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All-Natural Snake Oil
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Do you want to instantly gain more consumers while keeping up a squeaky-clean image of environmental friendliness and care for the Earth? Need a quick, snappy buzzword? Simple! Use 'natural' in your product. In business, the practice of pushing all-natural products for PR purposes is known as "greenwashing." If a major company has been accused of gross disregard for the environment, then they may find it cheaper to whitewash their image by donating to the Sierra Club, introducing a new, "all-natural" product line that is supposed to be more eco-friendly, and running a series of ads telling consumers that, yes, We Care, than it would be to actually fix their problems. Because Consumers Are Morons, people will buy into the company's new "green" campaign, even though they are still getting away with environmental destruction. This technique is so well-known that it even has a fancy philosophical name - the "naturalistic fallacy". Predatory Big Pharma can be a culprit, but they are also a common target of such campaigns. Not entirely synonymous with the product peddled by the Snake Oil Salesman, but there are plenty of cases where they are one and the same. See also Spice Rack Panacea. Granola Girls and New-Age Retro Hippies often swear by this stuff. Keep in mind that although words like "natural", "organic", and "wholesome" may be misleading as to quality, they may not be misleading as to any difference in the product. For instance, the yogurt industry uses "natural" to describe yogurts that don't contain gums, starches, added acids, or stabilizers even though those ingredients are technically natural. Also, the "natural market" of a supermarket is often the only place people with lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, or severe food allergies can find processed food they can eat without getting sick, especially in smaller towns that don't have a Whole Foods, or in the case of people who need or want gluten-free this or nut-free that, but can't afford the prices there. In the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries, the use of the word "natural" tends not to come with strict legal requirements restricting its use. On the other hand, the use of the word "organic"note In chemistry, "organic" just means that the compound contains carbon — meaning it includes nearly everything produced from or by a living thing, be it healthful, noxious, or actually poisonous — but this is a different meaning is often legally restricted to products that are made without chemical fertilizer, antibiotics, irradiation, or genetically modified organisms, and meet other requirements focused on how it's produced (instead of what the final product is like). As a result, the word "natural" tends to get used in advertising more often since it doesn't actually require much and can be used in basically any way. It may be interesting to note that, as a commercial trope, this is mostly a fairly recent invention, growing through the 1960s and 1970s. (Though if you look through really old newspaper ads from the early 1800s, you can find examples of this.) For most of the rest of human history, "nature" was widely considered to be filthy, disgusting, and chock full of things that want to kill and/or eat you. Had marketing forces stayed on-track, modern products would be touting their complete absence of anything found in nature, and extolling the health benefits (and exciting taste sensations) found from making food and health products with Pure Science. As matter of fact, the very idea that there is any sort of meaningful difference between "natural" and "artificial" was largely disproved over a hundred years ago by German chemist Frederich Wohler, the founder of organic chemistry and the inventor of a process to chemically synthesize urea, a substance used in fertilizers that previously had to be distilled from urine. This trope is not in play if natural is being used in the sense found in ideas like "natural law", where it means closer to "proper" and "fitting" rather than simply "not artificial". "Crime against nature", for instance, is (usually) using "nature" in that sense, not merely "crap humans didn't make" or "crap that happens on its own", otherwise every human action involving a tool would be one. The fact that the term has those two related but different senses is probably where this trope originates; using terms ambiguously is a classic ploy in advertising and propaganda. (If you are interested, C. S. Lewis' Studies in Words has a chapter on "Nature" that goes into the relationship in depth.) People who believe Science Is Bad or Science Is Wrong, or who are swayed by the Appeal to Nature, will love these products, even though in many cases their results are down to the Placebo Effect. There are also strong echoes of the Romanticism Versus Enlightenment debate, with "nature" fans taking the Romanticism side. Note that snake oil really does exist, and it is a part of traditional Chinese medicine. The Chinese snake oil is made out of fat of the Chinese water snake (Enhydris sinensis) and it is rich on omega-3 fatty acids, and it is an analgetic. It actually works in the purpose it was intended - to relieve joint pain and arthritis. It is not a universal panacea, and the Western snake oils made from rattlesnakes are vastly inferior. The modern concept of the Snake Oil Salesman came from those who sold fake snake oil, which lacked the medical benefit of the real deal. Contrast Scary Science Words. |
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Life with Father has John getting a job as salesman for "Bartlet's Beneficent Balm," which is purported to treat everything from sore throat to "women's complaints." When he slips some into his mother's tea to cure her head cold, she becomes so violently ill that two doctors and the minister are called in, and later a neighbor complains that it killed the family dog. Also, Bartlet himself pays John not in actual money but in more bottles of medicine. | |
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The Far Side cartoon features an Igor-like character walking into a shop selling "unnatural foods". | |
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Chappelle's Show had a sketch where Dave visits the Internet as a physical place, represented as a gigantic shopping mall. He almost immediately gets accosted by a shady guy who tries to sell him a penis-enlargement drug, who uses "It's all-natural, dude!" as part of his sales pitch. | |
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Inverted in Rocketship Voyager. Because Future Food Is Artificial, Captain Janeway concludes that natural food is good for an occasional treat but not healthy in the long run. | |
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The same idea is used in an episode of House in which the eponymous character—an actual doctor and not wearing a white coat—(jokingly?) makes a similar argument for cigarettes.note He also provided a somewhat scientific reason: he also says the nicotine from having 3 cigarettes (or fewer) daily would help with the man's chronic and terrible flatulence (which was seriously affecting his career as a Mall Santa). This isn't medically-accepted advice, and bad flatulence is no reason to start smoking, but yes, nicotine does cut back on gassiness. The actor playing House is Hugh Laurie of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. | |
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An episode of Eureka revealed that all the victims had eaten the chicken which came from a chicken farmer (who actually cloned the birds because it was less cruel that way) who fed the poultry a certain nutrient solution. She had no problem using the nutrient because it was natural, and therefore safe to use. At least until a doctor pointed out it was known to degrade people's brains. This was an organic chicken farmer who cloned only parts of the chickens for human consumption. Yes, organically cloned chicken parts. | |
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A frequent target on Parks and Recreation: When Leslie is trying to push a tax on soft drinks through the Pawnee City Councilnote The characters tell us that Pawnee is one of the fattest towns in America, and no surprise; its largest employer is candy manufacturer Sweetums and its most popular restaurant is called "Paunch Burger" in part because high-fructose corn syrup is unhealthy and fattening: Another episode has a woman (who's made a fortune telling people what bullshit woo is in vogue this month) do this to apparently cash in on healthier kinds of milk. The problem is she goes with "Beef Milk", which is milk... from cows. Ron points out that that's just regular milk. The sad part is a lot of Pawnee would most likely believe her. There's also the "NutriYum" energy bars, which are practically pure high-fructose corn syrup, but marketed as natural and healthy, further backed by the use of a picture of Lance Armstrong in advertisements. |
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Though it doesn't use "natural", the same thing happens on an episode of Corner Gas. When nobody tries Lacey's new menu items due to being too fancy or exotic for small-town Saskatchewan, Lacey sees a lot of marketing using the word "classic" and tries it herself. People immediately start ordering the exact same menu items they refused before, just because they now have "classic" slapped on. At the end of the episode they discover what she's been up to and chew her out for tricking them, so she apologizes and promises to not do it again... only for her to immediately start offering "old-fashioned" and "homestyle" menu items instead, suckering everybody right back in. | |
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Dilbert had a strip where Dogbert was selling "All natural and holistic" tech support and advocated putting tree bark in the CD drive. He then attempts to squash any fears by telling the caller: | |
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Providing the quote for this page is Cracked's list of "8 Health Foods That Are Bad For Your Health", which puts herbal supplements squarely at Number One. The article points out that, unlike pharmaceutical medicines, alternative and herbal remedies aren't regulated by the FDA, which means that some of them can be downright dangerous. PBS discussed this on Frontline. | |
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Parodied in an episode of King of the Hill, when trans fats are banned in Arlen ala 1920s Prohibition. Bill Dauterive believes that if the food he's eating is organic (or at least free of particularly demonized chemicals), he can eat as much as he wants. He proceeds to get even fatter as a result. In another episode, Peggy buys a pesticide because it has "eco" in the name, and she figures the Government wouldn't let anyone put "eco" on their name if it wasn't ecologically friendly. A close-up of the box reveals that "eco" stands for "Economical". |
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Spoofed a number of times in Discworld: In Witches Abroad, Magrat assumes that absinthe is good for you because it's made with herbs. She ends up with a good-sized hangover afterwards. In Carpe Jugulum, the Nac Mac Feegle convince King Verence to drink a bowl of "brose" by telling him it's got milk and herbs in it. What they don't tell him is that the Feegles, who can drink their weight in lamp oil with no ill effects, drink their "brose" to get their spirits up before going into battle, and Verence ends up briefly turning into a Screaming Warrior. Jingo gently winds up the tendency of shampoos to use "herbs" when the Watch investigates Snowy Slopes, the Man With the Steel-Toothed Comb, who has tried virtually every hair care product available in Ankh-Morpork to treat his horrendous dandruff, mostly on the virtue that they have herbs. Angua (who has some hair problems herself), muses that you stuff a bunch of weeds in a shampoo bottle, and you have herbs. In Going Postal, Tolliver Groat makes all his own medicines using natural ingredients... like, say, arsenic and sulfur. His throat lozenges dissolve walls. Groat also puts sulfur and charcoal in his socks, and soaks his trousers in saltpetre. After he's rescued from a fire, this leads to a doctor informing Moist von Lipwig "His trousers were the subject of a controlled detonation after one of his socks exploded." He also has a chest warmer made of goose grease and bread pudding. Apparently he stuffs that down his shirt instead of down his throat but it keeps him going so whatever works. Numerous of his books refer to a drink called Scumble, which, as is innocently said, is made of apples - well, mostly apples. However, it is one of the most strongly alcoholic liquors known on the Disc. And Making Money features Splot, a hot drink made from herbs and natural ingredients. "But belladonna is a herb, and arsenic is natural". Its side effects feature the minor drawback that the mouth is unable to keep up. The Discworld Companion has an entry on Jimkin Bearhugger's Homeopathic Sipping Whisky. Jim failed to understand why the slogan 'Every Drop Diluted 1 Million Times' failed to attract customers even though, in theory, even being in the same room as an uncorked bottle should have gotten you riotously drunk. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler and his doppelgangers sometimes use this in selling their questionable foodstuffs. Dibbler occasionally refers to his sausage-inna-bun as being "organic", which is true if it means "made from organs", and his Omnian counterpart Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah insists that "live" yoghurt is healthy, even as the stuff attempts to escape. |
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In World of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor, you help a Goblin get some native Draenor plants that genuinely do help prevent aging... but he's too lazy to figure out how to market a whole plant, tosses them behind him, and just slaps a label on some serpent oil. | |
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And Making Money features Splot, a hot drink made from herbs and natural ingredients. "But belladonna is a herb, and arsenic is natural". Its side effects feature the minor drawback that the mouth is unable to keep up. | |
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In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix there are a number of students selling supposed brain boosting items and potions to the students taking their OWL and NEWT exams including potentially lethal fraudulent intelligence potions such as doxy droppings. Hermione spends some time confiscating as many as she can since in addition to some of them being toxic none of them work. | |
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Jingo gently winds up the tendency of shampoos to use "herbs" when the Watch investigates Snowy Slopes, the Man With the Steel-Toothed Comb, who has tried virtually every hair care product available in Ankh-Morpork to treat his horrendous dandruff, mostly on the virtue that they have herbs. Angua (who has some hair problems herself), muses that you stuff a bunch of weeds in a shampoo bottle, and you have herbs. | |
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Carmilla features a scene where a traveling salesman sells Carmilla and Laura some vampire repelling charms. Carmilla is, in fact, a vampire. Ironically, she herself swears that it works perfectly because it puts Laura's mind at ease, and makes her easier to feed upon. | |
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Parodied in the first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, "Invasion of the Bane", with BubbleShock!. The advertisements all say, "Contains Bane. It's organic!" Nobody ever asks what Bane is. It's an alien mind-control parasite; organic, sure, but also very much alive, and pure evil to boot. Lampshaded when Maria criticizes that just because it says organic, that automatically makes it alright. | |
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In the original version of Kath & Kim: | |
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In Going Postal, Tolliver Groat makes all his own medicines using natural ingredients... like, say, arsenic and sulfur. His throat lozenges dissolve walls. Groat also puts sulfur and charcoal in his socks, and soaks his trousers in saltpetre. After he's rescued from a fire, this leads to a doctor informing Moist von Lipwig "His trousers were the subject of a controlled detonation after one of his socks exploded." He also has a chest warmer made of goose grease and bread pudding. Apparently he stuffs that down his shirt instead of down his throat but it keeps him going so whatever works. |
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In the Archer episode "El Contador", Dr. Krieger offers Pam, Cheryl, and Ray "Krieger Kleanse", an herbal tea made with "special herbs" he literally- figuratively scoured the globe for, and claims it will help them beat the upcoming drug test. Not only does he charge more than the actual drugs for it, but it ends up causing the three of them to start puking and experience a Mushroom Samba. | |
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They did have a sketch parodying this mindset on That Mitchell and Webb Look. A man comes in dying from a car crash; the homeopathic doctors suggest such amazing cures like getting a bit of car that hit him, diluting it in water and shaking it, pink quartz, and drawing some life line on his palm in pen. It doesn't work. | |
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A What If? entry discusses about siphoning water from Europa and selling it as bottled water. After a long note on the physics of siphoning and transporting the water, the entry mentions that there's no point in the plan, since the water from Europa is just the same as water from anywhere else, although it could work with the right marketing. | |
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In Witches Abroad, Magrat assumes that absinthe is good for you because it's made with herbs. She ends up with a good-sized hangover afterwards. | |
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Spoofed in a sketch on A Bit of Fry and Laurie in which a brand of cocoa is advertised as containing "nature's own barbiturates and heroin". Another sketch features a white-coated man masquerading as a doctor prescribing cigarettes, reassuring his patient that tobacco is after all a natural herbal ingredient. | |
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Modern MoGal: Snake Wine, which is actually a thing, but in this case it is just wine that has been used as bathwater by a Lamia girl. Medusa tries to do the same, with her snake-hair, but backfires. | |
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In Carpe Jugulum, the Nac Mac Feegle convince King Verence to drink a bowl of "brose" by telling him it's got milk and herbs in it. What they don't tell him is that the Feegles, who can drink their weight in lamp oil with no ill effects, drink their "brose" to get their spirits up before going into battle, and Verence ends up briefly turning into a Screaming Warrior. | |
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From Troll 2: "It's made with sap. From the forest. It is a concentration of all the vegetal [sic] properties." | |
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The herbal medicines in Pokémon could be seen as this. While they work as fine as their manufactured counterparts (and buying a Revival Herb is the closest you can get to buying a Max Revive) and are cheaper to buy, your Pokémon will become less friendly towards you after consuming one because they hate the bitter taste. | |
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One episode of Futurama offered a vending machine full of "Farm Fresh" crack. | |
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An episode of the Dilbert animated series had his company killing people with herbal lozenges. "Anthrax is a bacterium, not a herb." Also spoofed in this Dilbert comic strip about "all-natural tech support". Scott Adams' commentary in one of the books: "It frightens me to think how many people believe 'natural' is the same as 'good for you.'" | |
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Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl: Beth has Adele buy a "natural" heart medication because it's cheaper and also claims pharmaceutical companies only care about money so they put out inferior products. Dora, who needs this, dies because it apparently didn't work. | |
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The Chaser's War On Everything has a stunt where they tried to see what people would try if they said it was "all natural" or a "new age remedy." They managed to get people to try such things as "Oil of Snake" and all natural "Bull Droppings." If you believe the show's DVD commentaries, the stunt was not a case of Selective Stupidity: everyone Chas talked to was fooled. | |
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In Heavy Object, Volume 17 focuses on the trade of "immortanoid" supposedly an all-natural mineral which when used in baths grants longevity due to its unique radiation. In reality, it's a trans-uranic element produced in particle accelerators. The manufacturers used marketing, limited production, and a rare earths bank to create demand and pump the price. | |
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An episode of South Park has a New Age "healer", appropriately named "Miss Information", who buys various trinkets and concoctions from Cheech & Chong and passes them off as Native American remedies, including "tampons made from the hair of Cherokee." When Stan tries to tell the healer that the treatments don't work, he gets labeled a smart-ass and receives a bunk lecture on how Native American remedies are more in tune with nature than Western medicine. The healer tells Stan that Western medicine is all about making money and not about healing, immediately turning to a customer, "That'll be $200." | |
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In Grand Theft Auto IV, one of the guests on the PLR radio show Intelligent Agenda is Waylon Mason, who uses the show to promote his "home remedies" and attack the other two guests (a pharmaceutical company spokeswoman and an HMO spokesman) as shills of Big Pharma. The show ends with him giving involuntary trepanations to the other two guests in order to remove the "demons that are controlling them." | |
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In We Happy Restaurant, this is done to a nuclear radiator off all things. | |
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The famous "Vitameatavegemin" episode (actually called "Lucy Does a TV Commercial") of I Love Lucy featured this kind of product, advertised as an elixir containing concentrated "vitamins, meat, vegetables, and minerals". It promised to help people who are "tired, run-down, and listless". Storywise, the original elixir contained 11% alcohol (which was common for patent medicines and nutritional supplements at the time) but has somehow been increased to 22% by the company, making Lucy blind stinking drunk after several unsuccessful takes. | |
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Several bottled water companies were torn a new one for claiming that their water is sourced from a unique spring in the Andes/Maine/France/wherever, when in fact, it is just ordinary tap water. This one was mercilessly debunked on Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. Speaking of water, check your shampoo bottle. Odds are, one of the ingredients listed will be "aqua", which is just another name for water. On a lot of shampoo bottles, the intended market is multinational; you'll notice that the many North American shampoo bottles have at a minimum English and French on them, and usually Spanish as well to cover all three of the most common languages on the continent. Since so many of the ingredients of shampoo have chemical names that barely change from language to language (if your language's term for lye is "hydroxyde de sodium", "sodium hydroxide" will be understood), they often just have one ingredient list, adding parenthetical translations when necessary, and using terms like "aqua" that at once serve the faux-refinement purposes and will be understood by most anyone who speaks a European language. |
|
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The whole bottled water thing was mocked in the "Mother Nature's Son" episode of Only Fools and Horses, with the bottled water coming from the tap and being bottled in a production line through their kitchen. | |
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