Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:50 — 25.6MB) | Embed
Edward Bernays. The guy who increased cigarette sales among American women (when females smoking was a taboo) by organizing a march with paid protestors and feminist groups labelling cigarettes as “torches of freedom” and a sign of female emancipation in 1929. And it worked. Cigarette sales skyrocketed among American women.
Today’s episode is about the media and Public Relations industry and the way they shape your perceptions about yourself and the world. You’re probably wondering, “Sami, what does any of this have to do with self-development?”
One of the 21st century’s biggest issues is the massive amount of information available to us. It’s fast. Instant. We basically have the entire world at our fingertips.
This episode will focus on one factor in particular. The media and advertising. And the way it shapes our worldview.
Today, we will take a look at the genius, yet diabolical, advertising schemes of Edward Bernays, the Father of Public Relations.
He is also the reason why we associate bacon and eggs as breakfast foods. Oh, I forgot to mention, he caused a CIA-supported overthrow of democratically-elected Communist Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman to protect the banana sales of the United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita Brands International). By the end of this episode, you will go to any supermarket fruit section and remember Edward Bernays.
I hope that, after this episode, you begin to question your own biases and every bit of information that you take for granted without fact-checking.
FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS!
I love you, Samoti-nation!
Sami
Disclaimer: Smoking sucks. It makes you smell bad. It makes your teeth yellow. Studies link it to cancer. Don’t do it.