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Comment by helsinkiandrew | Hacker News Reader

A little digging and it appears these ads were in magazines like Hustler, Penthouse and High Times - not the The New York Review of Books or more mainstream titles, which makes much more sense.

https://flashbak.com/cocaine-advertising-of-the-1970s-1980s-... https://dangerousminds.net/comments/magazine_ads_from_the_he...

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The mainstream ads never mentioned what the product was for.

My mom had almost collected someones "US States" mini spoons set, when someone told her they were coke spoons she lost her enthusiasm for getting the full set. Some truck stop or something had sold them as a promotional thing, coulda been anything but "mini spoons" were a popular utensil right then.

It was also amusing, as a kid in the 80s, when these things would come out at yard sales and such. Pop up with "how much for this?" and watch someone turn deep pink; or alternately get the last bit of someones antique stash that the rest of their family was unaware of.

I can't picture which spoons you mean, but decorative or souvenir spoons are definitely a thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souvenir_spoon

He's referring to the coke spoons pictured in the article.

They're miniature size (e.g. only big enough for doing a bump of coke). Not full teaspoon size.

I'm not even sure many/any of those ads in the link were in anything resembling a mainstream publication in the first place.

These ads showed up in rock magazines like Creem and rolling stone, playboy, oui, counter culture newspapers, etc.

I am not sure if there is a name for this phenomenon, but it seems to be a frequent issue where, e.g., in this case some probably very limited run ads in obscure magazines only the fringe of society every even possibly saw are now in the future interpreted and assumed to have been seen by everyone, all the time, and were of far greater importance or impact than they really were in reality.

Does anyone know if there is a term for that kind of "bias" or self-deception?

The odd reflexive impact of that seems to be that today's historians and social sciences people are prone to falling prey to the "bias" and then weaving it into preconceived notions and narratives due to other biases like confirmation bias.

In this case, the ads were seen by far more people than understood them. Even those that asked and found out, many of them weren't interested and tuned it out mostly; so its not surprising if they do not remember it decades later.

History never has much to do with what actually happened, anyhow.

It's just shoddy analysis of sources.

You see it all the time on Facebook, or reddit, or wherever people post things like 'Did you know <group of ancient people believed> <something utterly ridiculous> without quantifying whether or not this was a common belief, or just a drinking story that they told.

An outsider who isn't careful about this might make a similar claim that modern Americans believe in a heroic lumberjack giant called Paul Bunyan, who has a giant pet blue ox. This is technically correct, but is also utterly useless as a description of modern Americans.

All of the magazines mentioned had massive circulations and were available at every 7-11 in the country.

A more interesting phenomenon is where media consumed by a tiny group of well-educated wealthy elites is considered universal or common. There's no way the New Yorker had a bigger circulation than Hustler in the 80s.

edit: according to wikipedia, Hustler's peak circulation in the 80s was 3 million copies a month.

> A more interesting phenomenon is where media consumed by a tiny group of well-educated wealthy elites is considered universal or common.

That's probably a consequence of those same elites controlling the media.

I remember buying one of those little "paper rose in a glass tube" things, at a 7-11, once. Someone told me what it's actually for (crack stem).

In the 1970s (and eighties), people would grow their right pinky nail long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Nuac_rwgc&t=380s

My regular ice cream truck driver, in the very early 80s when I was maybe 7 years old, also dealt drugs out of the truck and had this long coke nail I was fascinated with. Everybody liked him, and he would front kids ice cream when they were broke.

Like so?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzRGHuJt_I

> I remember buying one of those little "paper rose in a glass tube" things, at a 7-11, once.

Even has a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_rose

McDonald’s briefly had these small plastic spoons as coffee stirrers in the 70’s. They really looked almost designed for coke. We made a lot of fun about it. By the next year they had switched to a flat plastic stirrer that could not hold anything. I think they heard all the jokes about getting a Big Mac and a Coke.

https://dangerousminds.net/content/uploads/images/made/conte...

Harry Turtledove wrote a great SF short story in 1988 that relates to this:

https://archive.org/stream/New_Destinies_06_1988-Winter_Gorg...

Nice! The twist at the end was a bit obvious, but I was expecting it to be a soda.

Coca-Cola used to have cocaine in it, so a version where the caffeine is removed instead of the cocaine would have made sense:

https://archives.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/coca-colas-scandalo...

They've been used in Russia to at least 00s.

Hm, I don't remember ever seeing these or jokes about these. Also how many mcdonalds restaurants were there in Russia in the 90s, anyway?

Not sure about Russia in general, but as I lived in Moscow, it was a staple already in the 90s.

I guess there’s a fine line between drug innuendo and explicit promotion of drug use. A fine, powdered line…

They snorted even that one.

Most of those ads are bit ... on the nose.

Snow doubt about it, sneaking illicit references past the squares seems like it was a lot easier back then.

https://youtu.be/t8tdmaEhMHE

I would follow Occam’s Razor to choose one or the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Nuac_rwgc

OMG, I lost it at the gold chains appearing. Thanks for that. :)

It's a pretty weird movie, somehow my stepdad rented it from the local video rental in the 80's and I watched it (at night) before my parents realized what it was about, otherwise it for sure wouldn't have passed the censor.

Thank you, there's a bit of sensationalism in the article and that it wouldn't say where the ads ran was part of that. I was sure it wasn't in Time, and probably not Playboy.

I was curious whether the little spoons are still sold, since until now I had been unaware of the true purpose of those little things. Apparently, as of today they are the first item on Amazon when searching for miniature coke spoons.

"Tiny Snuff Spoon, Metal Micro Scoops Medicine Powder Spoon for Filling Vials, Spoon Pendants Necklace Loop, Set of 6"

The things people do.

This company specializing in flashlights and pocket gadgets would like to sell you a fancy titanium "ear pick".

https://shopmecarmy.com/products/ei2-titanium-edc-keychain-e...

Maybe I'm confused, but on [1], is the "fun" the bearing on top is meant to be used for a euphemism for some obscure act of violence, or do they actually just mean it's part pen part fidget toy?

[1] https://shopmecarmy.com/collections/featured-product/product...

I think they were absolutely not saying it is for an act of violence.

Anyone who wants a weapon would likely just use the nearest available plastic pen, a humble but likely more effective instrument in all cases. However, can you imagine buying a $130 titanium jumbopen only to find out that it doesn't even spin? I would be absolutely livid. Wars have been started over less!

Indeed! If you watch the pen's 30 second video it becomes obvious - immediately - that the pen is a steal at that price. It would still be a bargain when sold at for least $349.00.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw-rWiVdAlk

Oh, not only does it spin but you get a bit of flashyness from the internals. Definitely worth it.

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