As soon as you read this story you are going to think “Mandela effect”. You are immediately going to get defensive and claim that it is made up. That it is some worldwide conspiracy created by the Illuminati to confuse the masses into submission. We know this because that is how reacted to this story. So what is all the hubbub about? Well, have you ever noticed that the label on every can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce is upside down? Yes. Every. Single. One.
Now let us find out why.
Turkconspiracy
Maybe the reason you never noticed that cranberry sauce exists in the upside-down from Stranger Things could be because you never help prepare the feast. Or maybe you focus on the meat and someone else in your family always has to bring the sides, so you never see the process. Or maybe, just maybe, only the keenest of us have noticed this detail, like our grandmothers, bless their souls.
But once you notice it, you cannot un-notice it. And for as weird as it may seem for a label to be inverted, this has always been the case, and there actually seems to be a solid reason behind the stylistic choice.
ʎɹɹǝquɐɹƆ ǝɔnɐS
As odd as an upside-down label may sound, the actual thinking behind it is pretty ingenious. Ocean Spray recently decided to talk to CNN about this flipped label conspiracy (which happens to be true in this case):
The cans are “filled and labeled upside down with the rounded edge on top and the sharp can-like edge on the bottom to keep the jelly whole. That creates an air bubble on the rounded side (a.k.a. the top) so customers can “swipe the edge of the can with a knife to break the vacuum and the log will easily slide out.”
The real weirdest twist in this story is not the label itself but the fact that Ocean Spray calls their cranberry sauce a “log”. We are all learning so much today. But in terms of the flipped label, we all never noticed, it kind of sǝʞɐW noʎ ɹǝpuoʍ ʇɐɥʍ ǝslǝ noʎ ǝɹɐ ƃuᴉssᴉɯ.