‘Woke Up’ M&M’s and 8 Other Ridiculous Moral Panics Throughout History
Moral panic is something. I started studying them because of this woke up M&Ms nonsense, and was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of imminent threats to our society, our children, and our very Way of Life that I had completely forgotten about. There were subliminal sexual messages baked in Ritz crackers , kids making drugs out of their own shit , 5G towers and cell phones giving us brain cancer , killer bees and more. If you go back in time, there are witch trials , harsh rhythms in Bing Crosby songs , lightning rods that insult God himself , and so on and so forth.
Moral panics tend to come on suddenly, horrify and shock some part of the population, and then just as suddenly disappear, usually leaving almost no trace behind. (Though sometimes we come up with laws that don’t make sense, and sometimes innocent people die or go to jail.)
The following are just a small selection of the thousands of popular misconceptions that have burned through the collective consciousness of our nation, selected because each illustrates something about the phenomenon itself or provides a lesson on what to look out for so you don’t waste your time on this is. nonsense again.