p.s. Not in time to edit the post: In the late 1990s, I worked with a woman whose teenage daughter was in serious trouble - drugs, skipping school, hanging around with Really Bad Kids, one of whom eventually got her pregnant - and this woman was laying all the blame at the feet of MTV. (I told this story to some friends who had raised teenagers and lived to tell about it; we were at a restaurant, and the husband nearly blew about half of glass of water out his nose when I said that.) Other people would say, “Just get your cable taken out” and she would say, “My husband won’t, because he wants to watch his sports programs.” Yes, channels can be blocked too but they hadn’t done that either.
BTW, I just started following Whitley Strieber on YouTube. While I don’t agree with much of what he says, he’s a good presenter and I have read several of his books. The first one was actually the mid-1980s apocalyptic novel “Warday.”
There are actually multiple books, about multiple topics, that have variations on the word “transformation” as the title.
It’s easy for us to laugh at the silly arguments against Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but you’re right that this particular moral panic had a cost. Not only did it have a cost to persecuted individuals like the McMartins the West Memphis Three which included Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin, and many others in cases not so well publicized, but it ended up hurting the alleged victims of satanic ritual abuse. It planted thoughts in their heads and many of them came to regret the accusations they were coerced into making and it diverted resources to combat a problem that didn’t exist while ignoring real abuse that did occur.
I can’t see the Satanic Panic being taught in schools. We have millions of people who belong to a political party whose mainstream beliefs include crazy conspiracy theories like Birthers, Pizza-Gaters, that cats & dogs are being eaten by immigrants, and more recently something like 32% of Republicans believe vaccines are more harmful than the diseases they’re supposed to protect us from.
I remember the panic in the 1980s on “Satanic” and “suicide-inducing” rock song lyrics by Judas Priest, Ozzy, etc. It lead to the creation of the PMRC.
I think it was in the anthology book Prime Evil that I read his short story Pool. Non spoiler- The family has a pool. The dad sees his son apparently trying to drown himself in it. The rest of the story explains why. The explanation is fantastic in every sense of the word.
I think very good examples of this are both the Salem witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition. OTTOMH The Red Scare and McCarthy too.
I remember this part and also the McMartin case, though in my memory they were years apart. What I don’t recall is these and other things being grouped together and referred to as “Satanic Panic”. I’d never even heard the term until it was used in a movie (Session 9) and the character was talking about the wave of young people who had false memories of sexual abuse and satanic rituals. Not trying to refute it in way, it’s just weird to have been a young teen at the time and not realizing it was a thing.
It’s not weird. It’s not like people in France or Britain during the 14th and 15th centuries referred to the ongoing wars between the two as the Hundred Years’ War. A lot of history is just us looking back at someone and classifying it somehow. i.e. Nobody in 1760 decided to kick off the Industrial Revolution and nobody in 1066 was arguing over whether it was the Middle Ages or the High Middle Ages.
I honestly can’t remember where or when I first heard the term Satanic Panic.
I remember that day. Dee Snyder showed up to testify before Congress. We were all surprised when he was coherent. We were amazed when he made some very solid, thought out and well articulated arguments. Who knew?
TBH, I couldn’t see something like this being part of a general curriculum. Maybe part of an elective on, for instance, 20th century pop culture?
During the PMRC era, Frank Zappa was on Larry King’s radio show, and said that he called the PMRC headquarters and the phone was answered, “Gore For President.” I believe it, too.
Speaking of which, just imagine Frank Zappa, and also Divine, in today’s political and social environment. We still have fellow Baltimorean John Waters to fill in the blanks.
What I do remember was even then the “Satanic Panic” was largely considered hysteria. There was the cultural stuff with heavy metal and AD&D, which in all fairness often used demonic or occult imagery (in the case of heavy metal, often intentionally to shock and offend). But I think a lot of that was an extension of “just say no”, razor blades in Halloween candy and the general “kids are out of control” hysteria.
There was also a lot of overblown hype around cultists kidnapping and sacrificing people. But it was a lot like this NJ drone hysteria. A lot of people talking about something thing think they heard someone else see on the news with a lot of experts in law enforcement and whatnot telling people there weren’t bands of cultists going around sacrificing babies.
And even then it never really went much above “Enquirer” level stories.
Growing up in southern CT, we did hear a lot about the real-life Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring films).
Basically I tell my kids that growing up in the 80s was just like Stranger Things. We basically rode around on our bikes with our friends expecting that at any time we could be kidnapped and murdered by demons, cultists, or Russian spies.
I see value in teaching this stuff but kids in schools are barely scratching the surface of history as it is. Getting into the 79th more important thing that happened in the 1980s ain’t happening.
Wow. I sure am glad I lived through that time, listened to all the music and even played the music in various bands, and was never prey to all that. Weird, because my Mom was devoutly religious and she never even warned me !!
I think these moral panics typically tap into very real anxieties. In the 1980s, I don’t think most people were that concerned about demonic forces, but they were concerned about child abuse, suicide, and anti-social behavior. In the 1940s and 50s, there was a moral panic surrounding comic books with people organizing comic book burnings, various cities banning crime & horror comics, and even Senate hearings on the subject. It seems silly to us now, because it is, but it tapped into anxieties about juvenile crime and delinquent behavior prevalent in the 1940s and 50s.
And that’s what pretty much every moral panic has in common. They tap into anxieties and we’re still prone to having moral panics.
I was a teenager during this, in the Rust Belt, where a lot of metalheads were. There was a certain overlap with headbangers and dysfunctional families. A lot of (step) parents didn’t like the negative vibe in the house, and blamed the music and lifestyle. Rarely if ever did they consider that perhaps, their overly strict, erratic, rage-fueled “discipline”, often Bible-thumping, physically abusive or both, might be the problem, and the reason for the teenager’s withdrawal. And I think in some cases, they were afraid of someone younger, taller/heavier and stronger. “If he keeps listening to Iron Maiden, he’s gonna kill me in my sleep!” is an easier way to express anxiety than, “If I give him the belt too many times, he might just decide to knock me into next week before I can wind up.”
IIRC, it was very loosely based on the case of James Dallas Egbert, a child prodigy who started college at age 16, and who disappeared from college in 1979, after leaving a suicide note. The private investigator who his parents hired to find him, upon learning that Egbert played D&D, became convinced that the game had led to the kid’s disappearance (and possible suicide), and publicly aired his hypothesis that D&D was behind the kid’s troubles.
(Turns out Egbert was alive, but unhappy, and had gone on walkabout; he was found a few weeks later.)
The investigator’s claims about D&D were a big part of the fuel that led to people thinking the game led players to violence and Satanism.
