You’ve heard of the Streisand effect, right?
Named after the American singer and actress, it’s the act of trying to hide or censor a piece of information, but in doing so giving it exponentially more publicity than had you actually kept schtum.
Think Beyonce at the 2013 Super Bowl. That time a court tried to ban The Pirate Bay. Or when, in 2003, Barbara Streisand tried to suppress photos of her California home – which saw views of the images grow from six to 420,000 in a month – and the term was born.
IKEA might’ve been advised to give the term a swift Google, before they released a statement demanding teenagers stop creeping into its stores for illegal “sleepovers”, in a move that definitely won’t lead to more teenagers creeping into its stores for illegal sleepovers.
Apparently started by two Belgian YouTubers – who stowed themselves in wardrobes until doors closed, then jumped on beds and talked at length about cranberry jam – the trend has since seen around 10 incidents of “non-sponsored sleepovers” across IKEA’s 400 stores.
Most recently, a pair of 14-year-old girls in Sweden were caught while spending the night at a branch in Jonkoping, Sweden (they got a slap on the wrist), whereas two 15-year-olds from were charged with trespassing, after setting off alarms in a Malmo store.
A spokesperson for the flatpack conglomerates said, “Maybe needless to say that the fun in it is overrated. A long night of sitting still, only to then risk getting into trouble with the law."
Call us cynics, but now a worldwide audience has caught wind of this ‘overrated’ trend, we have a hunch there might be a few more stories of sleepy stowaways like over the coming months.
(Pic: iStock)
