Distinguishing Moral Panics from Conspiracy Theories

What is it about a particular cultural object — or trend, or perceived trend — that makes people FREAK THE F OUT? Anyone who's looked at historical freakouts knows: it's never really about the thing itself, but more about ideologies that are under threat and in flux. If you challenge the status quo, in other words, there's a high likelihood that you could get swept up in a panic about something that has nothing to do with the way in which you're actually challenging the status quo.

The best person to talk about these sort of freak-outs is Sarah Marshall, beloved host of You're Wrong About and current host of a new CBC limited series on the satanic panic called The Devil You Know. In this episode, Sarah brings her trademark empathy to your smart questions about freak-outs old and new (yes, we talk about kids & screens, but not for the entire episode). This episode was an utter delight to record and I can only hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

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Side Note: We're experimenting with producing our own (very imperfect) transcripts. You can find it here.

If there's enough demand, we might consider putting in the not insignificant labor to make these super readable — but for now, they're a backup to the podcast, not a replacement for it.

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Show Notes:

• Listen to THE DEVIL YOU KNOW on CBC or wherever you get your podcasts!

• More about Sarah's work here

• Listen to You're Wrong About here

• If you missed the episode we did on conspiracy theories last year, it's a great companion to this one

We're currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• WEIRD ENGLISH WORDS (where do they come from!) with Colin Gorrie, who writes explainers like this one on the word DOG

• Questions About How to Respond When People Ask/React To the Knowledge That You're Not Having Kids

• How Did Everyone Low-Key Become an Influencer? AKA How do you see influencer posting logic creeping into non-influencer accounts

• The Wild Largely Unregulated World of IVF

• Audiobooks!!! (with MVP audiobook narrator Julia Whelan)

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment

• As always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) here

For this week’s discussion: I'd love to hear your alternate reads on what caused any of the cultural panics we discussed in the show.