Scare Em' Straight campaigns

I thought this thread was going about this ol' thing...

That sounds horrifying and terrible.

I tend to find that when faced with a deliberately scary PR campaign, to make it scary enough they've taken liberties with the facts and the first factual error that comes to light makes it worthless.

Yet I thought this was about gay curing, I the concept of Scare Em' Straight in the non sexual sense is little too wide a field to discus.

Well, the whole "scare 'em straight" thing can refer to any effort to exaggerate the effects of something, or outright lie, to get the target audience to behave in a particular way.

The Fire Service (UK) is very good with these. Exhibit A. For others, just Google.

How to scare you, without being condescending about it: they know how.

edited 19th May '12 8:56:16 PM by Euodiachloris

Hey, when did the Brits hire Salvador Dali to do PSA's?

Oh yeah. Their ads are frightening. I even posted one of those ads on the HONF advertising page (the Jump Scare one).

As a child I briefly became - and still am to some degree - totally fucking shit scared of house fires because of some of the official stuff we were shown in school. Took about 10 years (and my parents installing a fire alarm inside my own bedroom) to get over the worst of it.

@puts on tinfoil hat@

Maybe these ads are designed to entice kids to do the things they are showing.

edited 20th May '12 5:58:47 PM by Steven

I think the authorities get sorely tempted to do this for those times when, if they just present the facts, the thing they're trying to prevent really _is_ thrilling, fun, cool and gets you interest from the opposite sex. Though if that thing is something as stupid as car surfing they don't need to exaggerate the risks - it's popular because it's dangerous.

A good question may be: would exaggeration or outright lying save more lives or would it do the opposite?

I'm not sure it's possible for a PSA to paint something as uncool, in the same way as it's not possible for your dad to paint something as uncool.

What about using this method?

Yes, I know this is The Onion. Just roll with it.

Great: using homophobia as a tool? As if this is a good thing? Gosh, wow: that's so... wrong on how many levels? And, exactly how many more gay lads are going be beaten up in hallways thanks to this?

Epic fail: scary for all the wrong reasons.

EDIT: You couldn't even run that in the UK. You'd be done for discrimination.

edited 21st May '12 12:39:38 AM by Euodiachloris

In a specific case it might, in most cases it tends to result in reducing the effectiveness of trying to say "trust me" as people start learning that the speaker will lie to get what they want.

I remember the one set of DARE pencils that said "I'm too cool to do drugs". But it was misprinted from the tip of the pencil toward the eraser. So when you sharpened it, it chewed off the sentence from the beginning and it said "cool to do drugs" and eventually just "do drugs".

On that note, the DARE guys in my neighborhood had plenty of pictures from victims of our local meth problem, so I can't really say they were fabricating anything. I remember my health class showing the usual gore pictures of drunk driving accidents too — all were relatively local over the last 20 years, and one was in relatively recent memory for my town.

edited 21st May '12 12:41:44 AM by Pykrete

Yeah, the DARE program seems to have gotten more honest since meth became a problem. When I went through it, they pushed us to avoid pot and alcohol, but exaggerated the effects so much that it was ridiculous. If I were going off what they told us back then, pot would be just as bad as meth.

I do suspect that one of the reasons that the UK has so many people drinking too much is that the government keeps issuing scary messages about alcohol that don't even agree with themselves let alone expert advice.

For instance, currently we're told not to drink more than 4 units in a day, not to drink more than 4 days in a week and not to drink more than 21 units in a week. Because, of course, 4x4=21

Since even the worst dropout can multiply 4 and 4 together, nobody pays any attention to this advice.

...you do know what The Onion is, right?

Many don't. Many see the Onion as a legitimate news outlet, on the same level as the Daily Show with John Stewart. Now, I know they are wrong on that, but they may not.

Never underestimate the effect of Poe's Law.

*resumes lurking*

edited 21st May '12 11:59:14 AM by GMon

Uh... apparently not enough to see their logo on the screen and recognise it when it's a blink-and-you-miss-it, no. I'm not used to seeing it in live action, so not cued in to the colour schemes and other incidentals. <blushes>

UK. And, not pay-vision, here. And, apparently, was too engaged in drinking something the first time I saw that clip. <blushes again>

edited 21st May '12 5:00:02 PM by Euodiachloris

No worries. I probably should've been more clear anyway.

I didn't even know The Onion did anything else than text.

I like the anti texting/driving ones because most people don't think about how dangerous it is. I also think shock ads work but only when you aren't barraged by them.

DARE is a waste of money in my opinion... plus I don't like being lied to. They told me all heroin does is kill you which confused elementary aged me. Why would people do it then if there is no upside? Same with my sex-ed (lets not mention female oral because, and i quote, "I thought you guys didn't know about that yet")

As mentioned above I'll stick with the "feels too good" response if I ever have kids.

To be completely honest, the only thing I remember from D.A.R.E was a police officer teaching us how to greet someone (apparently, you're supposed to repeat the person's name after they tell you their name) and getting pencils with that plastic wrapping that irritated my fingers. I don't remember them actually saying anything about drugs beyond "Drugs are bad, mm'kay?" I only ever actually learned about specific drugs in high school in a health class, and we actually were told both the positive and negative things drugs do to you (with PSAs and some crappy MTV movie in between because we needed a good laugh). And I went to a Catholic high school.