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Lies We Bought

by Emily Rask
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Latest episodes

  • Buy One, Get One Free Debunked: Who Pays for the Free One?

    October 20, 2026 · 16 min

    Buy one, get one free sounds like the store is handing you a gift, but the second item has been tucked inside the price of the first one for over a century, and the Supreme Court said so in 1965. Emily Rask follows the word free from…

  • As Seen on TV: The Infomercial Moved to TikTok Shop

    October 13, 2026 · 18 min

    In 1949, a man demonstrating a blender on Cleveland TV got more than 400 phone orders in one day, and As Seen on TV was born. This episode of Lies We Bought follows the infomercial from that live demo to the Ginsu knife, Billy Mays, the…

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    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…

  • Smokey Bear: The Wartime Ad That Became a Government Icon

    September 22, 2026 · 21 min

    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…

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  • Made in USA: Only 11% of What You Buy Actually Is

    September 15, 2026 · 20 min

    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…

  • Extended Warranty: The Fine Print Industry Built on Fear

    September 8, 2026 · 17 min

    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…

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    September 1, 2026 · 19 min

    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…

  • Social Comparison: The Joneses Were Never Real

    August 25, 2026 · 17 min

    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…

  • The Salt Conspiracy: From Ancient Currency to the Himalayan Pink Marketing Trap

    August 18, 2026 · 22 min

    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…

  • Expiration Dates: The Corporate Strategy Forcing You to Waste Money

    August 11, 2026 · 17 min

    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…

  • An Apple a Day: How a Dying Industry Invented a Health Myth

    August 4, 2026 · 22 min

    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…

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About the show

Lies We Bought is an award-winning podcast that traces advertising lies and marketing deception back to where they started. Host Emily Rask spent over a decade building marketing and advertising campaigns, and now she's reading the fine print out loud (think everything from "got milk?" to "clean beauty") to show how the message got made and why we believed it. Part branding history, part consumer psychology, part 1950s wink. If you love smart, myth-busting shows about advertising, branding, and the hidden tricks behind the stuff you buy, you're in the right place. Pulled fresh from the oven every Tuesday at 7 AM EST. Hit follow and start questioning the receipts.