The Influence of Media on Society

What kind of world have we ended up in? It wasn't always like this.

Are you sure? Look.

1995, people spent all day in front of the

television.

1938, people spent all day glued to the radio.

1929, people spent all day buried in the

newspapers.

1650, people spent all day listening to whoever

preached in

the square.

50 AD,

people spent all day watching the fights.

The years pass, the human mind never changes.

Sheep will always be sheep, and wolves will always be wolves.

Control the story and you control everything.

You're free to think

what they decide, or go quiet, watch, learn, like,

subscribe, and evolve quietly until you're the wolf.

This is the people. These are the ones you think make the decisions,

and these, the ones who really make them.

Think it's a conspiracy?

Watch.

In 1929, American Tobacco had a problem.

Women didn't smoke. Smoking was for men or for women of low repute.

Half the population not smoking means half the profits.

So they hired a man, Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, the father of

modern propaganda. He understood one thing.

He knew you cannot argue someone into wanting something,

so he didn't sell tobacco,

he sold freedom. He paid a group of high society women,

cigarettes hidden under

their coats. Easter Parade 1929, on his signal, they all light up.

He called them the Torches of Freedom, but the papers had

already been warned, the photographers already in position.

The scandal was already written, and sales exploded.

They thought they had chosen.

Wake up.

If cigarettes are so bad, why does everyone smoke them?

Because for 30 years, someone was paid to say the opposite.

Paid? By who?

Shh. The doctors. Watch this.

1946, America, almost everyone smoked.

But an unease was spreading, a cough that wouldn't quit, a throat always raw.

For the tobacco giants, a frightened customer meant one thing:

sales in free flow.

So they made the guardians of health speak for them.

"More doctors smoke our brand," the ads promised, "than any other."

That number was

built from nothing. At medical conventions,

they gave free packs to every doctor

who passed. The answer? The pack in their pocket.

Sold to the public as a survey of 100,000, no one ever explained how those

numbers were found, but the number swept the country,

magazines,

radio, even the medical journals.

For years, the white coat was tobacco's finest salesman.

People saw authority and lit another one.

Then, in 1950, science sent the bill.

Two studies, one American, one British, the same verdict: smoking causes

lung cancer. The industry didn't deny it. It did worse.

In a private memo, it wrote its whole strategy in one line:

"Doubt is our product."

So people get manipulated?

Every single day, and almost no one notices.

The story you're told belongs to whoever profits from it.

Papa, what if 10 years from now I hate my life?

Most people do.

Let me show you something.

This will change your life, but only with your eyes closed.

I know, you'd rather watch. Trust me on this one.

Close them.

10 years from now, your life is the opposite of everything you wanted,

a job you hate, people you can't stand, a body you won't

even look at.

And one night, at 3:00 in the morning, you find a photo of who you used to

be, and you'd give anything to go back.

Now,

open your eyes. 10 years handed back to you.

So what will you do with it?

No butter for me. Fat is the enemy.

Who told you fat was the enemy?

Everybody knows that. It's the science.

And who paid for the science?

Paid? What do you mean, paid?

Shh. Not another word. Watch this.

The 1960s, America eats more sugar than ever,

and nobody's afraid of it.

Then studies start tying sugar to heart disease.

For the sugar men, that's a threat. So they don't argue the science.

They go to Harvard and buy it.

They pay three scientists and hand them which studies to read.

1967, the country's top medical journal, blame the fat,

spare the sugar.

The money is never mentioned.

For 50 years, we feared the fat and swallowed the sugar.

Every choice you make starts from an idea someone put in your head.

How many have you swallowed without ever knowing?

You're free to think what they decide, or go quiet, watch,

learn, like, subscribe, and evolve quietly until you're the

wolf.