I’m probably older than many here, but the fear I have witnessed the media pushed in my lifetime is absurd. It’s bad now, but the ‘80’s were really bad as well. I can’t even remember them all.
The Halloween candy has needles and razor blades so homemade treats are now verboten and you have to get everything x rayed.
Missing children. You’d seriously have thought kids disappeared from every block in America every month.
Satanism. This one was huge. “There may be satanic rituals taking place in your neighborhood! Stay tuned, stay informed.”
Drugs. This was a full on “war.” Junior is going to get handed drugs, hard drugs, everyday at school. The fear factor on this turned up huge in the 80’s because it was Nancy Reagan’s pet. There were kindergarteners getting lectured by cops.
There were legitimate safety campaigns around things like drunk driving or seat belts (when I was little I rode in the front seat and my seat belt was my mom’s arm), but then in the ‘90’s all of the fear porn morphed into Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore basically morphing a supermajority of middle aged American women into overbearing helicopter soccer moms. It was fucking surreal to watch as the “It Takes a Village” dreck became mainstream.
But COVID has taken that fear porn and magnified it by a thousand. The younger generation is destroyed.
Satanism. This one was huge. “There may be satanic rituals taking place in your neighborhood! Stay tuned, stay informed.”
This frankly just seems the like the elite immunizing the populace against accusations that they themselves engage in rituals/practices that the populace would find morally/spiritually abhorrent.
You forgot Alar and the dreaded MEDFLY that was going to eat all the fruits to extinction or something like that.
And I remember getting lectured by a cop in grade 2 or so (this would have been very early seventies), but I think he was just there to let us know about Officer Friendly, and how we should "look for a cop" if we were alone and in trouble. I don't think they were walking a beat any more even by that time. I do recall he passed around a bullet for us to examine, and I don't recall him advising us to wash our hands of the lead after. Naughty. Oh, and maybe he had some Elmer the Safety Elephant crap, too.
I think they were already pushing the "cigarettes are bad" thing, though, as I also vaguely recall getting my ass whipped for dropping a pack of smokes in the can.
Oh, yeah. Spawned the movie The Swarm, which was meant to compete with the superior Nightwing, which was also based on a minor, failed RL scare about vampire bats moving northward. I remember seeing these movies at the theatre/reading the latter book.
I’m probably older than many here, but the fear I have witnessed the media pushed in my lifetime is absurd. It’s bad now, but the ‘80’s were really bad as well. I can’t even remember them all.
The Halloween candy has needles and razor blades so homemade treats are now verboten and you have to get everything x rayed.
Missing children. You’d seriously have thought kids disappeared from every block in America every month.
Satanism. This one was huge. “There may be satanic rituals taking place in your neighborhood! Stay tuned, stay informed.”
Drugs. This was a full on “war.” Junior is going to get handed drugs, hard drugs, everyday at school. The fear factor on this turned up huge in the 80’s because it was Nancy Reagan’s pet. There were kindergarteners getting lectured by cops.
There were legitimate safety campaigns around things like drunk driving or seat belts (when I was little I rode in the front seat and my seat belt was my mom’s arm), but then in the ‘90’s all of the fear porn morphed into Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore basically morphing a supermajority of middle aged American women into overbearing helicopter soccer moms. It was fucking surreal to watch as the “It Takes a Village” dreck became mainstream.
But COVID has taken that fear porn and magnified it by a thousand. The younger generation is destroyed.
This frankly just seems the like the elite immunizing the populace against accusations that they themselves engage in rituals/practices that the populace would find morally/spiritually abhorrent.
Goes hand in hand with child kidnappings and trafficking across the border.
A chunk of a family got wiped out by that. Never caught the guy but I remember my mom throwing away the Tylenol. Good memory by you!
I really like Styxzhexenhammers monikor of describing these as a "moral panic" I find it very effective to conceptualise and explain to others.
You forgot Alar and the dreaded MEDFLY that was going to eat all the fruits to extinction or something like that.
And I remember getting lectured by a cop in grade 2 or so (this would have been very early seventies), but I think he was just there to let us know about Officer Friendly, and how we should "look for a cop" if we were alone and in trouble. I don't think they were walking a beat any more even by that time. I do recall he passed around a bullet for us to examine, and I don't recall him advising us to wash our hands of the lead after. Naughty. Oh, and maybe he had some Elmer the Safety Elephant crap, too.
I think they were already pushing the "cigarettes are bad" thing, though, as I also vaguely recall getting my ass whipped for dropping a pack of smokes in the can.
Yeah, the medfly. And the killer bees! Who can forget the killer bees?
Oh, yeah. Spawned the movie The Swarm, which was meant to compete with the superior Nightwing, which was also based on a minor, failed RL scare about vampire bats moving northward. I remember seeing these movies at the theatre/reading the latter book.