Just how big a thing was the satanic panic?

11 comments

1. I grew up in the church in the 80s and that was only a thing in movies to me.

2. Pretty big, especially considering it was intertwined with stuff like the [McMartin Preschool case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial).

   > By the case’s end, it had become the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history. The case was part of day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.

3. I’m not aware of vigilantism cases like in Stranger Things. Bear in mind, in the show there was an actual murder that happened in the kid’s trailer that was the real trigger for the vigilantism, D&D was only an aggravator. If something like that had happened, it’s conceivable that vigilantism could have occured.

   I was a teenager avidly playing D&D at that time. My aunt used to send me newspaper clippings about D&D being associated with Satan worship and insanity and murder and shit. One of them was about an idiot teenager who murdered his parents in a harebrained scheme to get insurance money and the house. The police found D&D books and heroin in his room, and because of the bullshit that had been in the news, they focused on the D&D at first, and the newspapers parroted the police statements naturally. I sent the article back to my aunt with the word “heroin” circled and wrote her, “What’s more likely, that someone murdered their parents for money because they’re addicted to heroin and needed money for drugs, or because Satan told them to via a boardgame?”

   It wasn’t like the streets were filled with screaming hysterical, but it was a big deal in that ABSURD claims were being taken seriously by police in some cases and reported uncritically by the media. Like, not the tabloids, AP Wire and the New York Times and network evening news programs.

   You could still buy D&D books at Waldenbooks (mainstream bookstore chain that was at almost every mall, I think you even see one in the background in Stranger Things), so that should give you some perspective.

   It was a conspiracy theory that managed to work its way into the mainstream enough to be parroted by major media and public figures, but at the end of the day it was still a conspiracy theory and people with critical thinking skills saw through it.

4. It was not a major thing. I would describe it as akin to the “kids are eating tied pods” panic of a few years ago. Meaning, sure media covered it, sure there were probably a few instances of occurrence and a few of people over reacting.

   But grand scheme, it just was not anything lasting or impactful.

5. I probably was after the real hay day of the satanic panic. But in the early 90s I knew kids playing DnD and I played MtG. We would joke about the games being satanic but by the time I was playing I think people were finally realizing how stupid the panic was or the faddish hysteria had finally gotten old or out of fashion.

6. I haven’t watched the latest season of Stranger Things so I don’t know about that reference.

   The Satan scare? Honestly it wasn’t a big thing around where I grew up (Lafayette IN). Only thing I had to deal with was once of my HS teachers wanting to ‘save’ me from playing D&D. But at the time a lot of people thought that game was just a cover for nefarious activities.

   Remember, even Tom Hanks made a movie about the evil of the game.

7. The Satanic Panic was associated with “Satanic Ritual Abuse” (SRA). It was big in some pockets of the country, probably more of a thing from Fundamentalist Christians and people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories. A recent rehash was from Qanon and the Comet Ping Pong accusations, leading to a guy actually getting arrested trying to save kids being ritually abused in a non existent basement.

   Sarah Marshall, who hosts the Your Wrong About Podcast, is an expert in the history of the Satanic Panic, so you might find some references in that podcast. Another podcast where SRA has been brought up is American Hysteria (Chelsea Weber-Smith).

8. I’ve never seen Stranger Things so I don’t know how it’s being portrayed on the show. But satanic panic was real and I have no idea what these other posters are talking about. My parents weren’t *super* religious but I still wasn’t allowed to have a copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller because my mom thought it was “devil worshiping”. Hello Kitty was apparently satanic too and I wasn’t allowed to have Hello Kitty toys either. I was allowed to go to a Dungeons and Dragons party but I think my mom was relieved that I found it boring (sorry nerds). In addition to D&D, listening to heavy metal was definitely going to send you on the path to hell so naturally all the rebellious kids loved it.

   LI also had a satanic panic case. [Ricky Kasso](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Kasso) was a local teenager who did basically all the drugs and claimed to be a satanist. He murdered his friend over a drug deal gone wrong and allegedly while stabbing him to death demanded that his dying friend say that he loved satan.

9. I was a young adult then. It wasn’t big *at all.* It was a media creation. A single preschool case was in the news, but it was this one school. And there were vague things about D & D, sometimes. Nobody cared. Sorry, anyone telling you it was big wasn’t an adult then.

   Btw, Stranger Things gets a lot wrong about the 80s. Sometimes it’s really jarring to watch, and takes me out of the show.

10. I was in middle school in the late 70s-early 80s. The local record store used to sell rainbow decals that people would put in the back of their car windows, and I convinced my mom to get one. This was before the rainbow was associated with the LGBTQ community. Then a rumor went through town that the rainbows were Satanic and if you had one on your car you had sworn allegiance to Satan. Mom ripped that thing off our car ASAP, and within a couple of days no one had them on their cars.

    I also remember the unofficial boycott of all Proctor and Gamble products because their logo was allegedly Satanic. The company eventually had to change their logo because of it.

11. It was a presence to be sure. In elementary school I remember some kid saying his mom said “Shirt Tales’ are from the Devil!”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirt_Tales Yeah, a bad kids cartoon with talking animals was satanic. 😑 I thought his mom was nuts.

    Devil worshippers were also rumored to hang around in a small grove of trees on a vacant lot in my neighborhood. I didn’t really believe that one either.