WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.279 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We have a really 00:00:03.279 --> 00:00:05.200 fascinating stack of research to get through 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.360 today. I want to start by taking you back in 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:12.119 time. Okay. It's Easter weekend, 1964. The location 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:16.280 is Clacton, a small seaside resort town in England. 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:18.500 Now, if you've ever been to the British coast 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:20.480 on a bank holiday, you can probably picture the 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:24.879 scene. Oh, yeah. Gray skies, a biting wind, and 00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:27.660 the smell of vinegar on chips. It's not exactly 00:00:27.660 --> 00:00:30.339 Ibiza. It's not Ibiza, exactly. It's wet, it's 00:00:30.339 --> 00:00:33.000 cold, and frankly, it's boring. Yeah. But in 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.100 1964, Clacton was packed with teenagers. Right. 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:38.280 And because it was the 60s, these weren't just 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:40.859 any teenagers. You had two distinct tribes present. 00:00:40.939 --> 00:00:44.280 On one side, you had the mods, sharpshoots, Italian 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:47.929 scooters. Modern jazz, amphetamines, very clean 00:00:47.929 --> 00:00:50.149 cut, very stylish. And then on the other side, 00:00:50.210 --> 00:00:52.609 you had the rockers. The rockers. Leather jackets, 00:00:52.909 --> 00:00:55.829 motorcycles, grease in the hair, American rock 00:00:55.829 --> 00:00:57.630 and roll, two very, very different uniforms, 00:00:57.810 --> 00:00:59.850 two very different philosophies on life. And 00:00:59.850 --> 00:01:02.270 naturally, you put two opposing tribes in a boring 00:01:02.270 --> 00:01:04.450 town with nothing to do and you're going to get 00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:07.319 friction. A few scuffles broke out. A few windows 00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:09.920 were smashed. Some deck chairs were thrown around 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:12.640 on the beach. By all historical accounts, if 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:14.939 you actually look at the police logs, it was 00:01:14.939 --> 00:01:18.219 minor. It was rowdy, sure, but it wasn't a war. 00:01:18.420 --> 00:01:21.840 It was standard holiday misbehavior. A bit of 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:23.780 a dust -up. But if you looked at the newspapers 00:01:23.780 --> 00:01:26.560 the next morning, you would think civilization 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:28.939 itself had collapsed. The headlines were just 00:01:28.939 --> 00:01:32.549 apocalyptic. Day of terror. Wild Ones beat up 00:01:32.549 --> 00:01:35.709 Margate. Battle for the beaches. I mean, the 00:01:35.709 --> 00:01:38.689 media painted this picture of a town completely 00:01:38.689 --> 00:01:41.530 under siege, overrun by these feral youth gangs 00:01:41.530 --> 00:01:44.189 wielding knives and bicycle chains. And that 00:01:44.189 --> 00:01:47.049 disconnect, that massive yawning gap between 00:01:47.049 --> 00:01:51.090 the boring reality of a rainy Tuesday and the 00:01:51.090 --> 00:01:53.689 screaming headlines of Wednesday, that is exactly 00:01:53.689 --> 00:01:56.069 where our deep dive begins today. Right. Because 00:01:56.069 --> 00:01:58.129 there was a sociologist watching all of this 00:01:58.129 --> 00:02:00.549 unfold. His name was Stanley Cohen. And he wasn't 00:02:00.549 --> 00:02:02.109 really interested in the fight. He was interested 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:04.170 in the freak out. The freak out. I like that. 00:02:04.230 --> 00:02:06.569 He realized that society was doing something 00:02:06.569 --> 00:02:09.250 very, very specific. It wasn't just reacting. 00:02:09.270 --> 00:02:12.009 It was manufacturing a crisis. And from that 00:02:12.009 --> 00:02:15.069 observation, Cohen coined a term that I would 00:02:15.069 --> 00:02:17.349 argue is one of the most essential tools we have 00:02:17.349 --> 00:02:19.770 for understanding the modern world. He called 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:22.909 it a moral panic. It is, in a way, the operating 00:02:22.909 --> 00:02:25.729 system for how society scares itself. I mean, 00:02:25.750 --> 00:02:28.210 you hear that phrase thrown around constantly 00:02:28.210 --> 00:02:31.550 now. Oh, it's just a moral panic. But today... 00:02:31.870 --> 00:02:34.669 We are going to strip that term right down to 00:02:34.669 --> 00:02:36.430 the studs. Yeah, let's get into the mechanics 00:02:36.430 --> 00:02:38.129 of it. We're going to look at the anatomy of 00:02:38.129 --> 00:02:41.569 a panic, how it starts, how it spreads, and, 00:02:41.669 --> 00:02:43.969 you know, why we seem addicted to them. We've 00:02:43.969 --> 00:02:46.189 got Cohen's original work. We've got the updated 00:02:46.189 --> 00:02:48.810 checklists from Goode and Ben Yehuda. And we 00:02:48.810 --> 00:02:50.729 have a whole history of everything we've been 00:02:50.729 --> 00:02:52.830 terrified of, from comic books to drag queens. 00:02:53.110 --> 00:02:54.969 And the goal here is really to understand the 00:02:54.969 --> 00:02:57.520 mechanism. Because once you see the gears turning, 00:02:57.699 --> 00:02:59.659 you just can't unsee them. It changes how you 00:02:59.659 --> 00:03:01.960 see the news. Totally. So let's define the beast. 00:03:02.259 --> 00:03:05.360 How do we distinguish a moral panic from, you 00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:08.979 know, a legitimate disaster? If a hurricane hits, 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.939 that's a panic, but it's not a moral panic. Correct. 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:15.240 The key word is moral. Stanley Cohen's definition 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:18.099 in his book Folk Devils and Moral Panics is still 00:03:18.099 --> 00:03:20.639 the gold standard. He wrote that a moral panic 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:24.460 occurs when a condition, episode, person, or 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:27.379 group of persons emerges to become defined as 00:03:27.379 --> 00:03:30.960 a threat to societal values and interests. Okay. 00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:34.560 Defined as a threat. That feels like the load 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:37.099 -bearing wall of this entire definition. It is. 00:03:37.219 --> 00:03:39.159 It absolutely is. Because the threat doesn't 00:03:39.159 --> 00:03:40.819 have to be existential. It doesn't even have 00:03:40.819 --> 00:03:44.009 to be... objectively real in the way we think 00:03:44.009 --> 00:03:45.830 of it. It just has to be defined as a threat 00:03:45.830 --> 00:03:48.310 to our values, our way of life. So it's about 00:03:48.310 --> 00:03:50.129 perception. It's all about perception. Cohen 00:03:50.129 --> 00:03:52.849 pointed out that there is always this this discrepancy. 00:03:52.849 --> 00:03:54.909 The issue might be real. The mods and rockers 00:03:54.909 --> 00:03:57.729 did throw some punches, but the reaction exaggerates 00:03:57.729 --> 00:04:01.610 the seriousness, the extent and the the inevitability 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:04.330 of the harm. So it's a scaling error, a fundamental 00:04:04.330 --> 00:04:07.189 miscalculation of risk. We take a chaotic weekend 00:04:07.189 --> 00:04:09.430 in Clacton and we treat it like the fall of Rome. 00:04:09.770 --> 00:04:12.210 Precisely. And within this drama, Cohn identified 00:04:12.210 --> 00:04:14.889 two key archetypes that you see in almost every 00:04:14.889 --> 00:04:17.389 single panic. First, you have the moral entrepreneurs. 00:04:17.670 --> 00:04:20.290 I love that term. It sounds like a terrible LinkedIn 00:04:20.290 --> 00:04:23.230 bio. Hi, I'm a moral entrepreneur looking for 00:04:23.230 --> 00:04:25.759 synergy. Who are these people? I mean, it does, 00:04:25.860 --> 00:04:27.540 doesn't it? These are the people who start the 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:29.220 fire. They're the rule creators. They are the 00:04:29.220 --> 00:04:31.459 editors, the politicians, the bishops, the heads 00:04:31.459 --> 00:04:34.319 of pressure groups who stand up and say something 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:36.699 must be done. The ones with the platform. Yes. 00:04:37.100 --> 00:04:39.379 They're the ones who feel that a specific value 00:04:39.379 --> 00:04:42.420 is being threatened and they sell that fear to 00:04:42.420 --> 00:04:44.839 the public. They have a vested interest, conscious 00:04:44.839 --> 00:04:47.500 or not, in the panic itself. And who are they 00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:49.699 selling this fear against? Well, that's the second 00:04:49.699 --> 00:04:53.470 archetype. The folk devils. Right. This is Cohen's 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:56.689 most famous concept. The folk devil is the personification 00:04:56.689 --> 00:05:00.850 of the threat. It's the mod, the rocker, the 00:05:00.850 --> 00:05:04.189 drug dealer, the single mother on welfare, the 00:05:04.189 --> 00:05:07.350 immigrant. The folk devil is the scapegoat onto 00:05:07.350 --> 00:05:09.670 whom we project all of our collective anxieties. 00:05:10.029 --> 00:05:12.569 It sounds almost theatrical. You have your heroes, 00:05:12.790 --> 00:05:15.930 the moral entrepreneurs, and your villains, the 00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:18.550 folk devils, and a plot that everyone just sort 00:05:18.550 --> 00:05:21.209 of agrees to pretend is real. It is absolutely 00:05:21.209 --> 00:05:24.300 theatrical. But it's and this is important. It's 00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:27.100 crucial to distinguish this from something like 00:05:27.100 --> 00:05:29.779 mass hysteria because people often confuse them. 00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:32.019 OK, what's the difference? Mass hysteria is usually 00:05:32.019 --> 00:05:35.019 psychological. It's often about physical symptoms 00:05:35.019 --> 00:05:37.500 spreading through a group without a biological 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:40.639 cause, like, you know, the fainting spells in 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:42.899 schools or the dancing plagues of the Middle 00:05:42.899 --> 00:05:44.879 Ages. It's more of a medical or psychological 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:48.060 event. Exactly. A moral panic is sociological. 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:51.000 It's about power. It's about how society is structured, 00:05:51.139 --> 00:05:53.040 how it's controlled. old and who gets to decide 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:56.100 what is good and bad. It's about social boundaries. 00:05:56.459 --> 00:05:58.379 Okay, so we have the players. We have the stage. 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:01.459 Let's look at the script. Komen didn't just name 00:06:01.459 --> 00:06:03.759 the phenomenon. He actually mapped out the timeline. 00:06:04.339 --> 00:06:06.959 He argued these things tend to happen in five 00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:09.379 specific stages. Yes, and once you hear these 00:06:09.379 --> 00:06:11.720 five stages, you will start seeing them in every 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:15.180 single news cycle. It honestly ruins the nightly 00:06:15.180 --> 00:06:17.139 news for you. Let's ruin the news then. I'm ready. 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:20.560 What is stage one? Stage one is the trigger. 00:06:20.699 --> 00:06:24.339 Something happens. A specific event. A kid brings 00:06:24.339 --> 00:06:27.160 a switchblade to school. A fight breaks out on 00:06:27.160 --> 00:06:29.740 a beach. A specific video goes viral on TikTok. 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:32.639 It's the spark. Right. But sparks die out all 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.019 the time. To get a real fire, you need fuel. 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:37.980 Which brings us to stage two, amplification. 00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:40.800 This is where the media steps in. And this is 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:43.560 the part Cohen was most critical of. The media 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:45.800 doesn't just report the event. They process it. 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:48.639 They frame it. They use what he called simplistic, 00:06:48.899 --> 00:06:52.420 symbolic rhetoric. They create a clear us versus 00:06:52.420 --> 00:06:53.980 them narrative. This is where the folk devil 00:06:53.980 --> 00:06:56.100 gets their costume. Yeah. This is where the image 00:06:56.100 --> 00:06:58.620 is created. Exactly. Cohen talks about symbolization. 00:06:59.139 --> 00:07:02.240 The media takes a neutral object like a specific 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:05.519 type of jacket or a hairstyle or a scooter and 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:07.740 turns it into a potent symbol of the threat. 00:07:08.269 --> 00:07:10.430 Before the panic, a scooter was just a cheap 00:07:10.430 --> 00:07:12.889 way to get around clocked in. After the panic, 00:07:12.949 --> 00:07:14.889 if you saw a scooter, you didn't see a vehicle. 00:07:14.990 --> 00:07:17.410 You saw a symbol of violence, of disorder, of 00:07:17.410 --> 00:07:19.670 the mod menace. We see this constantly. A hoodie, 00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:22.649 a pitbull, a certain flag. The object itself 00:07:22.649 --> 00:07:25.230 becomes radioactive. It's loaded with meaning 00:07:25.230 --> 00:07:28.389 that it didn't have before. Precisely. This leads 00:07:28.389 --> 00:07:32.319 directly into stage three, anxiety. Public concern 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:35.240 rises and rises rapidly. People start believing 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:37.639 that this isn't just an isolated incident, but 00:07:37.639 --> 00:07:41.100 it's a wave of chaos. It's a new trend. The concern 00:07:41.100 --> 00:07:43.740 spreads from the moral entrepreneurs to the general 00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:45.959 population. The maud menace is coming for your 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:49.100 town. Lock your doors. And that anxiety demands 00:07:49.100 --> 00:07:52.259 action. It creates pressure. Which brings us 00:07:52.259 --> 00:07:55.480 to stage four, the response. The gatekeepers 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.480 step in. Politicians, editors, bishops, police 00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:01.100 chiefs. They pronounce their diagnoses and their 00:08:01.100 --> 00:08:02.899 solutions. We need to get tough on scooters. 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:05.240 Pretty much. And usually this means new laws, 00:08:05.420 --> 00:08:08.420 police crackdowns, or harsh new policies. They 00:08:08.420 --> 00:08:10.680 have to be seen doing something to calm the public 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:13.420 anxiety they helped create. And finally, what's 00:08:13.420 --> 00:08:16.879 the last stage? Stage five, resolution. The panic 00:08:16.879 --> 00:08:18.959 eventually subsides. It either just disappears 00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:20.620 because the media gets bored and finds a new 00:08:20.620 --> 00:08:23.040 threat, or it results in lasting social change, 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:24.839 like a new law that stays on the books forever. 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:27.399 But often, the panic just submerges, you know? 00:08:27.420 --> 00:08:29.199 It goes dormant, waiting for the next trigger. 00:08:29.379 --> 00:08:32.679 So it's a cycle. Wash, wince, panic, repeat. 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:35.860 And Cohen really emphasized that for most of 00:08:35.860 --> 00:08:39.139 us, the media is the engine that keeps this whole 00:08:39.139 --> 00:08:42.220 thing spinning. He argued that for most people, 00:08:42.299 --> 00:08:44.879 the media is their primary source of knowledge 00:08:44.879 --> 00:08:48.240 about deviance. You probably don't know a mod 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:51.899 or a rocker personally. You only know what the 00:08:51.899 --> 00:08:53.759 newspaper tells you about them. So the media 00:08:53.759 --> 00:08:56.340 isn't just reflecting reality. They are actively 00:08:56.340 --> 00:08:58.480 constructing it. They are setting the agenda. 00:08:59.129 --> 00:09:00.669 It's interesting, though, because looking at 00:09:00.669 --> 00:09:02.289 the source material, there seems to be a bit 00:09:02.289 --> 00:09:05.269 of a split in how experts view this. You have 00:09:05.269 --> 00:09:06.809 the British perspective and then the American 00:09:06.809 --> 00:09:08.870 perspective. They don't see it in exactly the 00:09:08.870 --> 00:09:11.330 same way. Yes, that's a really fascinating divergence. 00:09:11.950 --> 00:09:14.110 American sociologists, generally speaking, have 00:09:14.110 --> 00:09:16.409 tended to focus more on the psychological factors, 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:19.450 individual anxieties. You know, why is this specific 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:21.909 parent scared of this new music? It's more of 00:09:21.909 --> 00:09:23.990 a micro level analysis. But the British school 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:26.659 of thought is different. Very. British sociologists 00:09:26.659 --> 00:09:29.980 like Stuart Hall, who is just a giant in this 00:09:29.980 --> 00:09:33.480 field viewed moral panics through a much more 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:36.419 political and economic lens. How so? They often 00:09:36.419 --> 00:09:40.440 saw moral panics as crises of capitalism or as 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:42.879 tools for social control. You have to look at 00:09:42.879 --> 00:09:46.000 Stuart Hall's work on mugging in the 1970s UK. 00:09:46.509 --> 00:09:48.629 Mugging wasn't even really a legal term there 00:09:48.629 --> 00:09:50.929 at the time. It was an American import. OK. But 00:09:50.929 --> 00:09:53.429 the media started screaming about a plague of 00:09:53.429 --> 00:09:56.549 mugging and they specifically relentlessly linked 00:09:56.549 --> 00:09:59.350 it to young black men. And Hall's argument was 00:09:59.350 --> 00:10:01.090 that this wasn't an accident, that there was 00:10:01.090 --> 00:10:03.389 a reason for this focus. Right. He argued that 00:10:03.389 --> 00:10:05.950 the U .K. was in a deep economic crisis at the 00:10:05.950 --> 00:10:08.830 time. Capitalism was struggling. There were strikes, 00:10:08.990 --> 00:10:11.789 high inflation. The panic over mugging served 00:10:11.789 --> 00:10:14.389 as a distraction. It allowed the state to bring 00:10:14.389 --> 00:10:17.039 in aggressive policing. more authoritarian measures. 00:10:17.220 --> 00:10:20.000 It justified a crackdown on a specific population. 00:10:20.039 --> 00:10:22.759 So in the UK view, the panic is almost a weapon. 00:10:23.210 --> 00:10:25.110 A way to keep people in line and distract them 00:10:25.110 --> 00:10:27.450 from the fact that, say, the economy is tanking. 00:10:27.470 --> 00:10:30.610 In many cases, yes. It focuses public anger on 00:10:30.610 --> 00:10:33.070 a convenient folk double rather than on systemic 00:10:33.070 --> 00:10:35.490 failures of the economy or the government. That 00:10:35.490 --> 00:10:37.649 is, well, it's cynical, but it also makes a lot 00:10:37.649 --> 00:10:39.950 of sense. Yeah. Now, Cohen gave us this narrative 00:10:39.950 --> 00:10:43.070 process, this five -act play. But later researchers 00:10:43.070 --> 00:10:45.389 decided they needed a stricter way to measure 00:10:45.389 --> 00:10:47.970 this. They wanted a checklist. You know, is this 00:10:47.970 --> 00:10:51.049 a panic or is it a legitimate disaster? Right. 00:10:51.450 --> 00:10:53.889 This brings us to the work of Eric Good and Nachman 00:10:53.889 --> 00:10:57.169 Ben -Yehuda in 1994. They came along and developed 00:10:57.169 --> 00:10:59.529 what's called the attributional model. Basically, 00:10:59.529 --> 00:11:01.889 it's the panic checklist. I love a good checklist. 00:11:02.190 --> 00:11:04.669 So if we are diagnosing a moral panic in the 00:11:04.669 --> 00:11:07.330 wild, what are the symptoms we should be looking 00:11:07.330 --> 00:11:10.370 for? Okay, there are five key elements. If you 00:11:10.370 --> 00:11:12.350 can tick these boxes, you're very likely in the 00:11:12.350 --> 00:11:16.129 middle of a panic. First is concern. There must 00:11:16.129 --> 00:11:18.409 be a heightened, measurable level of anxiety 00:11:18.409 --> 00:11:20.990 about a specific group's behavior. You can see 00:11:20.990 --> 00:11:23.309 this in polls, in lobbying efforts, or just the 00:11:23.309 --> 00:11:25.429 sheer volume of news coverage. Okay, check one. 00:11:25.610 --> 00:11:28.149 Everyone is worried. Simple enough. Second is 00:11:28.149 --> 00:11:30.509 hostility. There has to be a clear us -versus 00:11:30.509 --> 00:11:33.169 -them mentality. The group is designated as the 00:11:33.169 --> 00:11:35.950 enemy of respectable society. They aren't just 00:11:35.950 --> 00:11:38.830 different. Their behavior is framed as fundamentally 00:11:38.830 --> 00:11:41.809 wrong and threatening to the moral fabric. Check 00:11:41.809 --> 00:11:44.929 two. We hate them. It's not just concern. It's 00:11:44.929 --> 00:11:48.210 animosity. Third is consensus. There has to be 00:11:48.210 --> 00:11:51.429 widespread agreement that the threat is real 00:11:51.429 --> 00:11:54.289 and serious. Now, it doesn't have to be everyone, 00:11:54.470 --> 00:11:59.309 not 100%, but a significant moral majority needs 00:11:59.309 --> 00:12:02.309 to agree that the folk devils are bad news. Check 00:12:02.309 --> 00:12:05.409 three. A lot of people agree we hate them. Exactly. 00:12:05.690 --> 00:12:07.929 Now, fourth is the most crucial one, and it's 00:12:07.929 --> 00:12:10.679 often the hardest to prove. Disproportionality. 00:12:10.820 --> 00:12:13.080 Okay, unpack that for me. This seems like the 00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:14.700 most subjective part, especially when you're 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:16.679 in the middle of it. How can you tell if something's 00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:19.019 disproportionate if you're also scared? It is. 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:21.860 This is where the reaction soars far beyond the 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:24.539 objective threat. The public concern is orders 00:12:24.539 --> 00:12:26.980 of magnitude greater than the actual harm being 00:12:26.980 --> 00:12:30.240 caused. Statistics get exaggerated or even fabricated. 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.340 Other, much bigger, more common harms are totally 00:12:33.340 --> 00:12:36.159 ignored. So we freak out about, I don't know, 00:12:36.299 --> 00:12:39.360 sharks. But we ignore heart disease. That is 00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:42.080 the perfect analogy. Sharks kill maybe 10 people 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:44.480 a year globally. Heart disease kills millions. 00:12:44.740 --> 00:12:47.159 But we have a shark panic every summer, not a 00:12:47.159 --> 00:12:49.600 cheeseburger panic. The fear is not proportional 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:53.120 to the statistical risk. Right. Got it. And what's 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:55.120 the last one? The fifth element is volatility. 00:12:56.180 --> 00:12:58.940 Panics are explosive, they erupt suddenly, they 00:12:58.940 --> 00:13:01.279 burn incredibly hot, and then they disappear 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:03.919 just as fast as public interest wanes, or the 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:07.080 media moves on to the next shiny, scary object. 00:13:07.399 --> 00:13:10.220 It's like a firework. A huge bang, bright lights, 00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:13.659 a lot of noise, and then nothing. It's gone. 00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:16.659 And Good and Ben Yehuda also offer three theories 00:13:16.659 --> 00:13:19.399 on where these panics actually come from, because 00:13:19.399 --> 00:13:21.240 they don't just appear out of thin air. There's 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:23.620 an origin story. Right. So is this a grassroots 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:25.679 thing coming from the public or is it being pushed 00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:27.720 from the top down? Well, that's the debate. The 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:30.419 grassroots model says exactly that. The panic 00:13:30.419 --> 00:13:32.600 comes from the general public. It's a reflection 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:35.320 of real widespread anxieties that just bubble 00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:37.940 up from below. In this view, the media is just 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:39.940 reflecting what people are already feeling. OK, 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.139 so the people are genuinely scared first and 00:13:42.139 --> 00:13:44.340 the media follows. Then you have the opposite, 00:13:44.539 --> 00:13:47.519 the elite engineered model. This is the Stuart 00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:49.799 Hall view we just talked about. This is the wag 00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:52.960 the dog theory. Elites in government or corporate 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:56.440 media manufacture a panic to distract from other 00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:00.080 problems. If the economy is tanking, make everyone 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:03.500 afraid of a new type of crime. That sounds suspiciously 00:14:03.500 --> 00:14:06.320 like modern politics. And the third is the interest 00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:08.710 group theory. This is sort of the middle ground. 00:14:08.929 --> 00:14:11.370 This is where professional associations, religious 00:14:11.370 --> 00:14:14.330 groups or nonprofits launch crusades. They do 00:14:14.330 --> 00:14:17.029 it to gain status, to raise money or to enforce 00:14:17.029 --> 00:14:20.269 their specific brand of morality. They act as 00:14:20.269 --> 00:14:22.690 the moral entrepreneurs. So it could be parents 00:14:22.690 --> 00:14:25.070 genuinely concerned about their kids or politicians 00:14:25.070 --> 00:14:27.909 who want votes or an organization that needs 00:14:27.909 --> 00:14:30.330 a cause to fight for to justify its existence. 00:14:30.590 --> 00:14:32.769 Or more often than not, it's a perfect storm 00:14:32.769 --> 00:14:34.690 of all three at once. That's usually when you 00:14:34.690 --> 00:14:36.710 get the really big defining panics that last. 00:14:36.750 --> 00:14:39.090 for years let's put this model to the test then 00:14:39.090 --> 00:14:41.570 i want to look at the greatest hits of moral 00:14:41.570 --> 00:14:44.049 panic because when you look back at history some 00:14:44.049 --> 00:14:46.009 of the things we collectively panicked about 00:14:46.009 --> 00:14:50.250 seem absolutely ridiculous now they do but at 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:53.509 the time they felt deadly serious the threat 00:14:53.509 --> 00:14:57.149 felt real okay let's start in the 1950s the era 00:14:57.149 --> 00:14:59.750 of white picket fences sock hops and apparently 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:03.559 deadly toys The switchblade panic. The switchblade. 00:15:03.639 --> 00:15:05.659 Now, I know these knives are illegal in a lot 00:15:05.659 --> 00:15:08.320 of places even today, but why the switchblade 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:10.940 specifically? A kitchen knife is just as sharp, 00:15:10.940 --> 00:15:13.980 if not sharper. It's a perfect example of Cohen's 00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:17.600 idea of symbolization. In 1950, a very respectable 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:20.159 magazine called Women's Home Companion published 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:22.700 an article with the incredible title, The Toy 00:15:22.700 --> 00:15:24.840 That Kills. The Toy That Kills. I mean, that 00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:27.519 is a hook. You can't not read that. It was a 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:30.440 brilliant piece of panic mongering. The narrative 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:32.399 was that the switchblade wasn't just a knife. 00:15:32.500 --> 00:15:34.960 It was a symbol of youth violence, of sex, of 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:37.179 delinquency. It was the weapon of the gang. And 00:15:37.179 --> 00:15:39.220 Hollywood just poured gasoline on this fire. 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:42.120 Movies like Rebel Without a Cause and West Side 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:44.379 Story put the switchblade in the hands of the 00:15:44.379 --> 00:15:47.460 cool, dangerous rebels. The knife became a prop 00:15:47.460 --> 00:15:49.990 that signified a threat. So if you were a teenager 00:15:49.990 --> 00:15:51.850 and you had a switchblade, you weren't just, 00:15:51.929 --> 00:15:54.169 I don't know, peeling an apple. You were signaling 00:15:54.169 --> 00:15:55.990 that you were a delinquent. You were part of 00:15:55.990 --> 00:15:58.389 the problem. Exactly. And the result of that 00:15:58.389 --> 00:16:02.529 panic was a wave of laws banning this specific 00:16:02.529 --> 00:16:05.629 mechanism of opening a knife. Interestingly, 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:08.330 many of those laws persist today, even though 00:16:08.330 --> 00:16:10.870 a modern lockblade knife that you can open with 00:16:10.870 --> 00:16:13.250 your thumb is functionally identical and just 00:16:13.250 --> 00:16:16.169 as dangerous. The panic solidified into law. 00:16:16.330 --> 00:16:18.370 But the 50s had another target, didn't they? 00:16:18.450 --> 00:16:20.850 Yeah. Something even more insidious than knives. 00:16:21.269 --> 00:16:24.129 It was just paper and ink. Ah, the comic book 00:16:24.129 --> 00:16:27.509 panic. This is a classic. A true Hall of Famer. 00:16:27.799 --> 00:16:29.740 I really can't imagine looking at a comic book 00:16:29.740 --> 00:16:32.240 today and seeing the downfall of Western civilization. 00:16:32.580 --> 00:16:34.679 In the 50s, though, there was a psychologist 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.100 named Frederick Wortham. He wrote a book that 00:16:37.100 --> 00:16:39.639 became a bestseller called Seduction of the Innocent. 00:16:39.659 --> 00:16:41.659 Great title. He really went for the jugular with 00:16:41.659 --> 00:16:44.299 these titles. He was a master of the panic narrative. 00:16:44.779 --> 00:16:47.820 He claimed that comic books, specifically the 00:16:47.820 --> 00:16:50.320 popular horror and crime comics from publishers 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:53.620 like EC Comics, were a direct cause of juvenile 00:16:53.620 --> 00:16:56.669 delinquency. He argued they predispose children 00:16:56.669 --> 00:16:59.330 to violence, sexual deviancy, all sorts of things. 00:16:59.490 --> 00:17:02.309 Did he have any data to back this up? His data 00:17:02.309 --> 00:17:05.089 was largely anecdotal and has been widely criticized 00:17:05.089 --> 00:17:08.029 and debunked since. He treated correlation as 00:17:08.029 --> 00:17:10.549 causation. He'd interview kids in reform school, 00:17:10.789 --> 00:17:12.950 find out they read comics, and conclude the comics 00:17:12.950 --> 00:17:15.549 put them there. But almost every kid read comics 00:17:15.549 --> 00:17:17.710 back then. Exactly. It's like blaming delinquency 00:17:17.710 --> 00:17:20.400 on drinking milk. Yeah. But the consensus was 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:23.000 there. The public was terrified. And it got serious. 00:17:23.299 --> 00:17:25.319 Oh, absolutely. There were congressional hearings. 00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:28.099 There were literal public book burnings where 00:17:28.099 --> 00:17:31.059 community organizations, Boy Scout troops, church 00:17:31.059 --> 00:17:33.839 groups would gather up piles of comic books and 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:36.440 set them on fire in the streets. Book burnings. 00:17:36.440 --> 00:17:41.680 In 1950s America. over comic books. That's stunning. 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.200 And the industry, facing government regulation, 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:47.940 capitulated. They created the Comics Code Authority, 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:50.900 a self -censorship body which sterilized the 00:17:50.900 --> 00:17:54.180 content of comics for decades. It banned gore. 00:17:54.180 --> 00:17:57.220 It banned disrespect for authority figures. It 00:17:57.220 --> 00:17:59.960 basically mandated that good guys always had 00:17:59.960 --> 00:18:02.660 to win. It fundamentally changed the entire medium 00:18:02.660 --> 00:18:05.289 because of a moral panic. It's just amazing how 00:18:05.289 --> 00:18:07.309 we always think the medium is the message. If 00:18:07.309 --> 00:18:09.430 the kids are reading it or watching it or listening 00:18:09.430 --> 00:18:12.190 to it, it must be brainwashing them. Which brings 00:18:12.190 --> 00:18:15.069 us to music. The devil's music. This is a panic 00:18:15.069 --> 00:18:17.289 that spans generations. It's a shapeshifter. 00:18:17.329 --> 00:18:19.609 It just keeps coming back in a new costume. And 00:18:19.609 --> 00:18:21.109 it started way before rock and roll, right? This 00:18:21.109 --> 00:18:23.509 isn't just about Elvis. Oh, yes. In the 1920s, 00:18:23.509 --> 00:18:26.009 it was jazz and blues. Traditionalists and a 00:18:26.009 --> 00:18:28.569 lot of the mainstream press labeled it. disreputable 00:18:28.569 --> 00:18:31.849 or often use the racist term Negro music. The 00:18:31.849 --> 00:18:34.109 claim was that the improvised rhythms and the 00:18:34.109 --> 00:18:37.029 syncopation promoted promiscuity and a breakdown 00:18:37.029 --> 00:18:39.430 of morality. Syncopation causes promiscuity. 00:18:39.569 --> 00:18:41.430 I would love to see the peer reviewed study on 00:18:41.430 --> 00:18:43.650 that one. It sounds funny now, but it was taken 00:18:43.650 --> 00:18:46.299 very seriously. Interestingly, even some middle 00:18:46.299 --> 00:18:48.500 -class African Americans worried about it, fearing 00:18:48.500 --> 00:18:50.839 it reflected poorly on the community. But this 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:53.859 fear just morphed over time. It went from jazz 00:18:53.859 --> 00:18:56.339 to rock and roll in the 50s to heavy metal in 00:18:56.339 --> 00:18:59.539 the 80s. And eventually, that fear of metal music 00:18:59.539 --> 00:19:03.059 fed directly into the satanic panic. But before 00:19:03.059 --> 00:19:05.579 we get there, we have to talk about a game. A 00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:08.759 game played with dice and graph paper in basements. 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:11.059 Dungeons and Dragons. I grew up hearing about 00:19:11.059 --> 00:19:13.180 this. My parents were worried about it. The idea 00:19:13.180 --> 00:19:15.680 that D &D wasn't just a game, but it was a recruitment 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:19.180 tool for, well, for what exactly? What was the 00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:22.380 fear? For Satanism, witchcraft, suicide, and 00:19:22.380 --> 00:19:25.299 murder. That was the core accusation. In the 00:19:25.299 --> 00:19:27.980 80s and 90s, fundamentalist Christian groups 00:19:27.980 --> 00:19:29.980 were absolutely convinced that role -playing 00:19:29.980 --> 00:19:32.619 games were a gateway drug to the occult. They 00:19:32.619 --> 00:19:35.039 believed kids were learning to cast actual spells 00:19:35.039 --> 00:19:37.319 and venerate demons. I played a lot of D &D. 00:19:37.319 --> 00:19:39.059 I never managed to cast a real spell. I tried. 00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:41.500 That's the disproportionality again, isn't it? 00:19:41.740 --> 00:19:44.220 But connect this to the bigger picture. This 00:19:44.220 --> 00:19:46.799 fits into a theme that the writer Benjamin Radford 00:19:46.799 --> 00:19:49.920 identified in a lot of modern panics. The fear 00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:52.839 of a hidden world of evil that's affecting our 00:19:52.839 --> 00:19:55.440 children. Right. Parents looked at their kids 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:58.359 talking about dungeons and demons and spells. 00:19:58.779 --> 00:20:01.220 And because they didn't understand the game, 00:20:01.299 --> 00:20:03.519 they filled in the blanks with their absolute 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:06.660 worst nightmares. That theme, the hidden world 00:20:06.660 --> 00:20:09.200 of evil, it really just. explodes in our next 00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.319 section. We have to talk about the Save the Children 00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:13.519 cluster. Yeah. Because this is where moral panic 00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:16.400 stops being a sort of funny historical anecdote 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:19.640 and starts ruining people's lives. Yes. The satanic 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:23.019 panic of the 1980s and 90s is perhaps the darkest 00:20:23.019 --> 00:20:25.579 and most destructive example of this entire phenomenon. 00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:28.160 For those who weren't there or are too young 00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:30.500 to remember, just describe the scale of this. 00:20:30.579 --> 00:20:33.640 How widespread was this belief? It was a massive 00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:36.380 transnational panic. The core belief was that 00:20:36.380 --> 00:20:39.299 there was a widespread, highly organized secret 00:20:39.299 --> 00:20:43.019 network of satanic cults that were ritually abusing 00:20:43.019 --> 00:20:45.000 children and not just abusing them. They were 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.720 supposedly breeding them for sacrifice, brainwashing 00:20:47.720 --> 00:20:49.700 them, all sorts of horrific things. And this 00:20:49.700 --> 00:20:51.599 wasn't just on the fringe on late night radio 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:53.420 shows. This was on the nightly news. This was 00:20:53.420 --> 00:20:56.019 on Oprah. It was everywhere. It was fueled by 00:20:56.019 --> 00:20:58.240 a therapeutic technique called recovered memory 00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.920 therapy, which has since been widely and thoroughly 00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:03.779 discredited. Therapists would essentially guide 00:21:03.779 --> 00:21:07.119 suggestible patients into remembering horrific 00:21:07.119 --> 00:21:10.059 abuse that never actually happened. And the consequences 00:21:10.059 --> 00:21:12.980 of this fantasy were very, very real. They were 00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:15.240 horrific, wrongful convictions. People went to 00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:18.420 prison for decades based on zero physical evidence. 00:21:18.539 --> 00:21:20.450 We have to mention the West Memphis Three. A 00:21:20.450 --> 00:21:23.609 truly tragic case. Three teenagers in West Memphis, 00:21:23.750 --> 00:21:25.789 Arkansas, were accused of murdering three young 00:21:25.789 --> 00:21:29.210 boys as part of a satanic ritual. There was no 00:21:29.210 --> 00:21:31.190 physical evidence linking them to the crime. 00:21:31.309 --> 00:21:34.029 None. But they wore black, they listened to heavy 00:21:34.029 --> 00:21:35.930 metal music, and one of them had an interest 00:21:35.930 --> 00:21:38.150 in Wicca. They were the perfect folk devils. 00:21:38.210 --> 00:21:40.569 They looked the part. They fit the profile of 00:21:40.569 --> 00:21:43.109 what the panic said a satanic killer looked like. 00:21:43.250 --> 00:21:46.369 And so they were convicted. One, Damien Echols, 00:21:46.470 --> 00:21:49.569 was sentenced to death. They spent 18 years in 00:21:49.569 --> 00:21:51.990 prison before finally being released after new 00:21:51.990 --> 00:21:56.230 evidence emerged. 18 years. Because a community 00:21:56.230 --> 00:21:59.869 was so gripped by a baseless fear that they couldn't 00:21:59.869 --> 00:22:01.809 see the facts right in front of them. And then 00:22:01.809 --> 00:22:04.130 there was the McMartin preschool trial. The longest 00:22:04.130 --> 00:22:06.390 and most expensive criminal trial in American 00:22:06.390 --> 00:22:09.609 history. It started with a single bizarre claim 00:22:09.609 --> 00:22:13.059 of abuse at a daycare in California. It spiraled 00:22:13.059 --> 00:22:15.480 into accusations of secret tunnels under the 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:18.380 school, of teachers flying, of animal sacrifice, 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:21.259 of ritual abuse involving hundreds of children. 00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:23.339 Flying witches. People actually believed this 00:22:23.339 --> 00:22:25.900 in court. They did. The children's testimony, 00:22:26.039 --> 00:22:28.339 which was produced after months of highly suggestive 00:22:28.339 --> 00:22:31.160 questioning, was taken as fact. In the end, no 00:22:31.160 --> 00:22:33.500 evidence of tunnels or any use was ever found. 00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:36.099 But the lives of the teachers were utterly destroyed. 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:39.079 The school was demolished. The panic left a crater 00:22:39.079 --> 00:22:41.440 in that community. It just seems like when children 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:43.859 are involved, our ability to think critically 00:22:43.859 --> 00:22:46.359 just shuts down completely. It does. The child 00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:48.460 in danger is the ultimate emotional trigger. 00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:50.980 And that leads right into the concept of stranger 00:22:50.980 --> 00:22:53.079 danger. We all grew up with it. Don't take candy 00:22:53.079 --> 00:22:55.279 from strangers. It was drill into us. And that 00:22:55.279 --> 00:22:58.259 panic really solidified after the tragic abduction 00:22:58.259 --> 00:23:00.640 and murder of a little boy named Adam Walsh in 00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:03.680 1981. It was a horrific, heartbreaking crime. 00:23:03.819 --> 00:23:06.359 And it created, as one criminologist put it, 00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:09.480 a nation of petrified kids and paranoid parents. 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:13.059 But isn't it good to be cautious? To teach kids 00:23:13.059 --> 00:23:16.619 about danger? Of course, caution is good. Panic, 00:23:16.619 --> 00:23:19.900 however, makes for bad policy. The media narrative 00:23:19.900 --> 00:23:23.059 focused entirely on the predatory stranger lurking 00:23:23.059 --> 00:23:26.019 in the bushes or in a white van. But the data, 00:23:26.099 --> 00:23:28.680 the actual statistics, show that the vast, vast 00:23:28.680 --> 00:23:31.039 majority of child abuse and abduction is committed 00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:33.519 by family members or people the child knows and 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:36.539 trusts. So by focusing all our energy and fear 00:23:36.539 --> 00:23:38.700 on the stranger, we're actually looking in the 00:23:38.700 --> 00:23:41.299 wrong direction most of the time. Exactly. We 00:23:41.299 --> 00:23:44.000 built an entire legislative framework, things 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:47.710 like sex offender registries. based on this image 00:23:47.710 --> 00:23:49.890 of the predatory stranger who will always strike 00:23:49.890 --> 00:23:53.690 again. But the data on recidivism, the likelihood 00:23:53.690 --> 00:23:56.829 of reoffending, shows that contrary to popular 00:23:56.829 --> 00:24:00.190 belief, sex offenders actually have lower recidivism 00:24:00.190 --> 00:24:02.509 rates compared to many other types of criminals 00:24:02.509 --> 00:24:05.230 like burglars or thieves. Really, that goes against 00:24:05.230 --> 00:24:07.309 everything we are told. That's the power of the 00:24:07.309 --> 00:24:10.230 panic. The fear becomes the fact and it ignores 00:24:10.230 --> 00:24:13.779 the data. Paradoxically, by focusing on the monster 00:24:13.779 --> 00:24:16.339 in the bushes, we often overlook the more common, 00:24:16.460 --> 00:24:18.480 mundane, and therefore maybe more terrifying 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:20.940 reality of domestic abuse happening inside the 00:24:20.940 --> 00:24:23.839 home. The exceptional rare case drives the policy 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:26.660 while the common reality is ignored. That is 00:24:26.660 --> 00:24:28.900 a very sobering thought. We're so busy fighting 00:24:28.900 --> 00:24:31.240 the imaginary monster that we miss the real one 00:24:31.240 --> 00:24:33.920 next door. Let's shift gears a bit to another 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:37.299 area where panic often overrides facts. Health 00:24:37.299 --> 00:24:40.470 and social order. This is a really fertile ground 00:24:40.470 --> 00:24:42.670 for panic because it involves the safety of our 00:24:42.670 --> 00:24:44.730 bodies and the safety of our streets. It feels 00:24:44.730 --> 00:24:47.170 very personal. Take the HIV AIDS crisis in the 00:24:47.170 --> 00:24:50.309 80s, a textbook example of a moral panic layered 00:24:50.309 --> 00:24:53.490 on top of a real epidemic. In the early 80s, 00:24:53.490 --> 00:24:56.349 the media almost universally labeled it the gay 00:24:56.349 --> 00:24:59.269 plague. Which is an incredibly stigmatizing and 00:24:59.269 --> 00:25:02.599 just... factually wrong label it did two things 00:25:02.599 --> 00:25:05.900 first it stigmatized the disease framing it as 00:25:05.900 --> 00:25:08.559 a moral failing rather than just a virus it was 00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:11.420 a punishment and second it created a false and 00:25:11.420 --> 00:25:13.819 dangerous sense of security for heterosexuals 00:25:13.819 --> 00:25:15.970 this can't happen to me Right. When it became 00:25:15.970 --> 00:25:18.450 undeniable that heterosexuals were also at risk, 00:25:18.589 --> 00:25:21.410 the panic shifted. Suddenly, it wasn't just about 00:25:21.410 --> 00:25:24.750 gay men. It was about the negligence of the younger 00:25:24.750 --> 00:25:26.890 generation generally. It became a commentary 00:25:26.890 --> 00:25:29.750 on youth morality all over again. The same script. 00:25:29.970 --> 00:25:32.549 Exactly. And as some scholars at the time noted, 00:25:32.670 --> 00:25:34.869 the cultural homophobia was so strong that the 00:25:34.869 --> 00:25:37.349 media effectively blocked out any public health 00:25:37.349 --> 00:25:39.970 approach that didn't treat gay men as not fully 00:25:39.970 --> 00:25:42.809 human. The panic prevented a rational, effective 00:25:42.809 --> 00:25:45.440 public health response. for years. Fear over 00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:47.839 facts. We see this in legal systems, too. Let's 00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:49.480 talk about the Dangerous Dogs Act in the UK. 00:25:49.660 --> 00:25:51.839 This one is fascinating to me because the folk 00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:55.259 devil isn't even a person. It's a dog. It is, 00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:59.099 but it's not really about dogs. In 1991, there 00:25:59.099 --> 00:26:02.039 were a series of high profile, horrible dog attacks 00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:05.079 on children in the UK. The press went into an 00:26:05.079 --> 00:26:07.880 absolute frenzy. The devil dogs. I'm sure they 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:09.839 call them something like that. Pretty much. The 00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:12.660 government, under intense media pressure, rushed 00:26:12.660 --> 00:26:15.319 through the Dangerous Dogs Act. And it specifically 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:18.000 targeted and effectively banned certain breeds, 00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:21.200 most famously the pit bull terrier. But here 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:24.329 is the sociological twist. Okay. At the time, 00:26:24.410 --> 00:26:26.609 pit bulls were strongly associated with the working 00:26:26.609 --> 00:26:29.829 class, with council estates, with the lower social 00:26:29.829 --> 00:26:32.769 strata. Meanwhile, other powerful breeds like 00:26:32.769 --> 00:26:34.869 Rottweilers and Dobermans, which can also be 00:26:34.869 --> 00:26:37.509 dangerous, were largely owned by richer, more 00:26:37.509 --> 00:26:39.990 suburban groups. Those breeds were mostly ignored 00:26:39.990 --> 00:26:42.170 by the legislation. So the law wasn't really 00:26:42.170 --> 00:26:44.970 about the bite of the dog. It was about the class 00:26:44.970 --> 00:26:47.769 of the owner. That's the argument. Critics argue 00:26:47.769 --> 00:26:50.170 it was a classic displacement of class anxiety. 00:26:50.490 --> 00:26:53.450 The fear of the subproletarian. violent youth 00:26:53.450 --> 00:26:56.250 was projected onto their dogs. It was a knee 00:26:56.250 --> 00:26:58.450 -jerk law that punished a breed to try and solve 00:26:58.450 --> 00:27:00.809 a social problem they didn't want to name. That 00:27:00.809 --> 00:27:03.930 is wild. We project our class issues onto our 00:27:03.930 --> 00:27:05.950 pets. And of course, we can't talk about social 00:27:05.950 --> 00:27:08.049 order without talking about the biggest one of 00:27:08.049 --> 00:27:12.099 all, the war on drugs. A massive ongoing moral 00:27:12.099 --> 00:27:15.220 panic for over a century. Numerous commissions 00:27:15.220 --> 00:27:18.059 have found that laws like the UK Misuse of Drugs 00:27:18.059 --> 00:27:20.799 Act were driven more by moral panic and racial 00:27:20.799 --> 00:27:23.920 anxiety than by practical harm reduction. But 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.259 a specific sub panic here is the date rape drug 00:27:27.259 --> 00:27:29.960 scare of the late 90s. OK, wait. Date rape drugs 00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:31.839 aren't a panic, are they? That's a real thing. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:33.920 People do get drugged. The crime is absolutely 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:36.220 real. Spiking happens and it's horrific. But 00:27:36.220 --> 00:27:38.740 the scale of the specific spiking phenomenon 00:27:38.740 --> 00:27:41.799 was heavily, heavily exaggerated by the media, 00:27:41.940 --> 00:27:44.440 creating a disproportionate level of fear. Okay, 00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:45.920 so give me the numbers. What did the research 00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:48.759 find? Well, a 2009 Australian study is often 00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:51.519 cited. They looked at 97 patients who were admitted 00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:53.319 to the hospital emergency room believing their 00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:56.000 drinks had been spiked. They ran full toxicology 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:58.319 panels on all of them. Yeah. They found zero 00:27:58.319 --> 00:28:00.579 instances of sedative drugs commonly associated 00:28:00.579 --> 00:28:04.019 with spiking like Rohypnol or GHB. Zero out of 00:28:04.019 --> 00:28:07.640 97. Zero. Now, this does not mean spiking never 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:09.980 happens. It just means that the public fear of 00:28:09.980 --> 00:28:12.500 drink spiking as a pervasive constant threat 00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:15.019 was disproportionate to the actual frequency. 00:28:15.299 --> 00:28:17.579 The panic made people believe it was happening 00:28:17.579 --> 00:28:20.720 in every bar every night when the far more common 00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:23.079 issue was simply excessive alcohol consumption. 00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:26.220 It creates a culture of fear. And speaking of 00:28:26.220 --> 00:28:28.940 culture, let's move into the modern era, technology. 00:28:29.740 --> 00:28:32.079 It seems like every time a new screen lights 00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:34.900 up, a new moral panic is born. It's the media 00:28:34.900 --> 00:28:37.140 panic cycle. We saw it with the radio, then with 00:28:37.140 --> 00:28:39.710 TV, and now with the Internet. But video games 00:28:39.710 --> 00:28:42.269 have been a special, long -running target. Since 00:28:42.269 --> 00:28:45.730 the 70s. I mean, Death Race. Death Race. A pixelated 00:28:45.730 --> 00:28:48.069 black -and -white arcade game where you ran over 00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:50.869 little stick figures called gremlins. But the 00:28:50.869 --> 00:28:53.109 outcry was massive. It was on the news. Then 00:28:53.109 --> 00:28:55.190 in the 90s, you got the one -two punch of Mortal 00:28:55.190 --> 00:28:57.490 Kombat and Doom. And then Columbine happened. 00:28:57.710 --> 00:29:00.529 That was the turning point. The media, desperate 00:29:00.529 --> 00:29:03.170 for a simple explanation for a complex tragedy, 00:29:03.430 --> 00:29:05.470 fixated on the fact that the perpetrators played 00:29:05.470 --> 00:29:08.470 Doom. They created a simple causal link in the 00:29:08.470 --> 00:29:11.150 public's mind. Played Doom committed massacre. 00:29:11.470 --> 00:29:14.509 It seems so logical to so many people at the 00:29:14.509 --> 00:29:17.670 time. Murder simulators, they called them. But 00:29:17.670 --> 00:29:20.210 the research on the link between violent games 00:29:20.210 --> 00:29:23.289 and real world violence has been incredibly conflicting 00:29:23.289 --> 00:29:25.609 and for the most part has failed to establish 00:29:25.609 --> 00:29:28.279 a causal link. Some experts, like Christopher 00:29:28.279 --> 00:29:30.599 Ferguson, argued that the media and even some 00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:33.319 scientists unintentionally worked together to 00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:36.720 promote unreasonable fear. They ignored the millions 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:39.359 upon millions of kids who played Doom and didn't 00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:43.160 hurt anyone. And the law stepped in again. Or 00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:45.440 at least it tried to. Yes, the state of California 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:48.119 tried to pass a law banning the sale of violent 00:29:48.119 --> 00:29:50.700 games to minors. It went all the way to the U 00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:53.000 .S. Supreme Court in a case called Brown v. Entertainment 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:55.920 Merchants Association. And the court struck the 00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:58.369 law down. They basically said the research wasn't 00:29:58.369 --> 00:30:00.349 persuasive enough to override the First Amendment 00:30:00.349 --> 00:30:02.829 right to free speech. It was a rare victory for 00:30:02.829 --> 00:30:05.230 evidence over panic in the legal system. But 00:30:05.230 --> 00:30:08.240 the panic just moved online. Social media. Do 00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:10.299 you remember the MySpace panic? The deleting 00:30:10.299 --> 00:30:13.339 online predators act. It sounds so ancient now. 00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:16.680 It sounds so archaic now. But in 2005, 2006, 00:30:17.299 --> 00:30:20.619 MySpace was this terrifying new world. The narrative 00:30:20.619 --> 00:30:22.880 was that it was just a hunting ground for online 00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:25.279 predators. And what's fascinating is what happened. 00:30:25.400 --> 00:30:27.779 The panic didn't vanish because we solved the 00:30:27.779 --> 00:30:30.440 problem of online predators. It vanished because 00:30:30.440 --> 00:30:32.839 everyone moved to Facebook. Which was perceived 00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:35.539 as safer because it used real names. Exactly. 00:30:36.059 --> 00:30:38.400 The fear was attached to the platform, not the 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:41.859 underlying issue. And now we have the viral panics, 00:30:41.880 --> 00:30:44.299 the blue whale challenge, the Momo challenge. 00:30:44.299 --> 00:30:46.740 That creepy face that was supposed to be hacking 00:30:46.740 --> 00:30:48.759 into kids' videos and telling them to hurt themselves. 00:30:49.059 --> 00:30:51.779 And largely it was a hoax, or at least the challenge 00:30:51.779 --> 00:30:55.480 aspect of it was. A few scary images got amplified 00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.500 by concerned parents and local news until it 00:30:58.500 --> 00:31:01.099 became a global phenomenon. But the themes are 00:31:01.099 --> 00:31:03.700 so consistent with older panics. As Benjamin 00:31:03.700 --> 00:31:05.809 Radford pointed out, it's always... about an 00:31:05.809 --> 00:31:08.609 evil stranger manipulating the innocent through 00:31:08.609 --> 00:31:11.410 a hidden channel. It's the pied piper for the 00:31:11.410 --> 00:31:13.390 digital age. And that connects directly to something 00:31:13.390 --> 00:31:15.740 like QAnon, doesn't it? It feels like the ultimate 00:31:15.740 --> 00:31:18.599 evolution of this. QAnon is essentially the satanic 00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:21.960 panic of the 1980s rebooted for the 2020s with 00:31:21.960 --> 00:31:25.160 a political overlay. The core belief is a secret 00:31:25.160 --> 00:31:27.640 cabal of Satan -worshipping pedophiles who run 00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:30.619 the world. It hits all the same notes. Save the 00:31:30.619 --> 00:31:33.859 children, a hidden evil, a vast elite conspiracy. 00:31:34.259 --> 00:31:36.980 It's a moral panic that ate a conspiracy theory. 00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:39.160 It really shows that these scripts, these narratives, 00:31:39.259 --> 00:31:41.140 they don't change. We just change the actors 00:31:41.140 --> 00:31:43.960 in the stage. Which brings us to our final section 00:31:43.960 --> 00:31:46.990 here. Political weaponization. Because these 00:31:46.990 --> 00:31:49.109 panics aren't just accidents. Sometimes they 00:31:49.109 --> 00:31:52.029 are very, very useful tools. Absolutely. The 00:31:52.029 --> 00:31:54.589 most recurring and politically potent panic is 00:31:54.589 --> 00:31:57.029 almost certainly immigration. This one goes back 00:31:57.029 --> 00:31:59.069 centuries. This isn't a new phenomenon at all. 00:31:59.150 --> 00:32:01.349 Not at all. Look at the Know -Nothing Party in 00:32:01.349 --> 00:32:03.890 the 1850s United States. They were a major political 00:32:03.890 --> 00:32:06.690 force. They won governorships. And their entire 00:32:06.690 --> 00:32:09.250 platform was a moral panic against Irish Catholic 00:32:09.250 --> 00:32:11.789 immigrants. What was the specific fear there? 00:32:12.170 --> 00:32:14.609 They feared the Pope. They genuinely believed 00:32:14.609 --> 00:32:17.210 that Irish immigrants were not loyal to America, 00:32:17.289 --> 00:32:20.430 but were secret agents of a foreign power, the 00:32:20.430 --> 00:32:22.990 Vatican, who would destroy American democracy 00:32:22.990 --> 00:32:25.589 from within. They were the folk devils of the 00:32:25.589 --> 00:32:28.809 19th century. And the arguments they used... 00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:31.480 That immigrants were failing to integrate, that 00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:33.259 they were straining welfare, that they brought 00:32:33.259 --> 00:32:36.180 crime and disease are the exact same arguments 00:32:36.180 --> 00:32:38.359 we hear today about different groups. It's the 00:32:38.359 --> 00:32:40.960 same song, just a different remix every few decades. 00:32:41.180 --> 00:32:43.359 Yeah. And speaking of crime, there's this weird 00:32:43.359 --> 00:32:45.359 thing that the research calls the crime drop 00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:48.619 paradox. This drives criminologists absolutely 00:32:48.619 --> 00:32:51.740 crazy. OK, lay it on me. Since the early 1990s, 00:32:51.740 --> 00:32:54.339 crime rates in the U .S., the U .K., and most 00:32:54.339 --> 00:32:56.480 of Europe have dropped significantly. In some 00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.859 cases, precipitously. We are living in one of 00:32:58.859 --> 00:33:01.220 the safest times in recorded history. But if 00:33:01.220 --> 00:33:03.480 you ask people, if you look at the polls... They 00:33:03.480 --> 00:33:05.539 will tell you that crime is out of control and 00:33:05.539 --> 00:33:08.200 worse than it's ever been. Public fear of crime 00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:11.440 often increases even as the actual rate of crime 00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:13.859 drops. Why? What causes that disconnect? A few 00:33:13.859 --> 00:33:17.019 things. Herd mentality. And again, media consumption. 00:33:17.240 --> 00:33:20.569 If it bleeds, it leads. Local news thrives on 00:33:20.569 --> 00:33:23.470 crime stories, and sometimes it's just a data 00:33:23.470 --> 00:33:26.349 artifact. For example, Japan had a moral panic 00:33:26.349 --> 00:33:28.529 in the 90s about the collapse of their famously 00:33:28.529 --> 00:33:31.470 safe society because crime stats were going up. 00:33:31.789 --> 00:33:33.869 But it turned out they had just changed how they 00:33:33.869 --> 00:33:35.910 recorded crime, making it look like it was rising, 00:33:36.009 --> 00:33:38.589 but it was just a paperwork change. That is wild. 00:33:38.769 --> 00:33:41.130 We scare ourselves with our own spreadsheets. 00:33:41.170 --> 00:33:43.529 Yeah. And we can't ignore the contemporary grooming 00:33:43.529 --> 00:33:45.700 narratives that we are seeing right now. Since 00:33:45.700 --> 00:33:48.559 the early 2020s, we've seen this massive resurgence 00:33:48.559 --> 00:33:51.420 of the groomer accusation, and it's being targeted 00:33:51.420 --> 00:33:54.940 specifically at LGBTQ plus people, drag performers 00:33:54.940 --> 00:33:57.980 and even educators who discuss gender or sexuality. 00:33:58.380 --> 00:34:00.420 And scholars are classifying this as a panic. 00:34:00.579 --> 00:34:02.980 Yes. Scholars characterize this as a classic 00:34:02.980 --> 00:34:06.079 moral panic. It recycles older homophobic tropes, 00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:08.260 the long discredited idea that gay people are 00:34:08.260 --> 00:34:10.920 an inherent danger to children, and it amplifies 00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:12.739 them through social media misinformation campaigns. 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:15.000 It's the save the children trigger again. Always. 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:17.380 It is the most powerful emotional lever you can 00:34:17.380 --> 00:34:20.280 possibly pull in politics. Now, before we wrap 00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:21.860 this all up, we have to look at the critics. 00:34:22.260 --> 00:34:24.960 Because not everyone agrees that moral panic 00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:27.860 is the perfect all -encompassing theory. Right. 00:34:27.940 --> 00:34:30.300 It's a powerful tool, but it has its limitations. 00:34:31.260 --> 00:34:34.360 Some, like the sociologist Steve Hall, argue 00:34:34.360 --> 00:34:37.739 that the very term panic is misleading. He thinks 00:34:37.739 --> 00:34:39.880 it might be a category error. How so? I mean, 00:34:39.900 --> 00:34:43.840 panic implies a loss of control. Chaos. Exactly. 00:34:44.079 --> 00:34:46.179 And Hall argues that the state doesn't actually 00:34:46.179 --> 00:34:48.699 want real panic. It wants to soothe anxiety. 00:34:49.340 --> 00:34:51.659 He suggests that these panics are actually whipped 00:34:51.659 --> 00:34:54.159 up by the media only to be calmly soothed by 00:34:54.159 --> 00:34:55.980 the government saying, don't worry, we're in 00:34:55.980 --> 00:34:59.699 control. We've passed a new law. It creates complacency, 00:34:59.699 --> 00:35:02.599 not true panic. It makes us feel like the authorities 00:35:02.599 --> 00:35:04.239 are taking care of it. So it's a performance. 00:35:04.860 --> 00:35:07.159 a piece of political theater designed to reassure 00:35:07.159 --> 00:35:09.480 us. And other critics, like Yvonne Jukes, argue 00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:11.500 that we have to be careful not to dismiss everything 00:35:11.500 --> 00:35:14.039 as a panic. There's a very real difference between 00:35:14.039 --> 00:35:16.500 crimes that rightly offend our collective morality 00:35:16.500 --> 00:35:19.539 -like murder or child abuse and those panics 00:35:19.539 --> 00:35:22.619 that just serve to demonize minorities. We shouldn't 00:35:22.619 --> 00:35:25.420 use the term moral panic to brush aside legitimate 00:35:25.420 --> 00:35:28.539 moral outrage. That's a very fair point. We don't 00:35:28.539 --> 00:35:30.840 want to become so cynical that we think nothing 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:33.510 is a real threat. And finally, a really interesting 00:35:33.510 --> 00:35:35.530 point was made by McRobbie and Thornton about 00:35:35.530 --> 00:35:39.369 the modern media age. In the 60s, the folk devils, 00:35:39.369 --> 00:35:42.809 the mods and rockers, had no voice. They couldn't 00:35:42.809 --> 00:35:45.190 fight back against the newspapers that were demonizing 00:35:45.190 --> 00:35:48.389 them. But today... Today, the folk devils have 00:35:48.389 --> 00:35:51.150 TikTok. They have YouTube. They have their own 00:35:51.150 --> 00:35:53.650 media platforms. They can fight back against 00:35:53.650 --> 00:35:55.889 the narrative. They aren't just silent victims 00:35:55.889 --> 00:35:59.230 of the process anymore. So the panic is messier 00:35:59.230 --> 00:36:02.110 now. It's not a one -way street of... condemnation. 00:36:02.130 --> 00:36:03.929 It's a two -way street of argument. Exactly. 00:36:04.170 --> 00:36:06.670 It's a much more contested space. This has been, 00:36:06.789 --> 00:36:10.289 frankly, a little exhausting, but in a good way. 00:36:10.409 --> 00:36:13.730 It's a lot to process. So what is the big takeaway 00:36:13.730 --> 00:36:16.190 here? Why does knowing all this matter to the 00:36:16.190 --> 00:36:17.869 person listening on their commute right now? 00:36:18.030 --> 00:36:20.630 It matters because moral panics are a cycle. 00:36:21.019 --> 00:36:23.440 They are a recurring glitch in our collective 00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:26.940 social software. We identify a threat, we exaggerate 00:36:26.940 --> 00:36:29.719 it, we demonize a group, and then we pass laws 00:36:29.719 --> 00:36:32.260 that often don't work, all while ignoring the 00:36:32.260 --> 00:36:35.460 actual data. So understanding this is a way to 00:36:35.460 --> 00:36:37.460 protect ourselves from being manipulated by that 00:36:37.460 --> 00:36:40.179 cycle. Yes. The next time you see a headline 00:36:40.179 --> 00:36:42.659 that makes you terrified, the next time you feel 00:36:42.659 --> 00:36:44.719 that powerful urge that something must be done 00:36:44.719 --> 00:36:47.659 immediately, just pause, take a breath. And ask 00:36:47.659 --> 00:36:50.829 the checklist questions. Right. Is this reaction 00:36:50.829 --> 00:36:54.570 proportional to the actual harm? Who is the folk 00:36:54.570 --> 00:36:57.530 devil being created here? Is there real evidence 00:36:57.530 --> 00:37:00.170 for this, or is it just a powerful symbol being 00:37:00.170 --> 00:37:02.269 pushed on me? I want to leave you with a final 00:37:02.269 --> 00:37:06.570 thought. In the 1870s, there was a moral panic 00:37:06.570 --> 00:37:09.250 about the tramp menace. People were terrified 00:37:09.250 --> 00:37:11.150 of homeless travelers. Then it was switchblades. 00:37:11.510 --> 00:37:13.750 Then it was Dungeons and Dragons. And today, 00:37:13.789 --> 00:37:16.650 those fears seem almost quaint, almost laughable. 00:37:16.889 --> 00:37:19.630 Exactly. So I want you to ask yourself, What 00:37:19.630 --> 00:37:21.789 is today's switchblade? What is the thing we 00:37:21.789 --> 00:37:23.929 are collectively terrified of right now that 00:37:23.929 --> 00:37:26.289 in 50 years people will look back on and say, 00:37:26.369 --> 00:37:28.010 can you believe they burned books over that? 00:37:28.230 --> 00:37:30.369 Or can you believe they passed laws about that? 00:37:30.610 --> 00:37:33.489 Critical thinking is the only vaccine against 00:37:33.489 --> 00:37:36.610 the panic. Don't just consume the fear. Analyze 00:37:36.610 --> 00:37:38.849 the source. Thanks for diving deep with us. We'll 00:37:38.849 --> 00:37:39.369 see you next time.