Edited post to replace potential AI image. Slightly difficult to know if it was, but erring on the safe side.

1892 ad for Hires Root Beer. The brand was founded in 1876 by Charles Elmer Hires, making it one of the longest continually produced soft drink brands - although root beer itself is much older. Hires advertised the beverage as a "temperance drink", and he himself was a non-drinker who espoused the benefits of abstaining from alcohol.

Said Hires about his advertising campaigns,

Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.

The status of the Hires brand name appears to be dubious post 2023, since "the Keurig Dr. Pepper web page no longer lists Hires among its list of brands".

Is the yellow package full of tablets? Condensed syrup?

I'll guess the former, although either would be possible. The company sold packets of powdered flavoring to soda fountains around the US & Canada, who would supply their own carbonation. There was also a syrup form of the flavoring, so both existed.

Thank you, that makes sense.

"Come to Daddy"

https://youtu.be/TZ827lkktYs

Thanks. I'll call my therapist to restart my weekly appointments.

Oh Richard has way weirder\disturbing videos

NSFW:

"Rubber Johnny"

https://youtu.be/-kL3qK9EVvU

Who is that 40-year old little girl?

It looks like my niece. Poor kid

No.

The butter says root beer

but alas

Sorry, what is he holding? It looks like root beer without the glass?

Also, the box has 5 nails on one side, and four on the other, which might seem insignificant but it's been shown AI images have difficulty producing symmetry (where as human artists often aim for this).

Likewise, 'Rootbeer' in one instance and 'ROOT BEER!' in another, along with some odd word placement and signatures and trademark text that's there-but-not-really-there.

...how certain are you that this isn't AI generated content?

Now confirming this is an AI image. It's a paint-in and upscale version of this image:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cooksinfo.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FCharles-E-Hires-root-beer-ad.jpg

https://www.hagley.org/research/news/hagley-vault/ca-1892-advertisement-hires-root-beer-was-produced-charles-e-hires

The version you've posted disappears from search results 2000 - 2023, with AI results hidden.

You have to be careful not to introduce false histories into the record. The image appears to be fake.

I'm not sure that is right. If it is AI, I'll replace it with the very similar image you found, since I agree we shouldn't be introducing AI generated images. However, I'm not super convinced by the 4 vs 5 nails. Details like that also happen all the time with human artists. Well, I might replace it anyway just to err on the safe side, but I'm still skeptical of this being AI. The thing the child is holding looks like a cupcake.

The image also appears in paper signs sold on auction sites. I've seen at least 3 auction sites specializing in vintage objects. That is not proof alone, of course, since they could possibly get fooled.

There are versions given on stock images sites which are listed as vintage posters.

I also tried running it through several AI detectors this one lists it as 100% human, and this one as "Real" (97% chance human).

Edit: I'm also seeing it still show up in image searches even with AI images hidden.

The problem with AI detectors is that they either use AI to detetect which is a flawed method, or they require the image generator to embedded tags (like Google's Synth ID).

Images still showing up in search engines with AI hidden, is due to image tagging on search engines such a duckduckgo, being done by the population. By us. You can do an image search right now and tag images as AI. Most people don't know this, and haven't done it before - so there's plenty of AI generated images that don't grt hidden. Tagging them is like a good deed to humanity.

Nope, for me the two most convincing proofs that this particular version of the image is that A) It disappears in searches set to 2000-2023. B) The peice of cake being made to look like Root Beer. This is a common thing AI does, it puts in elements that are microcosms of the reqeust.

But yeah, I think everyone appreciates that AI detection is difficult. So let's not worry about it too much.

Bloody AI, I really am concerned about it (poorly) re-writting history. Fake WW2 videos full of misinformation is the most concerning thing so far.

OK, well, I don't know if you are right, but I will change the post's image just in case. I'll put the former one as a text link in the post, with some explanation.

Give me 5 minutes, I'll have it done!

OK, done. I replaced it with the similar one from your post.

Absolutely, it is getting very hard to know what may be real. I rejected a whole post last week because it turned out to be a fake, but it looked just like the style of late 1800's ads.

It's a tough call, and I think it's something everyone who gives a shit about the truth is facing. I was tricked the other day by a casual shitpost that I wasn't paying much attention to:

https://lemmy.world/post/52169244

They just sneak in, and often there's meme-able elements to them. The ugly-historical-baby factor for instance is a lot less with the replacement poster... And that's genuinely less fun, even if it is the more-likely-to-be-true option.

Then again, hires has some art that's weird by today's standards... Like the fishnets in the below example, uploaded 9 years ago:

Honestly who knows! We're all just doing our best!