I honestly think the bacon thing was an advertising push; one that gained its own momentum. If I remember something interesting, it’s that the original bacon advertising campaign over a hundred years ago was one of the most successful advertising campaigns in its long term effects on the ‘culture’ of american breakfast. Then there was another push with it to become a ‘premium’ addon in culinary circles in the 90s-00s.
There is definitely something odd about meat in people’s minds, though, you’re right. I’ve never heard of anyone, even italian chefs, caring about whether a pasta must be cooked al dente to be done right, but every idiot and their cousin will tell you they know exactly how a steak must be cooked, and everyone else is wrong, and not only wrong but a terrible savage for thinking differently.
I was born in the late 80s, grew up in the 90s and 2000s, and it’s both fascinating and terrifying to me how much of what I thought was just “standard” stuff was influenced by marketing 50-100 years before I was even born. Santa Clause as a jolly old man with rosy cheeks and a snow white beard wasn’t a big thing until Coca-Cola made it part of their advertising in the 30s. The bacon with breakfast thing was the result of a food packaging company in the 1920s hiring a man named Edward Bernays to help them sell more bacon. Bernays was allegedly so good at marketing/manipulation that people like Hitler and Goebbels kept copies of his books. Orange juice became a thing because orange producers in Florida in the early 1900s made too many oranges for the market (in an attempt to beat out California as the country’s orange production state), and juicing them was considered a better alternative to reducing production.
Listerine was a cleaning product until they decided to boost sales by positioning it as a mouthwash.
First, they had to convince everyone that they needed mouthwash, so they invented HALITOSIS (bad breath), and then offered Listerine as the solution.
Lysol tried a similar pivot, except they tried to market their cleaning product as post-sex birth control douche. Listerine’s pivot caught on, Lysol’s didn’t.
No, I meant that they created a demand by marketing up Halitosis like it’s a major problem.
That’s nothing new, they still do it constantly. Those women’s deodorant commercials make women feel like they are carrying a cloud of funk around with them wherever they go, and they have to smear this deodorant over every inch of their bodies or they’ll offend every nasal passage in the county.
Before you can offer a solution, you need to make them feel like they have a terrible problem that needs to be fixed immediately, at any cost. Even if you have to make it up.
Halitosis was already the medical term for bad breath, with evidence of its use in England. All that word did was give an American businessman/marketer a polite euphemism to talk about something that was considered taboo at the time (body odors were associated with poor hygiene and lower status people). It does seem like they pushed hard with marketing to make it into a more widespread “problem” though.
I try not to think about it too much if it’s something that isn’t something that I need to interact with, like orange juice or bacon, both of which I avoid, because, yeah, it is terrifying. Advertisements are real life attempts to shape the behavior of the world.
Lol, I picked the name because of its effect on my life. I had a family member who would only eat their bacon if it was nearly burned, and so I have very strong memories of the horrible nature of bacon as a kid.
I honestly think the bacon thing was an advertising push; one that gained its own momentum. If I remember something interesting, it’s that the original bacon advertising campaign over a hundred years ago was one of the most successful advertising campaigns in its long term effects on the ‘culture’ of american breakfast. Then there was another push with it to become a ‘premium’ addon in culinary circles in the 90s-00s.
There is definitely something odd about meat in people’s minds, though, you’re right. I’ve never heard of anyone, even italian chefs, caring about whether a pasta must be cooked al dente to be done right, but every idiot and their cousin will tell you they know exactly how a steak must be cooked, and everyone else is wrong, and not only wrong but a terrible savage for thinking differently.
I was born in the late 80s, grew up in the 90s and 2000s, and it’s both fascinating and terrifying to me how much of what I thought was just “standard” stuff was influenced by marketing 50-100 years before I was even born. Santa Clause as a jolly old man with rosy cheeks and a snow white beard wasn’t a big thing until Coca-Cola made it part of their advertising in the 30s. The bacon with breakfast thing was the result of a food packaging company in the 1920s hiring a man named Edward Bernays to help them sell more bacon. Bernays was allegedly so good at marketing/manipulation that people like Hitler and Goebbels kept copies of his books. Orange juice became a thing because orange producers in Florida in the early 1900s made too many oranges for the market (in an attempt to beat out California as the country’s orange production state), and juicing them was considered a better alternative to reducing production.
Someone to add to my time travel hit list
Listerine was a cleaning product until they decided to boost sales by positioning it as a mouthwash.
First, they had to convince everyone that they needed mouthwash, so they invented HALITOSIS (bad breath), and then offered Listerine as the solution.
Lysol tried a similar pivot, except they tried to market their cleaning product as post-sex birth control douche. Listerine’s pivot caught on, Lysol’s didn’t.
do… do you think bad breath is made up???
No, I meant that they created a demand by marketing up Halitosis like it’s a major problem.
That’s nothing new, they still do it constantly. Those women’s deodorant commercials make women feel like they are carrying a cloud of funk around with them wherever they go, and they have to smear this deodorant over every inch of their bodies or they’ll offend every nasal passage in the county.
Before you can offer a solution, you need to make them feel like they have a terrible problem that needs to be fixed immediately, at any cost. Even if you have to make it up.
Halitosis was already the medical term for bad breath, with evidence of its use in England. All that word did was give an American businessman/marketer a polite euphemism to talk about something that was considered taboo at the time (body odors were associated with poor hygiene and lower status people). It does seem like they pushed hard with marketing to make it into a more widespread “problem” though.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160712170405/http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/thanks-to-chemistry/listerine.aspx
I try not to think about it too much if it’s something that isn’t something that I need to interact with, like orange juice or bacon, both of which I avoid, because, yeah, it is terrifying. Advertisements are real life attempts to shape the behavior of the world.
You commenting with interesting bacon trivia is nominative determinism at its finest lmao
Steak is a really good example of what I’m talking about, thanks for adding this
Lol, I picked the name because of its effect on my life. I had a family member who would only eat their bacon if it was nearly burned, and so I have very strong memories of the horrible nature of bacon as a kid.
My sister used to only eat a steak if it was charred black and covered in ground black pepper. Not sure if that’s “better” or worse than burnt bacon.