Post AzDZTv0j7MTeT6cnTc by Alex@boymilk.cafe
(DIR) More posts by Alex@boymilk.cafe
(DIR) Post #AzDZ3vKrHul5wje73Q by the_etrain@beige.party
2025-10-15T00:13:41Z
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Snake oil seems pretty popular these days. Maybe I'll start selling that.
(DIR) Post #AzDZ3wcyU2qNxD85vk by whybird@aus.social
2025-10-15T01:14:25Z
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@the_etrain Fun fact, for real: actual snake oil was (maybe is, snake welfare aside) considered a good thing; it has actual medicinal properties. “Snake oil *salesmen*” became synonymous with shonkiness because of all the many, many people selling cheaper crap while *claiming* it was actual snake oil, which again is the good stuff.
(DIR) Post #AzDZ3xUVH1f6dEAqMi by Alex@boymilk.cafe
2025-10-15T01:24:58.194675Z
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From what I've heard, snake oil was originally something Chinese immigrants to the US used, which was imported from China, and extracted from a specific type of snake that produced oil that had some real medicinal uses. The scam "snake oil" was often actually from snakes, it was just from snakes native to the US, which didn't produce the actually useful chemical that the particular species of snake from China produced, making it completely useless. And of course, some just sold random mystery fluids that weren't even from snakes to begin with.
(DIR) Post #AzDZTv0j7MTeT6cnTc by Alex@boymilk.cafe
2025-10-15T01:29:44.821368Z
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The tendency for people to produce bootleg versions of natural medicines and then discover their bootleg doesn't actually do anything since it doesn't include any of the actually useful ingredients seems unfortunately rather common. I think it's lead to a lot of racism as well as a lot of dismissal of genuinely effective medicines that just get lumped in with the shoddy bootlegs produced by people who have no idea why the original worked.