Lies We Bought

Is laughter really the best medicine? In 1964, Norman Cousins checked out of the hospital, moved into a hotel room with a projector and a stack of Marx Brothers films, and became the man who laughed himself well. His story is still repeated everywhere, minus one detail that was in the room the whole time.

In this episode, I follow the phrase from a biblical proverb about grief to a medieval surgeon's bedside orders, a Reader's Digest joke column, Patch Adams, and the rise of Laughter Yoga, paid certifications, humor consultants, and wellness apps. Along the way, I look at how toxic positivity turns burnout and chronic illness into an attitude problem.

Then the science gets its turn, from a 2023 PLOS ONE meta-analysis on laughter and cortisol to Robin Dunbar's research on pain tolerance and a 2024 study on medical clowns in a children's hospital. The receipts hold up better than you might expect, and they still stop short of the word "best."

I'm very much pro-laughing. This one is about who started charging for it.

📱 Follow along on

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

The Five Love Languages has sold millions of copies and shows up everywhere from first dates to therapists' offices, yet Gary Chapman built the framework from his own notes as a Baptist pastor counseling couples. This episode traces how the book became relationship gospel and what Focus on the Family has said about it.

It also looks at why critics warn that treating a struggling relationship as a love problem can be dangerous for people in abusive situations, and where the framework can still help couples.

📱 Follow along on

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

Smokey Bear has been telling America it's your fault since 1944. This episode traces the real story behind the mascot: a wartime scare on the California coast, an ad campaign built to control public behavior, and a real orphaned bear cub who nearly didn't survive the fire that gave him his name.

We dig into the Disney licensing deal for Bambi that almost didn't happen, the FDNY captain whose nickname got repurposed for a federal PSA, and how "only you can prevent wildfires" became one of the longest-running and most quietly manipulative campaigns the U.S. government has ever run. Along the way we look at what wildfire suppression actually costs today, what wildland firefighters are paid to do the real version of Smokey's job, and why a cartoon bear ended up with more longevity than most politicians.

📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/

📱 Follow along on

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

The "Made in USA" label feels like a promise. Legally, it's a lot looser than you think, and the amount of stuff that can actually earn it has been shrinking for decades. This episode traces the label from an 1887 British shame tactic to a company that invented its own percentage, to Walmart's founder writing a memoir called "Made in America" while his own company helped build the overseas supply chain the label exists to warn you about.

📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/

📱 Follow along on:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

Extended warranties aren't insurance. Legally, they can't even use the word. They're "service contracts," a separate category with none of the payout rules that protect you when real insurance is on the line, and that one distinction explains almost the entire industry.

This episode traces how a fringe product from the 1950s turned into the reason a TV or a refrigerator costs the same everywhere you shop, why the pitch always lands at the very end of checkout and never before, and why the industry keeps growing every year no matter how many times consumer advocates warn people off it.

📱 Follow along on:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

Every Wednesday, GEICO's camel asks what day it is. The original ad that made that question famous racked up more than 16 million views on YouTube and then disappeared, with no explanation ever given.

This episode debunks the corporate mythology built up around hump day, including a water-cooler legend at DuPont that's been misdated for years, and traces the phrase back through a 1959 dictionary citation to a 2011 psychology study showing motivation doesn't actually peak in the middle of the week the way the phrase assumes.

**Show notes on Patreon**

📱 Follow along on

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

The phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" comes from a 1913 comic strip drawn by a cartoonist who nearly went broke trying to match his wealthy neighbors and the Joneses themselves never once appeared in it.

This episode covers where the phrase came from, how mid-century advertisers like Chevrolet used it directly in ad copy, how the same mechanism scaled into influencer marketing and social media, and what the psychological research says about what constant comparison actually costs people.

📱 Follow along on

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

Morton Salt's slogan started as a promise about clumping, not a warning about bad luck, and somehow it became both.

This episode traces salt from ancient currency and empire-building to the umbrella girl on your kitchen shelf, then follows the same trick a hundred years forward into the pink Himalayan salt aisle.

📱 Follow along on:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

Most of the dates on your food aren't required by any law and weren't checked by anyone. This episode follows the story from a persistent Al Capone myth about spoiled milk, through the shoppers who cracked grocery stores' secret shelf codes in the 1970s, to the one government study that found the whole dating system doesn't reliably measure freshness at all. Plus the single food category where an expiration date actually is required, and the on-air moment I learned all of this the hard way.

 📩 Sign up for exclusive emails and behind-the-scenes context: https://www.lieswebought.com/

📱 Follow along on

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/

An apple a day keeps the doctor away sounds like grandmother's wisdom, but it was a 1904 marketing rescue plan for an industry that had just lost its actual product: booze.

Lies We Bought traces the apple from Prohibition-era cider crop to manufactured health symbol, tests the slogan against the 2015 study that actually measured it, and asks why we needed a doctor's approval to eat fruit in the first place.

📱 Follow along on

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LiesWeBought/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lieswebought/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lieswebought

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lieswebought

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lieswebought/