Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Break Down The Most Successful Propaganda Efforts Of All Time

People Break Down The Most Successful Propaganda Efforts Of All Time
Image by Javier Rodriguez from Pixabay

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."

- Fit-Scallion-6526

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."

- dataninja_of_alchemy

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."

- skiddelybop

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."

- aging_geek

"It's a myth but it's still true. Carrots are high in lutein and beta carotene which are both good for eye health…"

- Fit-ish_Mom

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."

- Liberal_irony

The War

"Vietnam was probably one of the most successful ones."

- Melodic_Ad_3959

"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."

- RiceAlicorn

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."

- purpelpeepleeater

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."

- BandNervous

The Best 'Actually, You're Speaking To The Boss' Experience | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

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."

- NotAnotherBookworm

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."

- StabbyPants

"Diamonds also are not even rare, the whole industry is just manufactured scarcity."

- EquinoxOV

Sunny No!

Saturday Night Live Nbc GIF by HULUGiphy

"Sunny delight was healthy."

- mada54321

"Healthy for the soul."

- _Mymyamo_

Beautiful...

"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."

- tamtamdanseren

"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."

- TrevorPace

"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."

- TokenBlackman7

Lost Cause...

"Lost Cause mythology convinced 5 generations that the dirty traitors fighting to enslave children were the GOOD GUYS."

- Sphinxofblackkwarts

"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."

- scooterpdx42

We really will believe anything. Won't we? Or maybe that's what we're manipulated to believe? Who knows.

Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Katie Couric; Melania Trump
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for The Michael J. Fox Foundation; Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

Katie Couric Has Hilariously Shady 1-Word Response To Clip Of Melania Singing In Her Documentary

Finding great moments from the Melania Trump vanity project, her self-titled documentary, may prove difficult. Largely described as a $75 million dollar bribe—$45 million to make and $30 million to market—from Amazon's Jeff Bezos to MAGA Republican President Donald Trump, the film was a bomb at the box office and savaged by critics.

This was despite suspicious bulk ticket purchases during Melania's opening weekend and review bombing by Trump's MAGA minions to try to prop up the film that followed Melania Trump around as she tried to pick out clothes in the 20 days leading up to Trump's second inauguration.

Keep ReadingShow less
Person with MAGA hat
Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images

An Older MAGA Voter's Rant About How Prices Are Going Up Due To Trump Is Getting Epically Skewered

Keith Pedersen, a senior Trump voter, went viral after sharing on Facebook his complaints about how prices for gas, groceries and other essentials are going up under President Trump—and has received some very unsympathetic responses.

In January, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins claimed that food prices were coming down, even as the Consumer Price Index shows grocery costs rose 0.7% in December. Beef, which Rollins elevated near the top of the food pyramid in the dietary guidelines she recently unveiled, increased 1% over the month and was up 16.4% compared with a year earlier.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots of Brooks Potteiger and Joshua Haymes; James Talarico
@RightWingWatch/X (left and center); Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images (right)

Pete Hegseth's Pastor Prays With MAGA Podcaster That 'God Kills' James Talarico In Bonkers Video

MAGA podcaster Joshua Haymes and pastor Brooks Potteiger—who counts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth among his congregants—sparked anger after they prayed that "God kills" Texas Senate nominee James Talarico.

Earlier this month, Talarico pulled off an upset against Texas Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett, who has urged Democrats to support his candidacy as the 2026 midterm season kicks off.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from video of crosswalk playing anti-Trump messages
@imfromdenver/Instagram

Someone Hacked Crosswalks In Denver To Play Hilariously NSFW Anti-Trump Messages—And It's Brilliant

Hackers changed the messages on some newly-installed crosswalks in Denver, Colorado, to play messages criticizing President Donald Trump—to the delight of anti-Trumpers.

The crosswalk push-buttons were newly installed and “still bagged,” operating on factory settings that included a default password easily found online, according to Nancy Kuhn of the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. She said the password has now been changed and officials “don’t expect a repeat situation" at these locations.

Keep ReadingShow less
The real cast of "Friends": Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and David Schwimmer.
Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

An AI Video About Who Would Star In 'Friends' If It Was Cast Today Has Everyone Completely Puzzled

“I’ll be there for you”… except, wait—why is that person playing Chandler Bing? That’s the question viewers kept asking after an AI fan video of Friends began circulating online with some very questionable casting choices.

In a repost by @SweetTexanRose, the user summed up the confusion:

Keep ReadingShow less