of Stars” from La La Land. I then remembered I hadn’t seen La La Land so I searched it up on Netflix. It wasn’t on Netflix so I searched up where it was on. I found out that Philo was streamed for free with the exception of ads. I then proceeded to watch it which made me have a conversation with a friend about it. In the example, if I had decided to do one thing differently everything that happened after would have completely changed.
That is the Butterfly effect. It’s shown everywhere and happens everyday yet the times it is most recognized is in Media and Television. A simple yet mind boggling subject that can make anyone and everyone think a lot more about what impact little desions play on their life and outcomes of situations.