HEY MABEL EFFECT

(hay MAY.bul uh.fekt)

n.

Feelings of surprise, shock, and delight caused by certain situations, scenes, or news.

"With hundreds of carnivalesque pages, these catalogues score high on what television programmers term the'Hey Mabel' effect— 'Hey Mabel, you can use Liquid-Plumr and Tylenol to build a bomb!' "

— Albert Mobilio, "The Criminal Within,"Harper's Magazine, March 1, 1999

One of Mr.Dunn's early ideas resulted in "The Strippers," the newspaper's front-page article on a Sunday last month. The News had bought a 1985 Honda, parked it on a New York City street, and had its photographers watch. By the fourth day of the vigil, car strippers had reduced it to a bucket of bolts that was a "curbside blight and barely resembling a vehicle.

That, Mr. Dunn said, was the kind of"hey, Mabel"article (as in "Hey, Mabel, look at this!") that The News must present.

— William Glaberson, "Daily News Is Turning a Gamble Into a Rebirth,"The New York Times, November 1, 1993

The phrase"Hey Mabel"is most often used as an adjective — for example, a"Hey Mabel"story — where it describes something sensational or controversial that people will want to point out to others. (A variation is"Hey Martha.")

coffee-spitter

driveway effect

house money effect

small-world effect

spotlight effect

watercooler effect

watercooler moment

wealth effect

Effects

Sociology (General)