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Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock n' Roll!
— John O'Farrell, An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge
It has long been known that the older generation has always been suspicious of those things that capture the attention of the younger generation. Nowhere is this more true than in the field of entertainment.
At least once a decade, something new - a new genre, a new medium, what have you — comes along and grabs society by the cojones. Everybody's heard of it, and it's not long until someone comes by and realizes, "Hey, if I complain about this, everyone will listen to me!"
So they do; they make great warnings about how it's corrupting the moral fiber of poor, helpless children with inexorable brainwashing; they claim it increases juvenile delinquency, decreases attention span, and pollutes their bodily fluids. If they actually bother to back these assertions up, they'll pull out a few rare examples of it "corrupting" people, that when you examine carefully, usually turn out to be exaggerated anyway. And people listen; not everyone, not even a majority, but enough to cause a stir. Often, this causes bannings, panicky newspaper articles, and Very Special Episodes about the subject.
Usually, within a few years, the fever has died down, and there's only vague echoes of "oh, yeah, that's Satanic" left in the communal memory. Some subcommunities forget faster than others, of course...
Note that cultures confronting actual social problems or actual external enemies will tend to skip an iteration of the cycle.
Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000 is the most recent expression of this. New Media Are Evil is related, as is Nostalgia Filter and Rock Me Asmodeus. Compare Banned In China.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- On Sept. 18, 2007, a teenage girl in Kyoto hacked her father's head in half with an axe. The event made a huge impact in the Japanese media, where it was linked to an event in the first season of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni where a teenage girl cleaves a man's head in half (to defend her father). Despite the episode in question having aired over a year ago, the next scheduled episode of the second season was canceled, as was the final episode of School Days. That the girl had said in an earlier interview that she wanted to be a mangaka didn't help.
- The Japanese media attitude towards Anime and Manga goes much longer back. Around the late '80s, a serial child killer was found out to have several Lolicon manga in his home, and the media jumped the illogical conclusion that the killer had been guided by these stories and could no longer tell the real world from fiction, and pushed out lovely headlines like "There is an army of 10,000 killers raised by manga in our country". The Otaku lifestyle was also called anti-social, ironic, considering that the annual (and soon thereafter, bi-annual) Comiket was one of the largest public gatherings in Japan.
- It's not really that ironic considering how bad a lot of Japanese Otaku are, and especially considering how many of them are involved in Lolicon or other healthy fetishes, are hikikomori, or are socially maladjusted enough to watch cartoons intended for small children of the opposite sex obsessively.
- Death Note has earned some recent media attention, with various public figures overreacting to people creating replicas of the titular note.
- "We treat situations like this the same as if a student called in a bomb threat or brought a weapon to school." -Chris Rogers, principal in Hartsville, South Carolina.
- Refresh my memory—it's supposed to be children that can't tell fantasy from reality, right?
- No it is about closet nutjobs that might start shooting up the place one day.
- With a notebook?
- It's not that they could actually kill anyone with it, it's just that it's a warning sign, albeit one that is taken too seriously. If a kid brought a toy gun to school and mimed shooting his classmates, yeah, that would be worth looking into.
- In the principal's defence, if the teacher's at Light's school had raised a fuss over a student bringing in a Death Note, it would've saved the SPK plenty of trouble finding him.
Comic Books
Literature
- During the first chapters of Don Quixote, we see characters burning chivalry stories, referencing the real life outcry against people reading them, because they tempted away young woman and distracted everyone else away from reading The Bible. What makes this scene ironic is that Don Quixote was written decades after the controversy died down, and would be like people in the 21st century upset over Jazz; naturally, Don Quixote is all about someone who's stuck in The Old Ways, and whether that's a good or bad thing. It's a bad thing.
- The Harry Potter books have been accused of getting kids interested in the occult. This has a slight edge of truth to it. Interest in Wicca? Maybe a little ("real" Wiccans complain about the shallowness of that interest). Interest in demon summoning? Not so much.
- Goethe's 1787 novel Die Leiden des jungen Werther (translated into English as The Sorrows of Young Werther) inspired a trend (termed 'Werther fever') of young men dressing like Werther. Certain Moral Guardians thought readers might copy more than Werther's fashion sense, and blamed the book for inspiring a wave of copycat suicides.
- That seems to have a grain of truth in it. There's even something called "Werther effect," where suicides increase after a report in the media. That is why suicides are not reported unless there is a very compelling reason to do so.
Music
- Naturally, rock 'n roll itself, in the fifties. This took many different forms over time; witness the "backmasking" controversy, which began in the late '70s, when fundamentalist Christian groups began to claim that backwards messages in music could subliminally influence listeners, and that rock musicians were doing this to draw their fans towards Satanism. Others condemned rock 'n roll on the basis that the term itself is a depiction of sex; in fact, it refers to the steady beat.
- With all the furor subjected at Heavy Metal for being 'devil music' one might forget that in the twenties the term was applied almost exclusively to Jazz, which, unlike its staid reputation today, was thought to inspire animalistic carnal lust and violent behavior in otherwise upstanding young boys and girls, along with the usual racist connotations.
- Reactions were even more extreme for ragtime, about which one historian wrote "not even Elvis Presley rolling his hips had as many parents and preachers up and howling and sending for the exorcism unit as ragtime did. After all, not too many kids have hips like Elvis's, but anyone who could play "Chopsticks" or whistle "The Star-Spangled Banner" could syncopate (everybody owned pianos back then).
- Rap and hip-hop music, starting in the early nineties.
- Rap is an interesting case, in that it was catching flak both from Conservative moral guardians concerned about the glorification of violence and drug use, as well as Liberal ones concerned with the misogyny and homophobia.
- Blues was the original "Devil's Music" (because it was "Negro-influenced"), making this Older Than Radio.
- Many contemporary Christian fundamentalists still cite the Blues as the origin of Satanic music.
- The only thing This Troper has read on the subject from a fundamentalist actually draws parallels between the Psalms in the Bible and Blues.
- Documents have cited that even the Waltz was "subversive and drawing our children towards Satan" back in the day.
We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last . . . it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion. ... We know not how it has happened (probably by the recommendation of some worthless and ignorant French dancing-master) that so indecent a dance has now been exhibited at the English court ... we trust it will never again be tolerated in any moral English society.
- Punk has a funny cyclic pattern to it. First the original 77' punk (The Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash et al.) were seen as promoting crime, drug use, anarchy and all other things that make scare the old people. When people started noticing the social message in the music, it became more acceptable, which lead to the creation of Hardcore punk, the Darker And Edgier version, as it were, which shocked people for a good decade. In the nineties the new moral panic came from two sources: first, the punk scene's association with radical environmentalist and animal rights groups, and second (and quite confusingly), the Straight Edge subculture (whose followers are devoted to a lifestyle of not using alcohol, tobacco or drugs — celibacy and veganism optional), which was considered a gang activity.
- Part of the problem with the Straight Edge movement's image has been the militancy of many of its adherents; shading into violent confrontations at times (usually as part of an animal rights or environmentalist agenda). There's also the unfortunate association with various small, but highly vocal, sXe splinter movements which have gone far beyond the original mildly conservative values into far-right politics, violent homophobia, anti-semitism, and in a few cases, white supremacy/racial segregation. This has on occasion led to violent confrontations with militant anti-racist sXe groups.
- In the 12th Century, the Church denied all sacraments, including last rites, to all minstrels and street performers effectively damning them all to Hell. The reason? Supposedly, what they did was unproductive and seduced people away from a proper Christian life, making this one Older Than Steam.
- I can tell you from experience that, while perhaps the church has lightened up to some degree, many people still react to street performers with similar dislike. Think "Protestant Work Ethic", although perhaps the current manifestation is more the result of capitalism than religion.
- The song "Ya Got Trouble" ("Trouble my friends, I say trouble right here in River city...") from The Music Man is a knowing parody of this trope, with a con man decrying everything that was new circa 1912 (pool tables, ragtime music, pinchback suits, Horserace Gamblin', modern slang "Words like 'swell', and 'So's your old man'", and a whole host of other things) in order to create an artificial crisis that he can solve "...with a wave of my hand, this very hand."
- The Finnish metal band Lordi has occasionally been accused of encouraging Satanism or other unsavory things. While their general appearance and stage demeanor
 ◊ is slightly demonic, more than one of the band members are Christian and have actually put God among their personal acknowledgements on the back of the CD. A song title like "Devil Is a Loser" is not the kind of thing your average Satanist puts out.
- Moral Guardians tried to prevent Prodigy from performing their hit "Firestarter" on Top Of The Pops, which the techno band recognizes as their "most punk moment".
- The moral panic surrounding raves and the drug use endemic in the scene.
- Yeah, what were they thinking? It's not like Drugs Are Bad or anything.
- As noted in an earlier example, at one time Elvis Presley's music (and movements while singing) made Moral Guardians foam at the mouth.
- Records by the Mills Brothers were tossed on bonfires in the 1980s.
New Media
- The Internet catches a lot of this; whether it's porn sites or pedophiles trolling chat rooms and My Space, the media are constantly trying to find new things to scare people about online, even though pretty much the only thing that's worth worrying about is 4chan. This also extends to anything that can access the Internet; this editor has seen one newscast (from Fox news, of course) that refers to the PSP as the "Playstation Pornable", since it can get on the web (and thus, download porn). Big overlap with New Media Are Evil, here. Another infamous newscast (also from Fox) dealt with the Nintendo DS, and how child molesters were allegedly using its PictoChat function to contact kids. Never mind that hardly anyone ever uses PictoChat, and that the function's range was considerably less than what the newscast said...
- Note that these stories were on Fox network's news, not the cable channel Fox News. Ironically, Fox News seems to be the reverse of this; many older folks seem to be enthralled by it, while the younger generation tends to be quite suspicious of it.
- Note also that the Fox network, Fox News Channel, and (ironically enough) My Space are all subsidiaries of the same parent company, News Corporation.
- Note also also that the Fox network doesn't actually do news, so these stories were actually done by local Fox stations, where sensationalistic scare-the-viewer sweeps stunts like this are the norm. Then again, News Corporation also owns enough Fox stations to cover almost half the country's population...
- Don't forget the story where they said leet speak is a language designed to hide secrets from parents, and they actually have a translator for leet speak despite the fact that the numbers in leet are supposed to look like the original letters.
- It, of course, does not help that there's plenty of places on the Internet that practically revel in this behavior (Something Awful, /b/, Encyclopedia Dramactica, any given Shock Site) because they think it's funny to act like how every Moral Guardian thinks the Internet behaves. The subtlety is inevitably lost on said Moral Guardians.
- Subverted to hell and back in early 2009 with Twitter, the bandwagon that every traditional media outlet seems desperate to jump onto.
Tabletop Games
- The book Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe and its later Made For TV Movie both accuse Tabletop RPGs, such as Dungeons And Dragons, for occultism and Satanism, and even allege that players get so caught up in the game that they can't tell fantasy from reality. Ironically, the (purely fictional) book was cited as a "case study" by several rabidly anti-D&D groups, so one must ask which side actually has this problem.
- One of the most infamous and parodied Chick Tracts, Dark Dungeons, targeted D&D. Whether it actually converted any D&D players is highly doubtful, though it may have made them laugh uproariously at the constantly absurd claims it makes.
- In an attempt to pass under the radar, Dungeons And Dragons took out all references to demons, devils, Hell, and anything else even vaguely related to That Place Down There from 2nd Edition. These were restored in 3rd Edition, which came out at least a decade later... by which point nobody except Jack Chick really cared enough to be offended any longer.
- Even he seems to have lost some interest, because Dark Dungeons is no longer published unless someone explicitly puts in an order.
Video Games
- Even before Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000, video games were subjected to this. In the arcade days, they were blamed for wasting money and providing a place for unsupervised minors to hang out; with the early consoles came accusations of laziness, eyestrain, and illiteracy.
- Which is rather amusing, considering that recent studies have shown that video games may actually improve reaction time and signal detection.
- In late January 2008 there was an uproar over a lesbian sex scene in the game Mass Effect. Cybercast News Service blogger Kevin McCullough claimed that Mass Effect had a full frontal sex scene which took place with the player character volunteering information on how to make the act proceed. Yeah. This article would have fallen into the abyss of stupid blog articles never to be mentioned again- except that Fox News, for reasons unknown, took everything the article said at face value and actually ran a story on the whole affair in cable prime time.
- When reports of the Virginia Tech massacre surfaced, media pundits were extremely quick to lay the blame on the game Counter-Strike, due to an offhand comment by a classmate who barely knew Seung-Hui Cho (the shooter). When later reports showed that Cho was an unmedicated schizophrenic who hadn't played anything more violent than Sonic The Hedgehog, those earlier reports were quietly swept under the rug.
- And then, of course, the Columbine massacre was blamed on Doom, as both of the killers were fans of that game. One of the killers, Eric Harris, said that the shooting would be "like ***ing Doom," and said that his shotgun was "straight out of Doom." When it came out that Harris had created some mods for Doom, there were allegations that some of the "Harris levels" were models of Columbine High School, and that Harris had used them to practice for the shooting. It turned out that they were just ordinary levels, and they are available on the Internet for anybody to find out — the most elaborate level can be viewed here, third down the list, complete with commentary on the scrutiny that video games came under after the massacre.
- This outcry was mocked by Michael Moore in Bowling For Columbine...in the very name itself. Klebold and Harris were also avid bowlers, so couldn't bowling be as much to blame as video games?
- And there's also the Super Columbine Massacre RPG, which was decried as a glorification of the massacre itself and violence in general. Since the game is actually doing the opposite of that, it's safe to assume the people accusing it of this never played it.
- Pokémon.
- This prompted at least one Christian fundamentalist to say that other Christian fundamentalists were decrying Pokemon for the wrong reasons. See article here.
- Animal Crossing has also had its share of critics, who say that no adult would be playing a cute social game because they actually enjoy it. It's even more ironic, since the character pointed out in the video clip, as the "potential pedophile" is Mayor Tortimer—an NPC.
- Parodied in Kagetsu Tohya when Akiha calls manga the work of the devil and a corruption of innocent teens etc. after Hisui reads one and apparently goes berserk. But apparently it's an ordinary girl's romance story. Which did, in fact, cause her to go berserk. So Yeah. What were we talking about again?
Other
- One of the rationales for poisoning Socrates in ancient Athens was his corrupting influence on the youth, thus making this trope Older Than Feudalism.
- After a school shooting incident in Finland, the largest newspaper of the country published articles concerning the corrupting influence of Plato and Nietzsche, as the shooter was an avid reader of philosophical texts. Under the headline "Plato can mess you up".
- There was a fairly large moral panic regarding pinball in America in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Back then, it was a game of chance rather than skill (before flippers were added in the 1950s), and people feared it would make children lazy and turn them into gamblers. Like many of these examples, it seems ridiculous to modern ears. This may be responsible for the "entertainment use only" warnings still seen today.
- Of course, a modified version of the original pinball is still incredibly popular in Japan, where it's given the name pachinko.
- Culinary example: In the 1600s, some French bakers started making a bread called mollet for the peasantry. This being France, riots ensued. Why? Because the bread required little to no work kneading (and didn't need to be cut with an ax) and thusly it encouraged idleness! It also used ingredients from Belgium. If you eat it, you hate the nation! Debates about what French bread was acceptable went on until well after the revolution, when a standardized bread recipe was proposed. Unable to find a compromise that would appease everyone about how wheat vs. rye bread, the new government eventually threw its hands up and told everyone to plant potatoes.
- Back then, Belgium was under Habsburg rule. That's like the USA buying from the USSR during the Cold War.
- The fork. No, really. It's decadent! It's a symbol of Satan!
- A large chunk of the premise behind parody series Jimmy Macdonald's Canada was watching the character label everything either decadent or dangerous. The show even featured a segment called Outrage of the Week, where "I show you three things, and then I tell you which one outrages me the most!" Winners included robots, Air Canada stewardess uniforms, Swedish drill teams, hamburger speed-eating, zambonis, and psychedelic body painting. Other things that he hated included ATMs, push-button phones, vending machines, Italian food, dancing shoes, American Bandstand-type programs, honeymoons, and children wearing protective equipment while playing hockey. Oh, and rock and roll.
- Don't forget "that capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Pool" in The Music Man, and all the other dangers that Professor Harold Hill calls out: beer, pinchback suits, galloping in horse races ("Not a wholesome trottin' race, no, but a race where they sit up right on the horse!"), smoking, ragtime music, knickerbockers rebuckled below the knee, dime novels, Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, and words like "swell" and "so's your old man". This one works especially well because a modern audience might not even know what half of this stuff is, which just emphasizes the ridiculousness of the hysteria.
- You missed the most beautiful point of all: Harold Hill could go after the evils of pool because a pool table was being placed in a billiards parlor. Billiards was okay! (For anyone curious, billiards is somewhat like pool, but it has no pockets.) Let's not forget though... pockets make the difference between a Gentleman and a Bum! That's Bum with a capital B that rhymes with P that stands for POOL!
- Any 'people trend', in chronological order: Swingers, Teddy Boys, Beatniks, Greasers, Hippies, Mods, Punks, Goths, Emos.
- Any subculture that focuses on disaffected youth will likely draw the scorn of the Moral Guardians. Sure, we've all seen it for hippies, punks, and goths, but as Mystery Science Theater 3000 proves, there were actually movies about the moral scourge posed by... beatniks.
- Emos (well, some who call themselves emos) cut themselves. That is indeed worrying, although the emo subculture is probably not the one to blame.
- This type of hysteria was predicated in the '80s by outcries against both The Smurfs and the Care Bears.
- Don't forget that Rainbow Brite is occult propaganda - look at her, she has a star (pentagram!) on her cheek and a rainbow (stolen from Christians, now an occult symbol)! (Go check out the WMG page - this is a theory published in an actual book.)
- Then the American flag must be evil, too - since it has fifty "pentagrams" on them.
- In Elizabethan England, there was a movement to ban tragedies on stage, for fear that all the weeping would corrupt British masculinity. That's right, Hamlet will make you gay.
- When Sesame Street (Yes, THAT Sesame Street) premiered in the '70s, some PBS stations in the South wouldn't air it because it showed children of different races playing together.
- German politicians were wanting to ban paintball recently since a school shooter happened to like the game. Or So I Heard , It wasn't until some paintballers were brought into parliament that some of them realised that it wasn't a video game. I don't see anything about that last bit in the news though.
- Every single religion ever starts like this. No exceptions. For a modern day example, see Scientology.
- To be fair, though, the evil stuff that most religions do is after they become the official religion of a state, whereas Scientology has done evil from the get go.
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