Thanks to the deterioration of our democracy and political landscape the line between fact and fiction has officially evaporated. It's all a blur and anything goes.
We've all been taken in and mislead by major campaigns of marketing and propaganda.
But any historian will tell you that the feeling seems new, but it has long been a successful practice since the dawn of time.
We live in a world of lies. Politics, entertainment, food, fitness, education... there is no end to the amount purposefully mishandled or manipulated information.
Redditor u/AdEducational7137 wanted to hear about the marketing efforts that surprisingly, got us, by asking:
What is the most successful propaganda effort in history?
I for one am tired of heading about how fitness releases endorphins, therefore I'll super happy and thrilled once I'm on a treadmill. I have never enjoyed one second on a treadmill. So Beach Body... you can shove it!
Avoidance
Friends Moving GIFGiphy"That fat is the thing to avoid in foods taking away the spotlight from sugar."
Not so rare...
"De Beers diamond campaign. Idk if propaganda, but was the best advertising campaign of all time."
- HuntStag
"Diamonds can actually burn with enough oxygen and heat. They also degrade back to graphite on their own (over a billion years, but still) or much more rapidly if the proper energy source is used (say a high energy laser). The real propaganda is that diamonds are very rare. They are not, just highly controlled by De Beers, who are known to buy any competing mines. Of all the precious stones, diamonds are the most common."
Fused...
"The McDonald's coffee lawsuit. The lawyers made it out to be frivolous but the lady just wanted her medical bills payed after the coffee was so hot (they overheated it so people would go for less free refills) that she burned her lap and had her labia fused to her thighs."
- calvanus
An Error
"Not wartime propaganda. A notational error. "As the story goes, in 1870, a German chemist named Erich von Wolf was researching the nutritional benefits of spinach. In his notes, he accidentally printed the decimal point in the vegetable's iron content in the wrong spot. Wolf accidentally increased the vegetable's iron level to 10 times the actual amount — 3.5 grams of iron suddenly became 35 grams, an extremely high amount of iron."
Just for Bugs...
bugs bunny wtf GIF by Looney TunesGiphy"Myth of carrots being good for eyesight coming from WW2 to hide RAF victories against the german flyers coming from the use of radar."
"It's a myth but it's still true. Carrots are high in lutein and beta carotene which are both good for eye health…"
I've always loved carrots just because I love them. My eyesight is good but I think that's thanks to God. And I have always found McDonald's coffee to be lukewarm at best. So no lawsuit for me.
Worry Now!
Climate Change Earth GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphy"Small personal changes will prevent climate change. Until things change at the industrial and corporate level the planet is screwed."
The War
"Vietnam was probably one of the most successful ones."
"I remember reading this comment once, that really pointed out how weird the Vietnam War was handled post-war by the U.S. I don't remember it exactly, but it went something along the lines of:"
"It's strange that we invaded Vietnam and decades later we now make movies about how sad soldiers were while invading and killing the Vietnamese. It's the equivalent of a burglar making a film about how sad they are breaking into someone's home and beating them up."
Reuse...
"Recycling plastics. Something like only 9-10% of recycled plastic is actually… recycled. Plastics that we all recycle are sent to a recycling center where they are melded/smashed into big cubes. Plastic using companies, say Coca Cola, have to then buy these cubes to use for their bottling."
"It typically is more labor intensive and expensive to use these recycled cubes than to just use new plastic. Therefore, after some time, these cubes are discarded by recycling companies just like normal trash is. Big oil pushed recycling propaganda HARD to make people feel better about using plastics when they switched over from glass."
Anne & Jane
"Pretty much anything about Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. All historical evidence shows Anne as a sweet, kind, generous woman who genuinely loved Henry (they were together for around a decade), whilst all contemporary accounts show Jane to be nasty, conniving and abusive to her maids."
"Anne's reputation was initially smeared because Henry's advisors disliked how much money (that they wanted spent on them/their projects) she gave to charity. They started a mass smear campaign, and executed her based on trumped up charges that most historians agree were utterly false. The propaganda continued after her execution to ensure that Henry didn't look bad."
"Jane Seymour only has a positive reputation because she was paraded around as a sort of angelic type, in large part to justify Henry's relationship with her to the public (who contrary to popular fiction, were fond of Anne due to her charity and advocacy work) so as to prevent unrest. This reputation continued after her death and was intentionally emphasised to further enhance/legitimise Edward's claim over Mary and Elizabeth's."
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Being a Bruncher
Gay Want GIFGiphy"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Nice little marketing campaign by major breakfast food manufacturers to increase sales."
- llcucf80
The Real Succubus...
"I'm gonna pick out a much less recent one than a lot of people... hey, turns out Cleopatra was actually pretty average-looking! What she WAS was a really intelligent and sharp political operator who terrified the Romans. They ran a very good smear campaign, painting her as a succubus to disguise that."
Not so Rare
"Diamonds are forever. super successful commercial, made it the go-to engagement stone. Die ewige Juden - spreading anti jewish propaganda for maybe a decade has inflamed hatred/violence in he mid east to this day. It wasn't a picnic before, but it's gotten a lot worse."
"Diamonds also are not even rare, the whole industry is just manufactured scarcity."
Saturday Night Live Nbc GIF by HULUBeautiful...
"Keep America beautiful" still has people believing that it's the job of the end consumer to clean up "littered waste" instead of forcing companies to stop high waste practices for higher profits."
"Recycling of plastic was devised as a way to take the burden of the environment impact of the plastic industry and put in on the consumer. When in reality, we should just not be using single-use plastic for most things."
"bankrupt"
"Installing universal healthcare in America will "bankrupt" the country. Several countries have, successfully, had some form of a universal healthcare system for over a century and their economies aren't hurting b/c of it."
Lost Cause...
"Lost Cause mythology convinced 5 generations that the dirty traitors fighting to enslave children were the GOOD GUYS."
"The worst part of Lost Cause revisionism is that the Confederate leaders thoroughly documented why they seceded. It was so overwhelmingly about slavery that they couldn't shut up about how much it was about slavery."
- CHIM_Jim
Shot Up
President Biden Politics GIF by NowThisGiphy"That vaccines cause autism and other harm. Not everyone believes, but those that do will die (literally) on that hill."
We really will believe anything. Won't we? Or maybe that's what we're manipulated to believe? Who knows.
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