Timstuff
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July 5 marks the 200th birthday of PT Barnum
PT Barnum is a household name (born July 5, 1810, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of you don't quite realize why. Yeah, you probably know him as a circus showman, but he was a lot more than that. Let's just say that without him, this website's name would be a lot different. A lot of things would be quite different, actually. He's a man who ends up on the same page as the likes of Thomas Edison in some history books, because he did make a very important discovery which changed society, although it was not tangible in the same way the light bulb or movie camera were. PT Barnum's crowning achievement was successfully launching the modern concept of hype, and it changed advertising, marketing, politics, and every day life forever.
See, what PT Barnum realized was that what led to people getting excited about something was not about how spectacular the thing itself was, but how spectacular you told them it was. In essence, Barnum had identified what we now know as hype. He built a whole museum of oddities based around this very notion, and people came to it in droves. He'd collect all manner of strange things and people from around the world and present them to eager audiences who couldn't wait to see what fascinating things Barnum had found, even though in some instances they were not even real (such as his infamous mermaid hoax, which was actually a suffed monkey hide sewn to a fish tail). People didn't even care when they found out something was a fake, because that just made it more fun. Eventually, Barnum decided to bring his attractions around the country in live shows, which began the PT Barnum Circus.
Due to Barnum's entertainment savvy, had so much money that he pretty much put the city of Bridgeport on the map though his investments, which today is the most populous city in Connecticut (and it just so happens that yours truly used to go to school there). If you look at modern advertising for things like movies or political campaigns, you can still see Barnum's influence. Even though we know whatever it is probably isn't "the greatest ever" as the advertisement says, hearing those words is often enough to get us excited, just like PT Barnum's circus catch phrase "The Greatest Show on Earth."
So, this July 5, take a moment to appreciate the man most directly responsible for our modern sense of hype. Some called him a trickster, others a philanthropist, but everyone called him a genius.
PT Barnum is a household name (born July 5, 1810, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of you don't quite realize why. Yeah, you probably know him as a circus showman, but he was a lot more than that. Let's just say that without him, this website's name would be a lot different. A lot of things would be quite different, actually. He's a man who ends up on the same page as the likes of Thomas Edison in some history books, because he did make a very important discovery which changed society, although it was not tangible in the same way the light bulb or movie camera were. PT Barnum's crowning achievement was successfully launching the modern concept of hype, and it changed advertising, marketing, politics, and every day life forever.
See, what PT Barnum realized was that what led to people getting excited about something was not about how spectacular the thing itself was, but how spectacular you told them it was. In essence, Barnum had identified what we now know as hype. He built a whole museum of oddities based around this very notion, and people came to it in droves. He'd collect all manner of strange things and people from around the world and present them to eager audiences who couldn't wait to see what fascinating things Barnum had found, even though in some instances they were not even real (such as his infamous mermaid hoax, which was actually a suffed monkey hide sewn to a fish tail). People didn't even care when they found out something was a fake, because that just made it more fun. Eventually, Barnum decided to bring his attractions around the country in live shows, which began the PT Barnum Circus.
Due to Barnum's entertainment savvy, had so much money that he pretty much put the city of Bridgeport on the map though his investments, which today is the most populous city in Connecticut (and it just so happens that yours truly used to go to school there). If you look at modern advertising for things like movies or political campaigns, you can still see Barnum's influence. Even though we know whatever it is probably isn't "the greatest ever" as the advertisement says, hearing those words is often enough to get us excited, just like PT Barnum's circus catch phrase "The Greatest Show on Earth."
So, this July 5, take a moment to appreciate the man most directly responsible for our modern sense of hype. Some called him a trickster, others a philanthropist, but everyone called him a genius.
