The 17 Dumbest Moral Panics In History

From killer clowns to injecting mayonnaise.

Published 2 days ago in Funny

From killer clowns to injecting mayonnaise, people have been outraged about some pretty strange things. All it takes is a well-timed tabloid article or viral Facebook post to start turning a molehill into a mountain of epic proportions. There seems to be no end to the different thing that parents through history have believed could teach their children evil magic.

What’s next? Is Bluey training kids to perform evil rituals? Are teens getting high off eating cheeseburgers? Check out these examples of some of the most purely stupid moral panics that have infected society.

1
Mods versus rockers
The UK in the 1960s was whipped into a tizzy about mods and rockers, two rival music subcultures. Sensational media coverage made it seem like the two were at each other's throats, to the detriment of normal, law-abiding citizens. Imagine the news nowadays telling us that there was a war going on in the streets between rock and rap fans. Ridiculous.

2
Witch Hunts
From medieval times all the way until the 1700s, many people believed that some in their community were witches, using evil magical powers to harm others. Besides our modern perspective revealing this to be ridiculous, it’s dumb just how long this harmful myth persisted.

3
Violent video games
Look, there are definitely some video games that kids shouldn’t be allowed to play. But games like Mortal Kombat, which politicians and parents railed against from the 70s to the 90s, are so cartoonish and dated it’s hard to take the complaints seriously. Do we really think that kids are going to learn to use chameleon-style tongues to swallow their schoolmates’ heads whole?
4
Satanic Panic
One of the more famous moral panics of recent time, the Satanic Panic of the 80s was built on unsubstantiated rumors of Satanic cults performing dark rituals and other such demonic activities. You would think that the lack of literally any evidence whatsoever would have stopped this one in its tracks.

5
Lavender scare
Most people know about the red scare in the US in the 1950s, but less are aware of the simultaneous ‘lavender scare’. Many people believed that gay people were sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and were conspiring against American interests. Besides being a horrible form of discrimination, it was just plain dumb.
6
Dungeons and Dragons
A kind of subsidiary panic to the Satanic Panic of the 80s, many parents believed that the tabletop board game Dungeons & Dragons was leading children into Satanism. I think Dungeons & Dragons more led kids into hopeless geekdom and social rejection. At worst maybe it caused a nerd to smoke weed for the first time and come out of his shell.
7
Harry Potter
Another piece of media that was supposedly teaching kids to become Satanists, Harry Potter is one of the most mystifying ones of all. How did parents really believe that such an innocuous book was turning their children evil? Did they think ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ was dark magic?

8
Internet danger
The internet has been subject to many a wave of moral panic since its popularization in the 90s and 2000s. From stranger danger to the dark web, there is no end to the evil influences it can supposedly have on our society. You know, on second thought, looking at what things are like nowadays, maybe this one isn’t so dumb.
9
Clown sightings
Who else remembers the fall of 2016, when creepy clown sightings started popping up like wildflowers? With random sightings and urban legends sparking copycats, the phenomenon revved up into a downright moral panic, with people speculating on all sorts of evil and conspiratorial motives for the clowns, as well as claiming there would be attacks by the clowns. All in all it was just a random viral moment spun out of control.
10
QAnon
Kind of like a brain-rotted modern spinoff of the Satanic Panic of the 80s, QAnon is a political movement that believes in all sorts of insane conspiracy theories about politicians and celebrities– clones, body doubles, and secret messages are just some of the points of interest.

11
Jazz music
In the 1920s and 30s, many believed that jazz music could have all sorts of adverse effects, including hypnosis and spontaneous miscarriages. Multiple states attempted to ban jazz and jazz clubs, citing ‘jazz intoxication’ as a debilitating physical effect of hearing the music.
12
Guitar distortion
Link Wray was a pioneering rock & roll guitarist in the 1950s whose music was beloved by many fans, and by today’s standards sounds downright chill. Those in charge of radio broadcasting attempted to take it off the airwaves though, because they believed his use of distortion and feedback might incite violence.
13
Injecting peanut butter
In 1969, a ‘federal drug expert’ named Ernest A. Carabillo Jr. claimed that underground cookbooks were going around with secret recipes. Following these recipes, kids were supposedly shooting up peanut butter, mayonnaise, and Kool-Aid. This bizarre falsehood made it all the way to a Congressional Subcommittee hearing in 1970.

14
Post offices
When post offices became standard, there was a moral panic over the idea of a building where you could send and receive mail. The reason for the outrage? Women could use them without her husband knowing what she was sending.
15
High heels
In the late 1800s, wearing high heels over an inch long was claimed to cause hysteria, uterine displacement, and tuberculosis.
16
No bomb shelters
During The Blitz, a UK War Cabinet member named Sir John Anderson convinced the government not to build public bomb shelters in cities like London. He claimed that people would develop something called ‘deep shelter mentality’ and not want to work anymore.

17
Comic book panic
From the 1930s to the 1950s, many adults believed that children were being corrupted by comic books that contained themes like crime, violence, or intimacy. It wasn’t the first or last time a form of media would be considered to be a negative influence on children, but it stands out because of just how cheesy comic books of the time were.