Danbooru

Imply Brainwashing -> Mind Control

Posted under Tags

BUR #13064 has been rejected.

remove alias brainwashing -> mind_control
create implication brainwashing -> mind_control

Like Hypnosis, Brainwashing is just a form of Mind Control; not an alias. Mind Control is a broader tag.

Mind Control: influencing or altering one's state of mind.
Brainwashing: indoctrinate systemically and so completely as to effect a radical transformation of attitudes and beliefs.
Hypnosis: the induction of a state of consciousness in which a person loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction.

Unbreakable said:

Where the alias was made: topic #18543

What Renim said in that topic was the closest to what I meant. If they are really Alias, there shouldn't be broader or narrower term. They were even debating whether it should be Brainwashing -> Mind Control or Mind Control -> Brainwashing. That's why I propositioned changing the Alias to Imply based on what the words means in dictionary.

nonamethanks said:

Please provide examples that you would classify as mind control that are not brainwashing, and examples of what you'd tag as brainwashing.
I'm not necessarily against this, and I kind of get what you mean, but you can see from the post history that these two tags were used interchangeably by most people before they were merged

Hmmm... I guess it's more about general misconception of what Brainwashing, Hypnosis, and Mind Control specifically are. So much that many sites just uses only Brainwashing and Hypnosis to represent the whole mind-bending trope. That's why people who are already familiar with using only one tag will keep using it in other sites. But in Danbooru we have all three terms and we also have Alias and Imply, so I just want to make the detail better?

You're asking for a Mind Control that is not Brainwashing, but I never said that they are completely separate. As I said to Unbreakable, based on the meaning, Brainwashing is a narrower term of Mind Control. Every Brainwashing is Mind Control, but not all Mind Control is Brainwashing. Same as Hypnosis, which has already given Imply tag (hypnosis -> mind_control). Simply put, Brainwashing and Hypnosis are both - more or less - methods of Mind Control. A step in the whole Mind Control process, which means that someone can be both Brainwashed and Hypnotized. So Mind Control that are not a Brainwashing? Lots of them are Hypnosis, especially in porn. Mind Control is very very broad term, simply forgiving one's enemy can already be considered mind control. Btw, meditation is also a method of mind control.

Um, sorry for the wall of text?

To be fair, finding pure Brainwashing (without Hypnosis) in image boards is rare. Brainwashing is most notably about indoctrination, so Brainwashing without using Hypnosis is basically indoctrinating someone without ever putting them in trance. Sounds like a long and tedious process? The artist in image boards would need to depict that process in a very limited amount of images which would really limit the variation (unlike in manga or novel). Hypnosis, in the other hand, would easily be recognizeable just by adding swinging things or swirling patterns.

1