podcast friday

[sabotabby]

 I almost didn't do an entry this week because I'm way behind on my usual rotation of podcasts, but I was reminded of the excellent limited series, Things Fell Apart by Jon Ronson. This is a BBC podcast about the culture wars. Ronson isn't as funny as he normally is, but he's still a hell of a journalist, and does an awesome job researching and finding first-hand sources to interview about the roots of moral panics and divisive politics. One of the episodes is even heartwarming (it's about Tammy Faye Messner, whomst we stan), but it's not this one.

"Believe the Children" is about the Satanic Panic in the 1980s. If you're too young to remember it and only know it through Stranger Things, well, you're lucky to have missed it but also that presumably means you'll never be able to afford a house. It profiles the completely innocent victims whose lives were destroyed by a completely made-up conspiracy that infected America*. It's a good thing we've learned our lesson and nothing like that could ever happen again.

One of the things that struck me is just how similar these conspiracies are, from medieval blood libel campaigns against Jews to today's QAnon and anti-vaxx conspiracies. For one, you scratch the surface and there's always antisemitism lurking there. But for another, it's always adults losing their heads over a perceived threat to fictional children, even as they decidedly do not give a shit about any actual children. See also: Politicians being extremely worried about trans kids taking hormone blockers but not about kids being massacred in schools, either by gunmen on covid. And even when the conspiracy is demonstrably untrue and makes no sense, idiots with too much power will always fall for it.

Anyway, it's a really good episode. Check it out. If you're still hankering for more Satanic Panic discourse, check out my discussion post for Stranger Things Vol. 4 on terror_sffa !


* And other places. D&D was banned in schools here. 

Comments

[frandroid]

I think the conspiracies are more powerful when they aren't true... Otherwise you can find the people, arrest them, kill them or humiliate them, and put an end of the conspiracy. With fictional demons it keeps on going on forever. See: WMD in Iraq.

[sabotabby]

I mean, assuming that anyone ever did find the people involved in real conspiracies and arrest, kill, or humiliate them, instead of, say, awarding them the Nobel Peace Prize and trotting them out at age 99 to give their odious opinions on Ukraine.

[altamira16]

Basically, there was some cult child abuse going on in some places, but a lot of it was false memory implantation. Childcare workers and families got in trouble for abuse that never happened.

[minoanmiss]

Oh, good point.

Ah, the Satanic Panic. It was ... interesting being a fantasy & SF fan with fundie parents in the 80s. I hid a lot of books under my bed. At least my parents never actually destroyed any -- they were too Caribbean and thus too respectful of books for that.

[sabotabby]

Small blessings.

[altamira16]

It is so funny that my son's school next year will have a D&D club because Magic and D&D were generally frowned upon things due to the Satanic Panic when I was growing up.

[sabotabby]

Same! I even ran one for a bit (and hope to again, some day). It's generally understood to be good for kids now, seeing as it socializes them, teaches them problem solving skills, and teaches them math.

[moonblossom]

I love Stranger Things. And yes, the Satanic Panic thing.. I will check it out. :)

[sabotabby]

Enjoy! Or...be really terrified, I guess.

[moonblossom]

XD

[dancingdragon3]

The crazier, more detailed QAnon accusations against Democrats are exactly the same as against the Jewish in the Middle Ages. I think it must be evidence of innate human fears, cause you know these people don't study history.

I was compelled to watch podcasts on the Satanic Panic recently, too. It mentioned the boy who died/or went missing and had been playing D&D in the basement of his school. It also said that sales of D&D went through the roof the year after the controversy started, so, while that's hilarious and awesome, it also definitely says something about human nature. Coincidentally, I picked up Harry Potter in college because I saw it being banned all over the place.

Kind of in relation to the above, in college, my boyfriend's father gave me a book he wrote called Wicca: Satan's White Lie. Sigh. It started with Mary Magdalene as a drug dealing sex worker and was on about a fifth grade reading level. These people have too much time on their hands.

Cheers to pimping out the discussion post! It was so nice to see your icon again :-) FYI, Terror got two more subscribers this week, so something's working even if its not showing in the comments, yet.

[sabotabby]

I was kind of obsessed at the time because things I liked as a kid: fantasy, dragons, heavy metal, being edgy. But I was too young to join the D&D group that my mom ran in her library after it was banned in schools. So I think I just read a lot about it.

(It's fine, it's fine, I have my own D&D group now and they're great, even if we can never get our act together to play. Much like in Stranger Things,</I lol, so that's another thing that's realistic about it.) The reactionary imagination is always way more interesting than anything we ever come up with. Sigh. The post was fun to do! Apparently I had a lot of Thoughts.