This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedanta.
In the 1960s, Madison Avenue was trying to come up with a campaign for a major consumer brand.
On a ranch in Wyoming, advertising executives discovered a cowboy who seemed like a perfect fit.
His name was Darrell Winfield, and he came across as tough, masculine, self reliant.
His face was soon plastered on billboards across America, Asia and Africa.
Ads showed him riding across rugged landscapes, often in silhouette, as violence played hauntingly in the background.
The slogan on screen read, this is Marlboro country.
The campaign to sell Marlboro cigarettes was one of the most effective in the history of advertising.
It sold more than just tobacco products.
It sold an image of the American west.
In urban neighborhoods across the United States and in crowded cities and poor villages around the world.
It offered a seductive vision of independence, self sufficiency and freedom.
The Marlboro man told two great lies.
The first caused untold sickness, disease and death.
Cigarettes are responsible for millions of deaths from lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema.
But our story today is about the second great lie.
The Marlboro man and countless other media creations like it suggests that our best lives are lived when we can be free of the cares, the concerns and the constraints of other people.
Today, we unpack how those themes have been woven into our lives, in the attitudes we have, and in the choices we make.
It's also the start of our annual summer series, U 2.0.