I was going to blog about my recent uncovering of a universal truth that could change the lives of everyone forever. I also planned to request credit for my discovery, along with the requisite fame and riches that would be expected to accompany a revelation that will add my name to the list of the other “great thinkers of all time.”

However, as I wrote, it became apparent that I couldn’t say for certain that somebody else hadn’t divined my secret first. I haven’t read the writings of all (or actually, any) of my fellow great thinkers, so I can’t say with certainty that my brainchild hadn’t been discussed before today, and, most importantly, I have no clinical-trial evidence to prove that my discovery works, which is mandatory for being taken seriously in 2018.

So, I scrapped my original post about my secret, and read up on the history of baseless advertising.

Beginning around the 1920s, many advertisers began placing print and radio ads that claimed that their products had amazing powers, and no proof of their assertions was required by law. All an advertiser needed was money. For decades, advertisers made all kinds of unfounded claims and consumers bought them, literally.

“One to three cakes usually accomplish the purpose.”

Cigarette ads were everywhere. Babies and doctors recommended them. And if a movie actor recommended a certain brand, they had to be good, right?

Unlike today, advertisers didn’t have to be politically correct. They could insult your body and your skin with impunity. Nowadays, advertisers have to be more circumspect about how they make you feel less than perfect.

In the 1970s or 1980s, freckles were identified as skin damage, but back in the day, they were just called ugly. Ads for getting rid of them were ubiquitous.

No claim by an advertiser was too outrageous. Lysol, which is used to clean toilets, was advertised to women for feminine hygiene use. And the ads implied that if women didn’t start using it, their husbands would be put off by their smell and leave them.

Pitney-Bowes even suggested that murdering a woman might be defensible, under the right circumstances … such as her refusing to use a postage meter.

I’m not sure what they’re selling here.

Judging these advertisements with a 2018 perspective, we wonder how consumers could take them seriously. But the beginning of the 20th century was the Wild West of advertising and no claim was too wild. And no laws protected consumers. And consumers believed what they read. Or maybe it was just hope that the products did what they were purported to do. Advertisers have always exploited human insecurities to sell products.

It’s really too bad that inventions and discoveries are now regulated by intrusive government agencies. We would all be better off today if I could disclose my secret. But if I did, I’d probably be prosecuted for false advertising, because you just know that some crank would say that my “thing” didn’t work for him or her. And then I’d get arrested.

I’d rather take my life-changing revelation to my grave rather than to a jail cell.

Photo credits were impossible to trace. I obtained most of the pictures from this Google page of old ads.