Yugoslav toilet paper rumor
anecdote · Slovenian/Yugoslav ·
retold in 3 talks
A rumor circulates that there is not enough toilet paper; everyone knows it is just a rumor but each person reasons that others might believe it and stock up, so they all rush to buy, producing a real shortage from nothing. Demonstrates how objective beliefs produce real effects without anyone believing them.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“nobody believes in it you just need another one who is supposed to believe. And the effects are here.”
“no one really believed there is a shortage of toilet paper. We just believed that there is another one that there are some others who are stupid enough to believe.”
“Nobody believed that there really is not enough toilet paper. It's enough to presuppose that there is another one who believes in it and at the end the result is the same.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
the big Other
×3
ideology as non-ideology
×1
subject supposed to believe
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Stefan Zweig1Chris Clark1Peter Weibel1Bruno Kreisky1Didier Eribon1Greta Garbo1Roman Jakobson1Sebastian Kurz1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
A rumor circulates that there is not enough toilet paper; everyone knows it is just a rumor but each person reasons that others might believe it and stock up, so they all rush to buy, producing a real shortage from nothing. Demonstrates how objective beliefs produce real effects without anyone believing them., illustrating ideology without belief,objective belief,the big Other
In communist Yugoslavia a rumour spread that toilet paper was scarce; everyone knew it was false but reasoned that others might hoard, so they hoarded pre-emptively, producing a real shortage. No individual believed the rumour yet the collective effect was as if they all did., illustrating subject supposed to believe,belief in belief,big Other
A rumor in 1970s Yugoslavia that toilet paper would run out caused a real shortage, but nobody actually believed the rumor, each person acted on the assumption that other idiots might believe it, producing the shortage through collective disavowal., illustrating belief without a believer,ideology,the big Other