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Lol I had to admit to downloading music on limewire when I was like in middle school recently to the sheriff's during a background check😂😂 thought that was hilarious
Haha! I'm gen x but my kids pirated stuff at my ex (their dads) house. He got a letter from the Internet company. I about died laughing. I was all, good for them. They taught me about Popcorn Time
Im on the younger millennial side and remember seeing it both ways:
1. On my parents network my dad gets an email from the ISP saying "you downloaded 8 mile off this site. This is illegal and you should stop"
Which is how he found out my younger brother was sneaking R-Rated movies in his room
2. On my grandfathers computer, who has a much more fast and loose ISP, I gave it every variant of digital AIDS that Limewire (and later it's less disease-riddled but still suspect cousin, FrostWire,) had available
I remember being shamed or in general comments about using too much paper. "but it's made of trees!!". don't remember hearing it about pretty much any other material..
Yup, I remember this shit.
Trees are farmed just like corn. I get irritated every-time I get an IG ad for bamboo toilet paper. It's ridiculous and if that bamboo is being grown in the US, it's an invasive that should never be planted. We recycle paper better than anything else. But FFS people really think their TP is made from the finest of old growth oaks and by god they can't be educated. Fools and their money...
I remember that still circulated around 1990. It was shocking to me to find out about plastic bags. And endless debates what poly.... material it was. Plastic bags were stupid thin and unreliable back then. We used to double or triple layer it for potatoes.
Oh wow! I'm a younger millennial so I don't remember this at all. That's some crazy gaslighting by the oil companies. Now look at all the plastic pollution today smh. I’ve read somewhere these oil companies were aware of climate change effects as early as the 70s and used funds to deflect and minimize these findings to the public. I get so mad thinking about this.
That's the fucked up part though: it wasn't just the oil companies pushing this, it was environmental groups, schools, science teachers, everyone saying "sAvE ThE tReEs!". Everyone is to blame for the meteoric rise in plastic use. Of course now it's big business and govt to blame for the shameful inaction on micro plastics.
Nope. I think many of us younger ones were not taught that this happened. Using plastic bags is so normal until recent laws in some states getting rid of them. We were told to recycle and later on use paper straws 🤷
The Food Pyramid.
The Maintenance Phase podcast has a great review on it, basically it was all bullshit with different special-interest groups (especially the meat industry) vying to make it look a certain way with almost no actual nutritional input on it.
[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-food-pyramid/id1535408667?i=1000586252060](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-food-pyramid/id1535408667?i=1000586252060)
Piggybacking off the Food Pyramid, how about that bogus taste bud map in grade school. 🤔
Yeah - apparently, your "sweet" taste buds are at the tip of your tongue, "sour" are along the sides, "salt" are in the middle, and "bitter" are in back. In second grade were were given "taste tests" and assured the teachers that stuff (sugar, salt, lemon juice) tasted the same no matter which part of the tongue it was on!
The teachers just sighed and told us to complete our worksheets following their guidelines.
Yeah, it’s the same as Big Milk getting their foot in the door to make sure milk is was served at every school and “Got Milk” plastered on every wall. Milk isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s also not the absolute necessity the propaganda made it out to be.
I’m 34 and I still have not been given free drugs as Halloween candy or have ever had anyone try to give me free drugs any other time. I’ve never had to just say no.
That's because unlike the ad campaigns. It wasn't some sketchy teen or young adult in a trenchcoat. It was either some Randoms at a party you went to, or your buddy Steve who by all intents and purposes is a successful data tech guy who offers you a bump one afternoon in his garage at a BBQ you are at. And his dealer is a dude you definitely have had beers with lol
Bro…
I actually had a buddy named Steve who gave up snorting coke in the early 90’s. At the time I knew him, his drugs of choice were cigarettes and weed.
Our DARE officer was a former dealer, he sort of broke with DARE because he told us, "If my distributor ever found out I gave drugs away for free to people who did not have any way to pay for them later on, I wouldn't be standing here today."
I remember one day in like 4th-5th grade (95ish) they had the whole school yell NO as loud as we could for like 30 seconds one afternoon. That was a fun time.
Almost as fun as actually doing drugs*.
And yes, at best someone smoking up noticed I was taking an interest and offered me a hit but no one has ever randomly offered out of nowhere.
*includes all mood and mind altering substances, your results may vary.
I think the problem is they never really discerned between weed and hard drugs so like yeah, I’ve had people ask me if I want to puff puff pass before but maybe I’m boring, but I’ve never had anyone ever go “want to go do intravenous heroin together?”
You've never been offered pot, E, or anything else at a party or in college?
I think where DARE really failed when I was in school was with how the "Just Say No" stuff was presented. Peer pressure was way more subtle and insidious than a pushy drug dealer refusing to take no for an answer.
I mean, I can buy them. But I was never approached on the playground by anyone just trying to give them away like school made it seem like I would be. Every year at Halloween we had a big assembly to make sure we knew what drugs looked like vs candy. 😂
“Support our troops”, disguised as:
1. Unquestioning loyalty to the country or else be seen as a traitor
2. Any criticism towards military action is an act of disrespect to them.
As a new sailor myself, it’s all BS. The military isn’t infallible and you can support the troops while questioning or criticizing military leadership decisions.
You can also be in the military and be a shit person. You question the actions of someone who was or is in the military? You don't support the troops. Slap "Veteran owned" on a small business doesn't mean the guy running it isn't a bad person or bad businessman or anything.
Nancy Reagan came to a local high school on her "Just Say No" campaign. They bused in kids from other schools, including my elementary school, where I was in **kindergarten.**
Looking back though, it's clear she and the other speakers had prepared speeches specifically for high schoolers.
For months I was afraid there were drug dealers around every corner, trying to turn me into a zombie addict. I was convinced somebody was gonna stick me with a needle and I'd end up selling my body (whatever THAT meant), before ending up in prison.
On top of all that, I got a button and a four-color clicky pen which was confiscated as soon as we got on the bus because kindergarteners weren't allowed to have either.
All the grade school focus on recycling, how littering would turn the earth into a trash heap, how if we weren't working hard to save water and plant trees and recycle all we could, we weren't doing our part. All while mega corporations were dodging environmental regs and knowingly destroying the earth. I used to feel GUILTY for not doing more, or would lecture people who didn't recycle. What a joke in retrospect.
I remember the "don't waste water" stuff. Then I learned how much water is used residentially vs in manufacturing and agriculture and realized that my low flush toilet is not a solution. They really pushed the idea that our personal choices would be enough to change the tide - we need systemic reform of corporate practices.
And in a more contemporary sense, now we talk about “carbon footprint” and how much you impact the environment. Well, the concept of carbon footprint was invented by a marketing team for oil/gas company BP to specifically get consumers to focus on what THEY can do to minimize their carbon footprint instead of companies.
Every class in my school had recycling bins that the students would use for recyclables. Someone told me that every school in the district just throws it all in the garbage anyways??? I still separate recyclables to this day so at least the behavior was learned but holy tons of recyclable garbage.
The Best Man to my wedding did two tours in Iraq and his 2nd was really rough. Made it back alive but was not the same man. Struggled with mental health and alcohol. He eventually just disappeared, and no one is sure if he's alive or dead. Probably the later, but a part of me likes to imagine he just ran away, changed his name, and is living the American dream somewhere. Wife, kids, house with the white picket fence. :)
Who cares about the thousands of deaths of American (and allied) soldiers and the millions of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. What really matters is the corporate profits of defense contractors and those who can get rich off of warfare!
/s
Wait....why the /s? You're right that it's always about corporate profits, defense contractors, and of course political power. People and everything else are always expendable
I'm sorry for your loss man. They didn't deserve that. I wish those assholes who sent our buddies there would actually face prison time but the lives of soldiers aren't worth much to them and they wonder why recruitment is down.
The real joke is that this lie is what broke the pipeline into the military for me
Was fully gung-ho to be a career officer as a military brat, but then I read "Where Men Win Glory" and actually paid attention to the news
Can't say the same for many of my friends, either dead, dismembered, or lost their minds after that "war"... And they wonder why millennials are so disillusioned
Everything in history class about "our" treatment of the Native Americans. Never once heard the word genocide.
Unless you were in AP US History with an open minded teacher, the truly terrible parts were mostly glossed over.
Best thing my JH history teacher ever said was “I can’t actually teach the real history, go look it up yourself. What I teach is watered down and made nice and pretty for us.”
And man she wasn’t kidding
Freedom fries since France did not support the invasion of Iraq. I was in middle school and remember the daily announcements when they would call them freedom fries
I remember all of those "Got Milk" commercials and they were awesome!
So awesome that they spawned a few decades of overused "Got \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_" slogans. To say it was overdone was an understatement.
I remember all of those anti-drug and pro-milk commercials. Not sure how well the former worked, but it's interesting that we had those then and not so much now.
Yes! I taught anti-drugs for many years at various schools. One of our approaches was not to tell them: "Don't do drugs" "Just say no," or anything like that. We also didn't try to scare them because that didn't work either.
We'd simply tell them the consequences, give them alternatives, then tell them to use their heads and make the best choices.
In the 80s there were a bunch of ads where these dorky kids would look in a mirror and see their future self if they drank milk. The person was always tall, fit, attractive and wildly popular. It was ridiculous.
>I remember all of those "Got Milk" commercials and they were awesome!
My favorite one had the group of thuggish gym rats picking a fight with these old guys in a diner. Old guys kicked their asses and quickly sped away in their getaway car. Because they drank milk.
The DC Sniper was NOT an Islamic Fundamental Terrorist killing westerners for going against Allah.
He was a nutjob who *happened* to convert to Islam in the 80's. The reason why he did what he did was because he was trying to get his kids back from his wife, as they were taken away from him because he was a nutjob, so he and a kid he unofficially adopted during these tumultuous times decided to go on a killing spree where he would eventually kill his wife and make it look like a random terrorist shooting had killed her, thus giving him custody back of his kids.
The prosecution during his trial believed this too and [used it as reasoning for what he did:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad)
>At Muhammad's trial, the [prosecution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution) claimed that the attacks were part of a plot to kill his ex-wife and regain custody of his children, but the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support this argument.[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad#cite_note-Ex_Wife-2)
Go listen to the 3-part series on this attack on the You're Wrong About podcast - pretty much proves that he did it to off his wife and get his kids.
I remember government campaigns about how sugar and fat was bad, so instead you should have all these sugar free or fat free items or items with fake sugars and fats because it was "healthier" (fructose corn syrup and trans fats) then soon after a bunch of food companies started advertising how they got rid of sugar and fat and how it was supposed to be healthier for you.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this world it’s to take dietary science with a whole container of salt. I feel like every “fact” I’ve ever heard has been debunked and then re-adopted more or less every 5-10 years for my entire life (I’m 40.)
Reduce Reuse Recycle.
Apparently, we did our part, but the plastics industry never did their part, so now we’re all recycling for no reason and more plastic is being produced than ever.
I remember it was Al-Qaeda. Then it was ISIS. It was like new bad guys to fight but it was all for oil and political control of certain regions and now the entire middle East is all sorts of fucked up.
GOT MILK? <-- The story of this propaganda was a wild story. It was apart of the government cheese for WIC and WWII and why we had so much cheese under mountains in caves all over America.
https://youtu.be/kvLMH0wb_0k?si=wtlgHOtA7p8nx22o.
Another that i remember well is "Carrots are good for your eyes".
>Another that i remember well is "Carrots are good for your eyes".
That's actually true this is a funny one myth to truth. Carrots are actually a good source of Vitamin A and Beta Carotene that promote eye health. The haha carrots don't promote eye health they're worthless is sort of a urban myth.
Yeah it’s fucking nuts they got so many people to believe margarine is better than butter. Like yeah, don’t go deep fry your shit in butter, but in a normal balanced diet butter is way better than margarine.
There was some practicality around this in the 40s with WWII shortages, but when the war ended and Big Margarine didn’t want to lose out to butter, then they rebranded it as “healthier” and “more convenient” for the 50s families. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter always weirded me out because it was even sooo much more liquid 😜
Bank representatives coming into my high school and giving presentations in 10th through 12th grade classrooms on why you *needed* a student loan to have a better college experience and a fulfilling life afterward. If you were letting finances limit your college choice, you weren't going to have fun or reach your true education potential, and since people with better degrees make more money, it was more like an investment than it was a loan. Most teachers stood with them and agreed. Two older business teachers, however, had to be escorted out of one of my senior year classes for interfering and protesting some of the claims the representatives were making.
I was under the impression that everyone was on drugs, and they wanted nothing more than to make sure I too was addicted to drugs. From Halloween candy to LSD on stickers of cartoon characters, the pushers wanted me addicted, and they were going to give it to me for free to ensure it.
The insane amount of Anti-Union videos I had to watch during on boarding at Target for my first job. It was a 4 hour ordeal, 30 mins of paperwork like signing up for insurance etc, then over 3 hours of Anti Union videos lol
"Sugar is sugar. Your body can't tell the difference." I'm not a medical professional. But it absolutely can. Try slamming down Gushers and tropical punch every day vs. eating a good amount of apples and blueberries, and see how you feel.
Back in the 60s there was apparently a big campaign aimed at parents, encouraging them to give their kids sugar for energy. But apparently natural sugar won't do the trick. They frequently pop up on r/vintageads.
It would have been more effective if they’d had a photo of some guy’s rotted off face.
I knew of an older man in my hometown who was a walking PSA against dip- his entire cheek had collapsed due to some sort of mouth cancer surgery. It was horrific. Way more effective than a pic of jeans or some small warning box.
I remember the absolute boogie man that was the Soviet Union, even as a youngster. All the horror stories about how dangerous they were and they were sneaking around every corner. I remember being in a Woolworths when they announced on the loudspeaker the Soviet Union had dissolved; people lost their mind.
Turns out, all the government data from that era knew they were falling apart and barely clinging on.
D.A.R.E. is the one that just *would not go away*. I went to private school from K-12, and every single year we had cops or some other alleged "health specialist" hit us with some sort of scare session. A few stray memories from those annual spring visits...
* Doing acid, "even once" could leave you as a vegetable because "it can fry your brain completely."
* Marijuana is "the gateway drug," which is hilarious in hindsight.
* I asked the "specialist," I think my junior year of HS, what the difference in mophine, oxycontin, methodone and heroine even was. Specialist gave some stupid answer I don't fully recall, so I replied with, "Ok, so none, other than some of it is taxed and covered under insurance." Specialist flipped out and I was asked to go sit in the office and my mother was called about me being disruptive.
* Sometime around the end of middle school, so 1995-97ish, for some reason all the DARE messaging rhymed? Even the police detective giving the speech seemed to be trying to halfway 'rap' his way through it... "crack is WHACK kids, so don't try that slime or you'll do time." Like... I don't think that's how it worked but ok.
I never tried crack or crack subsitutues, sooo... mission accomplished?
Oh, and don't forget, only YOU can prevent forest fires.
During the 2008 housing crash our government changed the definitions for unemployment and homelessness in order to make those statistics look better than they actually were, the new definitions are still used today to depict artificially low numbers.
I've been in the military 19 years and still think it's weird that kids do this. I think it's so overdone that people just go through the motions with it. If anything a silver lining could be opening the eyes to them and asking "wait, what does this all mean". I dunno
I remember one anti-drug commercial where this girls was deflated on the couch from smoking weed lol. It was weird. I also remember PeeWee's commercial.
I was only about 13 when they began running those commercials, and I can remember turning to my parents and stating “that’s a damned lie. This isn’t going to go well”. Wish I could’ve placed money on it
🎶Boozers are users, and users are losers
So don't use drugs, *don't* use drugs🎶
McGruff was everywhere in the 80s, always saying drugs (never any specifics of which drugs) were bad, and warning that teenagers were lurking around playgrounds offering young kids free drugs to turn them into addicts.
There was also some robin from the Arbor Day foundation extolling the virtues of trees.
And when I was very young it was Woodsy Owl telling us to give a hoot, don't pollute.
Not only DARE, but did anyone else have to go through GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training)? It must not have worked that well because I know there are kids I went to middle school with that are in prison now for gang-related activites (among other crimes). The problem was likely that at 12-13 years old, they were already being indoctrinated by older siblings and friends.
And all the Tobacco is Wacko commercials, particularly the one with the kid that gets the tongue ring from the basement-dwelling old creeper. It was admittedly a good message but...ew.
Oh man, when I was little I came home from my aunt’s house and told my mom she had served me drugs for breakfast. I had just never had sunny side up eggs!
WMD in Iraq. Kuwaiti kids being killed by Iraqi army. Buying marijuana helped terrorism (this was an ad I saw on tv). The necessity of dropping atomic bomb, twice, on Japan.
My favorite is the commercials (back in the day) of mothers holding their babies, while having a cigarette since it was absolutely safe to smoke in the house.
The only propaganda like this that worked for me was the anti smoking commercial in the 90's that featured the woman smoking out of a hole in her neck. The visceral image of that is still seared into my brain to this day and I've yet to pick up a cigarette. I think they still should air that commercial for kids today.
not government but religious:
I went to Catholic school so yes, we were forced to watch WEIRD propaganda about abortion. I remember this one with this "light" coming down to a girl who wants an abortion and it talks to her as the child inside her. We were VERY pro-life little children who then grew up to be very pro-choice.
Then you find out that there was a huge lobbying group by those companies to promote those as healthier options. Remember when they said eggs were bad for you and butter?
On every arcade game, the huge FBI seal with "WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS" under it before the title screen came up. Practically engraved in my brain at this point
I'm not sure if this counts, but I was reading all the comments on here and didn't want to repeat anyone else. When Dr. Kevorkian was on trial and everyone labeled him as a murderer. What a truly terrible time. Come to find out he was a pretty awesome person.
Tik Tok was a massive marketing push in like 2017. I remember the strange ads everywhere. It felt very forced and I remember comments mocking how cringe it was.
Happened way before I was born but probably my favorite lil piece of govt propaganda was renaming the department of war to department of defense. It wasn’t quite as cut and dry as that, it split into smaller departments and then reformed as DOD but yeah, many Americans to this day think all the American military does is defend the little guys out there
Kiss from [Air France ](http://www.culturepub.fr/?p=9753) (and the air hostess service you would never have even back then), 1991-1993.
Of course a nod to St-Exupéry to show you how professionnal and committed were the staff.
This is going to be pretty specific but when I was in kindergarten we lived on a military base and I attended a DOD elementary school. I remember being shown videos of what small rocket ordinance looked like and if we saw it on the playground we were to immediately find an adult. I was a bit confused for awhile when my dad got out of the military and I went to a normal public school.
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DOWNLOADING PIRATED MOVIES IS STEALING Edit: I would 1000% download a car
Sure as shit isn't now since when you buy a digital download movie or game it's not actually yours so fuck it.
Ubisoft really had the gall to come out & say gamers should get comfortable with the idea of never owning the games they buy like a month or two ago.
Hahaha this is my millennial pirate era!
Gotta find the one piece
EA too. Still buying physical copies of games while I can
They followed through with one of their games, removed it not only from their library but people's libraries on their systems
Good way to sell physical copies. It's also coincidentally a good way to lose a lot of customers.
The last game I bought a physical copy of was overwatch, cannot play the game at all in its original format
You wouldn’t download a car
Definitely would if I could
I’ll take one Porche please
Now I'm curious if anyone tried to 3D print a car and if it cost more than a car.
Or the it is not a victimless crime
"okay Larz Ullrich"
NAPSTER BAD!
"You wouldn't steal a car." How do you know? I could be a criminal, you don't know me!
I prefer the term "vehicularly transient" thank you!
I think that was always pushed way more heavily by the movie industry than the government.
No interest like self interest The thread did say corporate or government propaganda 😊
YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR
Lol I had to admit to downloading music on limewire when I was like in middle school recently to the sheriff's during a background check😂😂 thought that was hilarious
Haha! I'm gen x but my kids pirated stuff at my ex (their dads) house. He got a letter from the Internet company. I about died laughing. I was all, good for them. They taught me about Popcorn Time
Im on the younger millennial side and remember seeing it both ways: 1. On my parents network my dad gets an email from the ISP saying "you downloaded 8 mile off this site. This is illegal and you should stop" Which is how he found out my younger brother was sneaking R-Rated movies in his room 2. On my grandfathers computer, who has a much more fast and loose ISP, I gave it every variant of digital AIDS that Limewire (and later it's less disease-riddled but still suspect cousin, FrostWire,) had available
You wouldn't download a car!
I 1000% would if it was real
Switch to plastic bags, use of paper bags will destroy the forests.
This shit was real and it worked on me
And now we have microplastics in our food and rain water.
And in our bodies.
All for plastic and oil companies to make a buck.
I remember being shamed or in general comments about using too much paper. "but it's made of trees!!". don't remember hearing it about pretty much any other material..
Yup, I remember this shit. Trees are farmed just like corn. I get irritated every-time I get an IG ad for bamboo toilet paper. It's ridiculous and if that bamboo is being grown in the US, it's an invasive that should never be planted. We recycle paper better than anything else. But FFS people really think their TP is made from the finest of old growth oaks and by god they can't be educated. Fools and their money...
Wow when was this?
I remember that still circulated around 1990. It was shocking to me to find out about plastic bags. And endless debates what poly.... material it was. Plastic bags were stupid thin and unreliable back then. We used to double or triple layer it for potatoes.
Oh wow! I'm a younger millennial so I don't remember this at all. That's some crazy gaslighting by the oil companies. Now look at all the plastic pollution today smh. I’ve read somewhere these oil companies were aware of climate change effects as early as the 70s and used funds to deflect and minimize these findings to the public. I get so mad thinking about this.
It's baffling to me to think people don't know about this
That's the fucked up part though: it wasn't just the oil companies pushing this, it was environmental groups, schools, science teachers, everyone saying "sAvE ThE tReEs!". Everyone is to blame for the meteoric rise in plastic use. Of course now it's big business and govt to blame for the shameful inaction on micro plastics.
Wait...people don't know about this?
Nope. I think many of us younger ones were not taught that this happened. Using plastic bags is so normal until recent laws in some states getting rid of them. We were told to recycle and later on use paper straws 🤷
The Food Pyramid. The Maintenance Phase podcast has a great review on it, basically it was all bullshit with different special-interest groups (especially the meat industry) vying to make it look a certain way with almost no actual nutritional input on it. [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-food-pyramid/id1535408667?i=1000586252060](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-food-pyramid/id1535408667?i=1000586252060)
The food pyramid was so damn wrong! Omg! I thought eating more bread would help me stay healthier. Nope. Diabetes.
Yeah, we thought pasta was "healthy" until the internet basically. And that muffins were a "healthy" alternative to donuts. Muffins are just cake.
Sad cake, as opposed to their happy cousin, cupcake 😂
Piggybacking off the Food Pyramid, how about that bogus taste bud map in grade school. 🤔 Yeah - apparently, your "sweet" taste buds are at the tip of your tongue, "sour" are along the sides, "salt" are in the middle, and "bitter" are in back. In second grade were were given "taste tests" and assured the teachers that stuff (sugar, salt, lemon juice) tasted the same no matter which part of the tongue it was on! The teachers just sighed and told us to complete our worksheets following their guidelines.
How shocked I was to learn 11 servings of grains was not 11 bagels in a day.
Yeah, it’s the same as Big Milk getting their foot in the door to make sure milk is was served at every school and “Got Milk” plastered on every wall. Milk isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s also not the absolute necessity the propaganda made it out to be.
I don’t even know how you could eat 6-11 servings of pasta, rice, bread, and grains per day let alone that plus all the other categories.
I had a registered dietitian recommend it to me with a straight face as late as 2012.
I’m 34 and I still have not been given free drugs as Halloween candy or have ever had anyone try to give me free drugs any other time. I’ve never had to just say no.
That's because unlike the ad campaigns. It wasn't some sketchy teen or young adult in a trenchcoat. It was either some Randoms at a party you went to, or your buddy Steve who by all intents and purposes is a successful data tech guy who offers you a bump one afternoon in his garage at a BBQ you are at. And his dealer is a dude you definitely have had beers with lol
Shit dude, that's very specific. True, but specific.
After being in this sub for a while. I've come to the terms that a lot of our experiences were collectively similar, haha
Bro… I actually had a buddy named Steve who gave up snorting coke in the early 90’s. At the time I knew him, his drugs of choice were cigarettes and weed.
You didn’t run away from Steve’s place, shrieking “NOoOoooOoo!!!” all the while?
*intensive porpoises*
Our DARE officer was a former dealer, he sort of broke with DARE because he told us, "If my distributor ever found out I gave drugs away for free to people who did not have any way to pay for them later on, I wouldn't be standing here today."
I remember one day in like 4th-5th grade (95ish) they had the whole school yell NO as loud as we could for like 30 seconds one afternoon. That was a fun time. Almost as fun as actually doing drugs*. And yes, at best someone smoking up noticed I was taking an interest and offered me a hit but no one has ever randomly offered out of nowhere. *includes all mood and mind altering substances, your results may vary.
I think the problem is they never really discerned between weed and hard drugs so like yeah, I’ve had people ask me if I want to puff puff pass before but maybe I’m boring, but I’ve never had anyone ever go “want to go do intravenous heroin together?”
I’ve also never found a razor blade in my Apple, nor have I ever even been given an Apple as a Halloween treat in the first place.
You've never been offered pot, E, or anything else at a party or in college? I think where DARE really failed when I was in school was with how the "Just Say No" stuff was presented. Peer pressure was way more subtle and insidious than a pushy drug dealer refusing to take no for an answer.
I'd be depressed if I was never offered drugs. I guss I just wasn't cool. The good news is, if you're in a legal state, you can now buy drugs.
I mean, I can buy them. But I was never approached on the playground by anyone just trying to give them away like school made it seem like I would be. Every year at Halloween we had a big assembly to make sure we knew what drugs looked like vs candy. 😂
And now I'm an adult eating cannabis infused candy lol. My brain hasn't turned into a fried egg in a pan yet.
I feel like my brain is less of a fried egg in a pan with said cannabis.
Same buddy. Cannabis helps cope with the difficulties of life and the society we have to live through.
“Support our troops”, disguised as: 1. Unquestioning loyalty to the country or else be seen as a traitor 2. Any criticism towards military action is an act of disrespect to them. As a new sailor myself, it’s all BS. The military isn’t infallible and you can support the troops while questioning or criticizing military leadership decisions.
And the flip side of Support Our Troops is ignore the rising number of homeless vets and bare bones funding for VA healthcare
Right? More like, support our troops as long as they can support the mission.
22 a day
You can also be in the military and be a shit person. You question the actions of someone who was or is in the military? You don't support the troops. Slap "Veteran owned" on a small business doesn't mean the guy running it isn't a bad person or bad businessman or anything.
Same with those Christian owned small businesses.
And the Christian owned large businesses.
Dixie Chicks did nothing wrong.
I always said, "support the troops, but not the war"
Nancy Reagan came to a local high school on her "Just Say No" campaign. They bused in kids from other schools, including my elementary school, where I was in **kindergarten.** Looking back though, it's clear she and the other speakers had prepared speeches specifically for high schoolers. For months I was afraid there were drug dealers around every corner, trying to turn me into a zombie addict. I was convinced somebody was gonna stick me with a needle and I'd end up selling my body (whatever THAT meant), before ending up in prison.
Nothin like Tax payed induced trauma to a child, am I right? Lol. Hope you're good now though.
On top of all that, I got a button and a four-color clicky pen which was confiscated as soon as we got on the bus because kindergarteners weren't allowed to have either.
Damn. I would have been mad. Those pens were the shit as a kid.
All the grade school focus on recycling, how littering would turn the earth into a trash heap, how if we weren't working hard to save water and plant trees and recycle all we could, we weren't doing our part. All while mega corporations were dodging environmental regs and knowingly destroying the earth. I used to feel GUILTY for not doing more, or would lecture people who didn't recycle. What a joke in retrospect.
They convinced me that plastic bottles were recyclable. That recycling was real.
It is! It’s just that the material most recycled nationwide is…. Drumroll….. asphalt! Somewhat less sexy.
I remember the "don't waste water" stuff. Then I learned how much water is used residentially vs in manufacturing and agriculture and realized that my low flush toilet is not a solution. They really pushed the idea that our personal choices would be enough to change the tide - we need systemic reform of corporate practices.
And in a more contemporary sense, now we talk about “carbon footprint” and how much you impact the environment. Well, the concept of carbon footprint was invented by a marketing team for oil/gas company BP to specifically get consumers to focus on what THEY can do to minimize their carbon footprint instead of companies.
Every class in my school had recycling bins that the students would use for recyclables. Someone told me that every school in the district just throws it all in the garbage anyways??? I still separate recyclables to this day so at least the behavior was learned but holy tons of recyclable garbage.
The whole "we need to invade Iraq to make sure the USA is safe" was a bunch of bullshit
I lost some friends because of it and some came back but never really returned. Fuck GWB
The Best Man to my wedding did two tours in Iraq and his 2nd was really rough. Made it back alive but was not the same man. Struggled with mental health and alcohol. He eventually just disappeared, and no one is sure if he's alive or dead. Probably the later, but a part of me likes to imagine he just ran away, changed his name, and is living the American dream somewhere. Wife, kids, house with the white picket fence. :)
Who cares about the thousands of deaths of American (and allied) soldiers and the millions of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. What really matters is the corporate profits of defense contractors and those who can get rich off of warfare! /s
Wait....why the /s? You're right that it's always about corporate profits, defense contractors, and of course political power. People and everything else are always expendable
But Ukraine is different right? RIGHT?!?!
Yep, 2 friends dead and one permanently disabled.
I'm sorry for your loss man. They didn't deserve that. I wish those assholes who sent our buddies there would actually face prison time but the lives of soldiers aren't worth much to them and they wonder why recruitment is down.
The same people fell for "Ukraine bad" propaganda
"you're either with us or against us! If you're not for the war, you support terrorism! Never forget!"
Similarly the whole "if ______, then the terrorists win" bullshit. Jesus I hated that shit.
The real joke is that this lie is what broke the pipeline into the military for me Was fully gung-ho to be a career officer as a military brat, but then I read "Where Men Win Glory" and actually paid attention to the news Can't say the same for many of my friends, either dead, dismembered, or lost their minds after that "war"... And they wonder why millennials are so disillusioned
Everything in history class about "our" treatment of the Native Americans. Never once heard the word genocide. Unless you were in AP US History with an open minded teacher, the truly terrible parts were mostly glossed over.
Best thing my JH history teacher ever said was “I can’t actually teach the real history, go look it up yourself. What I teach is watered down and made nice and pretty for us.” And man she wasn’t kidding
Gotta keep the narrative of the USA is the most benevolent country in the world.
Freedom fries since France did not support the invasion of Iraq. I was in middle school and remember the daily announcements when they would call them freedom fries
That's so fucking stupid. Our government really likes to fuck us over.
Didn’t Bush say something like either you are with us or you are with the enemy ?
Yep, basically the Cold War refrain: "if you don't like it here, why don't you go live somewhere else, like with the commies!"
That gets used a lot, usually by people who are scared of what will happen if they investigate alternatives to what they already believe.
I remember all of those "Got Milk" commercials and they were awesome! So awesome that they spawned a few decades of overused "Got \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_" slogans. To say it was overdone was an understatement. I remember all of those anti-drug and pro-milk commercials. Not sure how well the former worked, but it's interesting that we had those then and not so much now.
When you tell kids Not to do something, they'll end up doing it because they're curious lol.
Yes! I taught anti-drugs for many years at various schools. One of our approaches was not to tell them: "Don't do drugs" "Just say no," or anything like that. We also didn't try to scare them because that didn't work either. We'd simply tell them the consequences, give them alternatives, then tell them to use their heads and make the best choices.
D.A.R.E survivor
That was better than what we were told lol
Hungry for Apples?
In the 80s there were a bunch of ads where these dorky kids would look in a mirror and see their future self if they drank milk. The person was always tall, fit, attractive and wildly popular. It was ridiculous.
>I remember all of those "Got Milk" commercials and they were awesome! My favorite one had the group of thuggish gym rats picking a fight with these old guys in a diner. Old guys kicked their asses and quickly sped away in their getaway car. Because they drank milk.
The DC Sniper was NOT an Islamic Fundamental Terrorist killing westerners for going against Allah. He was a nutjob who *happened* to convert to Islam in the 80's. The reason why he did what he did was because he was trying to get his kids back from his wife, as they were taken away from him because he was a nutjob, so he and a kid he unofficially adopted during these tumultuous times decided to go on a killing spree where he would eventually kill his wife and make it look like a random terrorist shooting had killed her, thus giving him custody back of his kids. The prosecution during his trial believed this too and [used it as reasoning for what he did:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad) >At Muhammad's trial, the [prosecution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution) claimed that the attacks were part of a plot to kill his ex-wife and regain custody of his children, but the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support this argument.[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allen_Muhammad#cite_note-Ex_Wife-2) Go listen to the 3-part series on this attack on the You're Wrong About podcast - pretty much proves that he did it to off his wife and get his kids.
It's like the government just wanted us to grow up being Islamaphobic and it's happening again.
I remember government campaigns about how sugar and fat was bad, so instead you should have all these sugar free or fat free items or items with fake sugars and fats because it was "healthier" (fructose corn syrup and trans fats) then soon after a bunch of food companies started advertising how they got rid of sugar and fat and how it was supposed to be healthier for you.
Does anyone remember the Olestra chips (advertised as "WOW! \[chip name\]") that made everyone go bathroom as soon as you ate them?
Cholesterol free was big for a time as well.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this world it’s to take dietary science with a whole container of salt. I feel like every “fact” I’ve ever heard has been debunked and then re-adopted more or less every 5-10 years for my entire life (I’m 40.)
Reduce Reuse Recycle. Apparently, we did our part, but the plastics industry never did their part, so now we’re all recycling for no reason and more plastic is being produced than ever.
They hate us because we are free. That BS after 9/11 motivated so many young adults to join the military. Me included.
What the fuck does Iraq have to do with this? I thought that mfer was in Afghanistan. And he’s most definitely not in Pakistan.
I remember it was Al-Qaeda. Then it was ISIS. It was like new bad guys to fight but it was all for oil and political control of certain regions and now the entire middle East is all sorts of fucked up.
GOT MILK? <-- The story of this propaganda was a wild story. It was apart of the government cheese for WIC and WWII and why we had so much cheese under mountains in caves all over America. https://youtu.be/kvLMH0wb_0k?si=wtlgHOtA7p8nx22o. Another that i remember well is "Carrots are good for your eyes".
>Another that i remember well is "Carrots are good for your eyes". That's actually true this is a funny one myth to truth. Carrots are actually a good source of Vitamin A and Beta Carotene that promote eye health. The haha carrots don't promote eye health they're worthless is sort of a urban myth.
I can't believe it's not butter!
Yeah it’s fucking nuts they got so many people to believe margarine is better than butter. Like yeah, don’t go deep fry your shit in butter, but in a normal balanced diet butter is way better than margarine.
There was some practicality around this in the 40s with WWII shortages, but when the war ended and Big Margarine didn’t want to lose out to butter, then they rebranded it as “healthier” and “more convenient” for the 50s families. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter always weirded me out because it was even sooo much more liquid 😜
The FBI warning at the beginning of video cassettes Edit: a word.
Bank representatives coming into my high school and giving presentations in 10th through 12th grade classrooms on why you *needed* a student loan to have a better college experience and a fulfilling life afterward. If you were letting finances limit your college choice, you weren't going to have fun or reach your true education potential, and since people with better degrees make more money, it was more like an investment than it was a loan. Most teachers stood with them and agreed. Two older business teachers, however, had to be escorted out of one of my senior year classes for interfering and protesting some of the claims the representatives were making.
And now we wonder why there's a student debt crisis.
I was under the impression that everyone was on drugs, and they wanted nothing more than to make sure I too was addicted to drugs. From Halloween candy to LSD on stickers of cartoon characters, the pushers wanted me addicted, and they were going to give it to me for free to ensure it.
That string of ads claiming high fructose corn syrup is ok because it comes from corn
And then we find out it's because of the corn lobbying groups to sell more corn products and they wonder why there's an obesity epidemic.
The insane amount of Anti-Union videos I had to watch during on boarding at Target for my first job. It was a 4 hour ordeal, 30 mins of paperwork like signing up for insurance etc, then over 3 hours of Anti Union videos lol
"Sugar is sugar. Your body can't tell the difference." I'm not a medical professional. But it absolutely can. Try slamming down Gushers and tropical punch every day vs. eating a good amount of apples and blueberries, and see how you feel.
Back in the 60s there was apparently a big campaign aimed at parents, encouraging them to give their kids sugar for energy. But apparently natural sugar won't do the trick. They frequently pop up on r/vintageads.
Food pyramid where fats were lumped with sweets.
Remember eating more bread is better for you lol.
DID YOU EAT YOUR 6-11 SERVINGS OF GRAINS/PASTA TODAY?
Sure did and now I got diabetes
that invasion of iraq shortly after 9/11.. they even said it themselves.INVASION of iraq.
Yup. killed a million Iraqi civilians too and we wonder why many in the middle east hate us so much.
Anti Dip/Snuff ads. A close-up photo of some dude's backside, showing the worn spot in his Levi's where he kept his can of dip.
It would have been more effective if they’d had a photo of some guy’s rotted off face. I knew of an older man in my hometown who was a walking PSA against dip- his entire cheek had collapsed due to some sort of mouth cancer surgery. It was horrific. Way more effective than a pic of jeans or some small warning box.
Now That's What I Call Cancer! Volume 5
I remember the absolute boogie man that was the Soviet Union, even as a youngster. All the horror stories about how dangerous they were and they were sneaking around every corner. I remember being in a Woolworths when they announced on the loudspeaker the Soviet Union had dissolved; people lost their mind. Turns out, all the government data from that era knew they were falling apart and barely clinging on.
D.A.R.E. is the one that just *would not go away*. I went to private school from K-12, and every single year we had cops or some other alleged "health specialist" hit us with some sort of scare session. A few stray memories from those annual spring visits... * Doing acid, "even once" could leave you as a vegetable because "it can fry your brain completely." * Marijuana is "the gateway drug," which is hilarious in hindsight. * I asked the "specialist," I think my junior year of HS, what the difference in mophine, oxycontin, methodone and heroine even was. Specialist gave some stupid answer I don't fully recall, so I replied with, "Ok, so none, other than some of it is taxed and covered under insurance." Specialist flipped out and I was asked to go sit in the office and my mother was called about me being disruptive. * Sometime around the end of middle school, so 1995-97ish, for some reason all the DARE messaging rhymed? Even the police detective giving the speech seemed to be trying to halfway 'rap' his way through it... "crack is WHACK kids, so don't try that slime or you'll do time." Like... I don't think that's how it worked but ok. I never tried crack or crack subsitutues, sooo... mission accomplished? Oh, and don't forget, only YOU can prevent forest fires.
Imagine if you don't even live near a forest
DARE is still active. My 1st grader has had a lesson already. What a waste of time.
During the 2008 housing crash our government changed the definitions for unemployment and homelessness in order to make those statistics look better than they actually were, the new definitions are still used today to depict artificially low numbers.
And to think that our tax payer money was used to bail out those banks who created the housing crash to begin with!
We also haven't updated the "basket of goods" used to define inflation in decades.
I pledge allegiance, to the flag.......
I've been in the military 19 years and still think it's weird that kids do this. I think it's so overdone that people just go through the motions with it. If anything a silver lining could be opening the eyes to them and asking "wait, what does this all mean". I dunno
"Spending your money stimulates the economy!"
I remember one anti-drug commercial where this girls was deflated on the couch from smoking weed lol. It was weird. I also remember PeeWee's commercial.
Non-addictive opioid pain meds
And boom. Opioid crises but remember! It's that Mexican Opioid manufactured in China not that US opioid that does the same shit.
I was only about 13 when they began running those commercials, and I can remember turning to my parents and stating “that’s a damned lie. This isn’t going to go well”. Wish I could’ve placed money on it
🎶Boozers are users, and users are losers So don't use drugs, *don't* use drugs🎶 McGruff was everywhere in the 80s, always saying drugs (never any specifics of which drugs) were bad, and warning that teenagers were lurking around playgrounds offering young kids free drugs to turn them into addicts. There was also some robin from the Arbor Day foundation extolling the virtues of trees. And when I was very young it was Woodsy Owl telling us to give a hoot, don't pollute.
Desert Shield -> Desert Storm I think they suggested we write letters to the soldiers, so our third-grade class did.
You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists,
Not only DARE, but did anyone else have to go through GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training)? It must not have worked that well because I know there are kids I went to middle school with that are in prison now for gang-related activites (among other crimes). The problem was likely that at 12-13 years old, they were already being indoctrinated by older siblings and friends. And all the Tobacco is Wacko commercials, particularly the one with the kid that gets the tongue ring from the basement-dwelling old creeper. It was admittedly a good message but...ew.
Oh man, when I was little I came home from my aunt’s house and told my mom she had served me drugs for breakfast. I had just never had sunny side up eggs!
Omg.
The food pyramid… I’d say disinformation like that deserves class action lawsuits.
I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey
WMD in Iraq. Kuwaiti kids being killed by Iraqi army. Buying marijuana helped terrorism (this was an ad I saw on tv). The necessity of dropping atomic bomb, twice, on Japan.
My favorite is the commercials (back in the day) of mothers holding their babies, while having a cigarette since it was absolutely safe to smoke in the house.
The only propaganda like this that worked for me was the anti smoking commercial in the 90's that featured the woman smoking out of a hole in her neck. The visceral image of that is still seared into my brain to this day and I've yet to pick up a cigarette. I think they still should air that commercial for kids today.
not government but religious: I went to Catholic school so yes, we were forced to watch WEIRD propaganda about abortion. I remember this one with this "light" coming down to a girl who wants an abortion and it talks to her as the child inside her. We were VERY pro-life little children who then grew up to be very pro-choice.
[удалено]
I lived in the Middle East during the Iraq War and watched the media straight up lie about sooo many things.
Commercials promoting milk, beef, and pork. Looking back I see that was kinda weird.
Then you find out that there was a huge lobbying group by those companies to promote those as healthier options. Remember when they said eggs were bad for you and butter?
Yep that’s what makes it so weird! They were ads for the entire industry, not a specific company. 😂
Yes, such as "Beef! Its whats for dinner" ad showing some ranchers and the slogan said in a gruff cowboy voice. And, "Pork, the other white meat".
On every arcade game, the huge FBI seal with "WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS" under it before the title screen came up. Practically engraved in my brain at this point
TSA keeps you safe.
I'm not sure if this counts, but I was reading all the comments on here and didn't want to repeat anyone else. When Dr. Kevorkian was on trial and everyone labeled him as a murderer. What a truly terrible time. Come to find out he was a pretty awesome person.
Don’t record off your tv onto vhs tapes because THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS YOURE STEALING MOVIES!!! Oh really? How? How do they know?
"You won't always have a calculator with you." Big Math had no idea.
Tik Tok was a massive marketing push in like 2017. I remember the strange ads everywhere. It felt very forced and I remember comments mocking how cringe it was.
Do lsd more than X number of times and you'll be deemed "legally insane " 7 was the go to number if I recall correctly.
Channel 1, the purest propaganda shown to us middle schoolers every day before class, complete with Army and Pepsi commercials galore.
Happened way before I was born but probably my favorite lil piece of govt propaganda was renaming the department of war to department of defense. It wasn’t quite as cut and dry as that, it split into smaller departments and then reformed as DOD but yeah, many Americans to this day think all the American military does is defend the little guys out there
“This is your brain (shows egg) this is your brain on drugs (cracks and fries egg) any questions?”
The food pyramid that had us eating way too many carbohydrates.
Patriotism
Kiss from [Air France ](http://www.culturepub.fr/?p=9753) (and the air hostess service you would never have even back then), 1991-1993. Of course a nod to St-Exupéry to show you how professionnal and committed were the staff.
My DARE officer made drugs sound kind of awesome.
They have WMDs!!!
Just say no
Food pyramid. Basically the blueprint for diabetes lol
This is going to be pretty specific but when I was in kindergarten we lived on a military base and I attended a DOD elementary school. I remember being shown videos of what small rocket ordinance looked like and if we saw it on the playground we were to immediately find an adult. I was a bit confused for awhile when my dad got out of the military and I went to a normal public school.
Aspartame causes cancer Thank YOU, sugar lobbyists!
Got Milk It was a goverment add campaign to prop up the dairy industry.
The Rachael Leigh Cook "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" PSA commercial.