'AITA for ruining my brother’s childhood memory by admitting I photoshopped it 14 years ago?' UPDATED

"AITA for ruining my brother’s childhood memory by admitting I photoshopped it 14 years ago?"

When my younger brother (20 now) was 6, he went through a huge Harry Potter phase. He loved the wizarding world and believed he might meet ‘Harry Potter’ (Daniel Radcliffe) or the other characters on a family trip to Scotland since Hogwarts was ‘there.’ No one promised him this, but he convinced himself it could happen.

Sadly, the trip was canceled after our grandpa passed away, and my brother was devastated for both reasons. To cheer him up, I decided to craft a 'souvenir'. I was 16 and had just discovered photoshop, so I edited a picture of my brother with Daniel Radcliffe to make it look like they'd met. I printed it, framed it, and gave it to him without telling him it was fake. He loved it and fully believed he’d met Daniel.

Soon, he had an entire story about the meeting; what they talked about, how Daniel hugged him, etc. It was so sweet, and none of us (my family and I) had the heart to tell him the truth. Fast forward 14 years, and my brother still didn’t know that the old, low quality picture of him meeting Daniel Radcliffe is fake.

I never told him because his memory of the fake meeting felt so real to him that it became one of his proudest stories. Over time the memory became less important and the framed picture had been packed away in some box, and my brother has long outgrown his Harry Potter obsession.

Yesterday, however, we were at our parents' home and we were bringing up old memories, you know how it goes. The story of meeting Daniel Radcliffe came up, and thinking it was harmless, I told him the truth. I thought he’d laugh but instead he got visibly upset.

He didn’t want to believe me at first, thinking I was messing with him. I told him the real story of how and why I did it. He told me that it feels like I robbed him of a real childhood memory that he really cherished, and he feels embarrassed thinking about all the times he's told people about meeting Daniel Radcliffe in person, even recently. We ended our conversation on a semi-good note, though.

I apologised for not telling him sooner, because I do feel bad that it meant so much to him even now. But I don’t regret it. Back then, it made him so happy during a rough time, and I don’t regret giving him that joy. I just didn't realize how much it still meant to him. So I'm just wondering, am (or was) I the a-hole?

The internet had a lot of thoughts.

Miss_Judge_and_jury wrote:

NTA. It’s like Santa. You did it with good intentions and he never met him. He was 6, now he is 20. Maybe disappointing, but he’s 20 years old…. It would be worse to continue the fantasy for an adult. I am sure no one ever thought at the time this would be the result 14 years later, sounds like he just never got the memo it wasn’t real… much worse things that can happen as an adult.

WelfordNelferd wrote:

I'm a tad surprised that you could convince a six-year-old they'd met their idol when they hadn't, but you're still NTA. Did he even question it at the time??

Spaceacecase wrote:

I don't get why people are comparing this to Santa...this feels so extreme that everyone kept up this lie for so long. Your almost 10 years older then him, why didn't you or anyone else tell him sooner? Your grandfather died, he was a child grieving, this false memory would have been so easy for a young kid to cling onto in the mist of all that. It seems so cruel to do this for years...ESH except your brother.

inquisitivemind79 wrote:

YTA for not telling him sooner. This is not like Santa or the Easter bunny or unicorns or anything like that. This is something that could have actually happened and there was no way for him to know it didn’t really happen. There are better ways to cheer up a kid than lying to them. This is seriously insane that you allowed this to go on for so long.

If my family had told me I met someone or had visited a specific country as a kid and had a photo that looked real I would absolutely believe it I don’t have much of a memory at that age and anyone who says they actually do probably have false memories like your sibling. This is a horrible and weird thing to do to someone you care about.

CuriousEmphasis7698 wrote:

NTA. You were 14 he was 6. You did a cute thing for your kid brother. It's not on you that the adults in the situation never clued him in, and let him persist in thinking this event really happened into adulthood.

Really they should have done something, up to an including getting him professional help, when he started developing the fantasy that the meeting had really happened and behaving like it was a real event. That is when the adults should have intervened because that is when it stopped being harmless fun.

DamnitGravity wrote:

Wow, you and your entire family gaslit him. For YEARS. For over a DECADE. Your parents should've stopped you from giving him that photo as a kid. Yeah, you meant well, but so what? Doesn't change the fact it's now having real-time consequences. "Meaning well" doesn't change the fact you all lied to him.

The biggest AHs are your parents for allowing and perpetuating this. You're slightly TA for going along with it. NTA for finally telling him, even if you did break his heart a little, and now he's gonna question every single one of his memories, and what else you and your parents have lied to him about.

Roan_Psychometry wrote:

YTA. If you found out that one of your happiest and proudest memories as a child was completely fabricated AND covered up by your entire family, how you would you feel? I would feel betrayed at a minimum. Honestly, this going to be hard to recover from in my opinion. I hope your brother is a better person than me, but I might never talk to you again.

A week later, OP jumped on with an update.

Hello again! My post from a week ago got quite a lot of attention. Reading through all the comments was an experience, thank you all for sharing your thoughts (and gently or not so gently humbling me).

Apparently, the consensus is that I'm kind of an a-hole, but like a well-meaning one? I'll take it. The thing that amused me the most, though, was how everyone just assumed I'm my brother's older brother. For the record, I never said that!

Could be his sister, could be his sibling— it's 2024, people, let's not default to dudes all the time. Anyways, a lot of people told me to find a way to contact Daniel Radcliffe for real and get some kind of message to my brother. While I appreciate the ambition, I don't exactly have Daniel's number lying around, and cold-calling celebrities isn't in my skill set.

Besides, I figured my brother might appreciate a bit of humour over me spiralling into some overly elaborate apology plan. We hadn't seen each other since my post, but we finally met up Saturday, and I brought him a new photoshopped picture of 20-year-old him with Daniel Radcliffe, captioned ''Reunited at last.''

I just made it on my phone, and thankfully, he loved it (and definitely doesn't think it's real this time) Seriously though, we had another conversation about the whole situation. My brother said it was still crappy to find out like this, and so late, but that he appreciates me telling the truth.

I asked him about the memory and how it felt so real to him, since a lot of comments were wondering that too. He said that, looking back, it's possible he knew it wasn't real at first but started telling a story about it to impress his friends, and somewhere along the way, he started believing his own hype.

I also told him about the post, and we had a good laugh reading through some of the comments together. But when I jokingly asked if I could share either photo, he gave me a hard no. So, sorry, these masterpieces stay in the family!

The internet had a lot to say in response.

acegirl1985 wrote:

I’m glad you two worked it out. It’s unfortunate it got so out of hand but why didn’t your parents ever step in and correct it? I mean you were just the older sibling who tried to make their little brother feel better after a major let down. I 100% get why you did it and I think it was a really sweet gesture but why did the child’s parents never step in and correct him?

Why did they never pull him aside and tell him it wasn’t real? Hell they probably had the Santa conversation, they couldn’t have just tacked this on too? It’d of actually been the perfect segue. I get that kids like to play make believe and I’d never want parents to quash their child’s creativity or imagination but there’s a difference between letting you kid play pretend and letting them go all in on a delusion.

NTA but you weren’t the one in charge of raising the kid. You did something nice to cheer up your little brother. That was very sweet but when they realized it wasn’t just a childish game and he genuinely believed the story they should have stepped in.

MorningLanky3192 wrote:

Memory isn't something we replay like a tape or digital file. It's something we actively remake every time we recall it. Apparently we are more likely to accurately recall an old memory we have randomly been reminded of than we are a cherished (or challenging) memory we often think of.

And when we "remember" an experience that sparks particularly strong emotions in us, the same parts of our brain are activated as when we live that experience.

Garrais02 wrote:

I can imagine you two reading all the YTA comments and your brother being like: you're terrible, the entire internet agrees with me!

Ahhaha nice!

SarkyMs wrote:

False memories are incredibly real. That is why eye witness accounts are terrible evidence in trials.